Thursday, July 21, 2011
Hermetic Decalogue for Academicians
W. H. Auden, excerpt from Under Which Lyre, A Reactionary Tract for the Times (Phi Beta Kappa Poem, Harvard, 1946):
Newer› ‹Older
Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue,
Which runs as follows:—
Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much.
Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.
