THE PATH NOT TAKEN




So - it's only a ballad. But the voice is limpid (she could belt it out too when needed), you can hear every word, and the feelings expressed seem to articulate sympathetically the thoughts of a girl in one of those minuscule catastrophes which afflict the young. In any case, listening to any of the current chart-toppers, if you can get close enough to distinguish the words you will find that they are often merely sloppy sentiment disguised by a lot of bashing and strumming.

Why has so much of society rejected all tender feeling in favour of arrogant violence? Is our world really so much of a jungle that only harsh loud mindless noise can express it? Or does the constant outpouring of thumping banality induce this terrible insensitivity in the hearers?

For once, my ancient wisdom fails to see any answer to all this.

GALILEO

With this frail hand I stopped the sun,

Which else had geocentric run

Illimitable years;

And flung a million miles in space

The spinning earth, the human race,

The singing and the tears:

And though you rack my body, all

Your piety can not recall

The music of the spheres.

Frederick