There is a place where sponges grow;
Where corals sit and contemplate
The awful mysteries of fate;
Where, pickled in eternal brine,
The sea-cucumbers mope and pine,
Imagining a better life
Above the ocean’s daily strife;
Where sea-anemones despair
And curse the tangled hair they wear;
Where hermit crabs, dejected, roam
From shell to shell in search of home.
Not so, not so the gentle sponge.
Misfortune never makes him plunge
Into depression, nor does pain
Make much impression on his brain:
His brain in youth was very small,
But now he has no brain at all.
The key to bliss would seem to be
Inflexible stupidity.
We humans bear a brainy curse,
But we could do a whole lot worse
Than imitate this mindless sage
Who eats his brain when he comes of age.