Paradox
- Clarence R. Wylie, Jr.

Not truth, nor certainty.
These I foreswore in my novitiate,
as young men called to Holy Orders must abjure the world.
“If..., then....,” this only I assert;
And my successes are but pretty chains linking twin doubts,
for it is vain to ask if what I postulate be justified,
or what I must prove possess the stamp of fact.
Yet bridges stand and men no longer crawl in two dimensions.
And such triumphs stem in no small measure from the power this game,
played with thrice-attenuated shades of things, has over their originals.

How frail the wand, but how profound the spell!

paradox