A Psalm of Freudian Life
A Psalm of Freudian Life
Original Text
Franklin P. Adams, So Much Velvet (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday, Page, and Co., 1924): 43-44.
PS 3501 .D24 S46 Robarts Library
2 "Life is but an empty dream!"
3To a student of the slumbers
4 Things are never what they seem.
5Life is yearning and suppression;
6 Life is that to be enjoyed;
7Puritanical discretion
8 Was not spoke by Dr. Freud.
9Deep enjoyment, and not sorrow,
10 Is our destined end or way;
11But to dream, that each to-morrow
12 Finds us Freudier than to-day.
13Sleep is long, and dreams are straying,
14 And our hearts, though they may falter,
16 Wedding marches to the altar.
17In the universal battle,
19Be not like dumb, driven cattle --
20 Beat your husband -- or your wife.
21Trust no dame, however pleasant!
22 Leave the dead ones on the shelf!
23Act -- act in the living present!
24 Nothing matters but Yourself.
25Wives of great men all remind us
26 We can make our lives a serial,
27And, departing, leave behind us
28 Biographical material.
29Stories that perhaps another
30 Sailing o'er life's Freudian sea --
31A forlorn and dream-racked brother --
32 Reading, might say, "How like me!"
33Let us then be up and doing,
34 With a heart for any mate;
35Now eluding, nor pursuing,
36 Learn to individuate.
Notes
1] A take-off of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life." Freudian: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the creator of psycho-analysis. Freud theorized that the mind's unconscious explained much of a person's behaviour and that dreams (see line 2) were guidebooks to that unconscious. mormonful: of the Mormons, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a sect originated by Joseph Smith, who founded Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1847 and who preached strict but compassionate moral guidelines for a fit and proper life. Adams, however, may have the Mormons' practice of polygamy in mind, given his allusion to a seraglio (18; cf. also 25, 34; courtesy of James Fulford). Back to Line
15] sexiphones: a play on words still rare (not found deliberately employed on the Internet in August 2003). Back to Line
18] seraglio: harem, a residence for the many wives (rarely, husbands) of a rich man (rarely, woman). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2003
Rhyme