A Statue Of Life 

3 

What are the forms of life but an illusion?
Every passion, every institution,
Imagination built them all,
And having built, must bring them to their fall.
    You prate of classlessness and classes,
    And you of alien blood and races,
    As though the forms of life were fixed,
    Not daily, hourly intermixed.

The patterns change because they are a fiction
Which we create out of some contradiction
Within the channels of our blood,
Dream words misspelt, misunderstood.
    Go you, work miracles, and build bridges, you,
    In spite of everything you do,
    There is no grandeur but will be overthrown
    When morning comes and finds your dream is flown.

And so I say when myths are out of fashion
Theories lead men to perdition.
Ignobly got, ignobly born,
They take and take, give nothing in return.
    So I would put a statue up
    That the imagination’s cup
    May fill again and Joan and Jack
    See a golden age come back.



Source: O'Connor, Frank; Three Old Brothers and Other Poems; 1936;
London; Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.; p.31