I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon...

[fajrdrako]

I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon by Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -- "

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

I love this one as a study in ambiguity - like one of those optical illusions that might be a girl or might be a goblet. We studied this poem in grade 13, and what I remember is not the poem itself but the reaction to it. The others in the class thought it was about a man who was so obsessed with his own follies that he tried to do the impossible and wouldn't listen to anyone's good advice. I was baffled and amazed: had we read the same poem? I thought it was a man who was following an individual dream, a nonconformist genius whose instinct drove him to accomplish the impossible, and to see the truths others miss.

One other person in the class saw it my way.

There's no answer to the riddle; I don't know which interpretation Crane intended, or whether he wanted us to see it both ways. If so, it's all the more brilliant.