Tom O'roughley
Tom O'roughley - meaning Summary
Celebrating Aimless Joy
The poem sketches Tom O'Roughley as a cheerful iconoclast who values spontaneous pleasure over sober logic. He praises aimless joys, likens wisdom to a butterfly rather than a predatory bird, and treats death with playful irreverence — imagining dancing on a friend's grave. The tone mixes affectionate mockery and celebration, presenting a life philosophy that favors impulse, conviviality, and theatrical defiance of conventional solemnity.
Read Complete Analyses'Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,' Or so did Tom O'Roughley say That saw the surges running by. 'And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey. 'If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress. What's dying but a second wind? How but in zig-zag wantonness Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?' Or something of that sort he said, 'And if my dearest friend were dead I'd dance a measure on his grave.'
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