The Fountain
Feathers up fast, steeples, and then in clods • Thuds into its first basin; thence as surf Smokes up and hangs; irregularly slops Into its second, tattered like a shawl; There, chill as rain, stipples a danker green, Where urgent tritons lob their heavy jets.
Berkeley thought this was human thought, that mounts
From bland assumptions to inquiring skies, There glints with wit, fumes into fancies, plays
With its negations, and at last descends As by a law of nature to its bowl
Of thus enlightened but still common sense.
We who have no such confidence must gaze With all the more affection on these forms, These spires, these plumes, these calm reflections, these Similitudes of surf and turf and shawl, Graceful returns upon acceptances.
We ask of fountains only that they play, Though that was not what Berkeley meant at all.
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