Praise the Lord for all the Middle Pleasures

Praise the Lord for all the middle pleasures,
Work and play in one, pleasing sense and taste.
Rounding off the wealth of other treasures,
Often hidden, sometimes lost, never waste.
An easy joy it is to rut and feed,
But dumb, unaimed: better free than fatter.
Appeasing sense, the middle joys repair the need
To stuff the beasty holes with meaty matter.
And yet to feed the soul, the limbs, the mind,
With dryer food alone, is not much fun.
The middle meal, with bread and sweets combined,
Entreats the self to savour what it’s won.

Proud pleasures, raising both the high and low,
Where can these be found? Praise to those who know!

Stupidity: A Sonnet

Stupidity, the least poetic vice,
Is grey, heavy grey. Golden lust, black hate,
Crimson rage: all excite, if not entice.
(Consider, too, the incompletely chaste.)
But simple lack of sense? Dull, dull. No sheen,
No blazing devil’s hue, no tempting shade.
Before, no wicked strategem; and then,
No passion or despair, just dumb dismay.
He who, having looked a fool, belabours grief,
Betrays a spirit absent as his mind;
And if the spirit finds itself, and speaks:
“I missed a step. So what? Why mope? With time

I’ll ease the sore with verse, erase the fault.”
Mind replies: “Don’t be so obtuse, you dolt."