The Dawn
The Dawn - meaning Summary
Ignorance as Deliberate Choice
The speaker celebrates a deliberate, pleasurable ignorance, preferring the fresh simplicity of dawn to learned calculation. Using images of an "old queen" measuring a town and "withered men" doing sums in Babylon, the poem contrasts pedantry and cosmic indifference with the dawn's carefree presence. The final lines assert that no knowledge is worth much, and the speaker would rather be "ignorant and wanton"—innocent, embodied, and present.
Read Complete AnalysesI would be ignorant as the dawn That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out where the moon comes. And took their tablets and did sums; I would be ignorant as the dawn That merely stood, rocking the glittering coach Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses; I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw -- Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.
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