Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered <br />Figuring what anything is for: <br />Enough for her devotions that things are <br />And can be contemplated soon as gathered. <br /> <br />She knows how every living thing was fathered, <br />She calculates the climate of each star, <br />She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care <br />Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered. <br /> <br />Why should she? Her religion is to tell <br />By rote her rosary of perfect answers. <br />Metaphysics she can leave to man: <br />She never wakes at night in heaven or hell <br /> <br />Staring at darkness. In her holy cell <br />There is no darkness ever: the pure candle <br />Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand. <br /> <br />Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell! <br />She will not touch it!--knows the world she sees <br />Is all the world there is! Her faith is perfect! <br /> <br />And still he offers the sea shell . . . <br /> <br />What surf <br />Of what far sea upon what unknown ground <br />Troubles forever with that asking sound? <br />What surge is this whose question never ceases?<br /><br />Archibald MacLeish<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dr-sigmund-freud-discovers-the-sea-shell/
