Syntax Lost in the Forest

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Doctor Syntax on the Road (detail): Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1812 (Art Institute of Chicago)

Something in the loving plumpness of the abundant, energetic line
in the satiric tour-book drawing, a near perfect simulacrum
of the natural energy of life itself, winks back behind its hand at us,
knowing, as life does, what neither we nor Syntax yet know,
seeing, as life does, what neither we nor Syntax yet see,
of the misadventures that must inevitably befall,
for the moment insidiously biding their time,
waiting now viperishly coiled in each next obscure thicket,
concealed round each next blind corner
of that deceptive bucolic misrepresentation,
that fraudulent map of the insubstantial surface topography
draped over the harsh and grinding natural order of things,
the discursive sentence.

His worst mistake, the same every time, stopping to ask for directions.

We like Syntax may have often been blind and vain
in our persistent foolish quest for a picturesque element
in the stark and grim picture of actuality:
this element is the dream of almost-reason which language constructs for us,
employing its misguiding signs to divert us toward impossible pleasures,
advertising its illusionary rest stops to deceive us into thinking there is relief to be found,
offering its delusive pretences to a destination
when the real world contains no such convenient thing,
only more of the same, more of the going on,
more of the stupid expectation of some meaningful conclusion,
some sensible and pleasing shape to the whole project,
which is, with its endless extenuations, its insistent aggravations,
of its nature formless and inchoate,
incapable of being shaped into even the approximate semblance
of the true and credible article, the meaningful tale, the bright history,
the shining evidence of greater purpose, as promised
in the compliant gestures and winning smile
of the charming milkmaid who comes forward to greet one
from the unidentified building beyond, perhaps a congenial inn,
with a quiet fire in the hearth and a kettle upon the hob,
or then again, perhaps a den of cunning highwaymen,
lying in wait to set upon the unsuspecting traveler
and shunt him off, without a by-your-leave, into that labyrinth
of digressive clauses that will lead him deeper and deeper
into that sepia forest from which, originally, he had emerged,
always confused, always silly, always lost, but never more so than in this moment,
in which the final sound to be heard upon the pointless pointing of the period
is the gentle and completely senseless lowing of a cow.

Doctor Syntax on the Road: Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1812 (Art Institute of Chicago)

This post dedicated to all who have been badly guided