"Conscience ought to determine truth!
Believe your conscience, and stand proud,
Lest our freedom we should lose".
Conscience is such a funny thing;
We deem our own to be the guide
To righteous ends, through thick and thin,
Yet our efforts peace elide.
For what is truth? Apart from want,
From passion, love and hate and pain
There is no truth; for in the end
Without guidance, truth's a vain
and empty thing. A hollow shell
of what could be. A glass-bead game.
Letters of ice, which only spell
"Eternity". Thus truth is maimed.
It turns to dust, to ice, to void.
A tool without a hand to take
it and unleash its power. Foiled
Is quest for truth in which partakes
Mankind without passions dire.
We cannot be this way. We are
The founts and shapers of desire;
Desire holds truth's door ajar.
It isn't conscience which defines
The elements comprising truth.
It's life, free and without confines.
Truth is in passion, and in use
Of passions men inflict upon
The pliant world. The truth we forge
From reason's steel, from fierce want.
So, Ecce homo! But skip the dirge!
