WHOSE TIME NOW?

W H Auden articulates the eternal struggle between the desire for expression and the desire for control?

Let Ares doze, that other war

Is instantly declared once more

’Twixt those who follow 

Precocious Hermes all the way 

And those who without qualms obey 

Pompous Apollo. . . . 

The sons of Hermes love to play 

And only do their best when they 

Are told they oughtn’t; 

Apollo’s children never shrink 

From boring jobs but have to think 

Their work important. 

The followers of Hermes pursue art and culture for their own sakes, or for pleasure; the followers of Apollo wish to rationalise culture, to systematise it and render it productive and efficient.

Auden and his fellow Hermetics do not wish to rule—“The earth would soon, did Hermes run it, / Be like the Balkans”—but rather to be left alone. However, the deep Apollonian suspicion of unconstrained and unjustified activities may not allow that to happen.

The really difficult way is of course to combine the two in balance or rather in harmony. Like it says in Ecclesiastes 3:1; "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:there is a time for everything under the sun."