Mathematics Considered As A Vice

I would invoke that man
Who chipped for all posterity an ass
(The one that Jesus rode)
Out of hard stone, and set its either wing
Among the wings of the most saintly clan
On Chartres Cathedral, and that it might sing
The praise to all who pass
Of its unearthly load,
Hung from its neck a harp-like instrument.
I would invoke that man
To aid my argument.

The ass smiles on us all,
Being astonished that an ass might rise
To such sure eminence
Not merely among asses but mankind,
Simpers, almost, upon the western wall
In praise of folly, who midst sow and kine,
Saw with its foolish eyes
Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense
Enter the stable door, against all odds.
The ass smiles on us all.
Our butt at last is God’s.

That man is but an ass—
More perfectly, that ass is but a man
Who struggles to describe
Our rich, contingent and substantial world
In ideal signs: the dunged and pagan grass,
Misted in summer, or the mother-of-pearled
Home of the bachelor-clam.
A cold and toothless tribe
Has he for brothers, who would coldly think.
That man is but an ass
Who smells not his own stink.

For all his abstract style
Speaks not to our humanity, and shows
Neither the purity
Of heaven, nor the impurity beneath,
And cannot see the feasted crocodile
Ringed with St. Francis’ birds to pick its teeth,
Nor can his thought disclose
To normal intimacy,
Siamese twins, the double-beasted back,
For all his abstract style
Utters our chiefest lack.

Despite his abstract style,
Pickerel will dawdle in their summer pools
Lit by the flitterings
Of light dashing the gusty surfaces,
Or lie suspended among shades of bile
And lime in fluent shift, for all he says.
And all the grey-haired mules,
Simple and neuter things,
Will bray hosannas, blessing harp and wing.
For all his abstract style,
The ass will learn to sing.