Sonnet XV

O flame that burns so bright within,
why do you hesitate to tell
that wisdom which thou know so well,
as though our eyes alone possess
the strength to truth from error win!
Wilt thou, inner eye, confess
to be as blind, though inward dwell?
Among deaf ears and silent tongues,
and eyes, though seeing, sightless be,
art thou, O heart, from nonsense free;
alone that sense which truth percieves?
Stand thou but on higher rungs
of that same form, which lacking, grieves
that light, though there, he cannot see.

On my other blog, I included this poem as the introduction to a rather dry essay on epistemology. Yet this poem doesn't presume to answer such heavy questions, but merely to sound a note of questioning the trustworthiness of our internal ways of knowing. I wrote it without any particular point in mind; it is really no more than a musing in verse form, although I do make the rather pessimistic conclusion that the heart, as part of fallen humanity, cannot have perfect knowledge. But that, I expect, should be taken as obvious.