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By Jack Joseph Smith

Never Gone All is well, so good, that we fear change We know romantic ideas brought us here But they will never come after us, so we will make ourselves classic, and keep it that way When there is a mouse in the house, there arn't any rats, and when there is even one rat in the sewer, your still somewhat safe from the gas Let structure dismantle gradually, or it will collapse The chicken or the egg Romantic thought will always appear on its own

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker tries to manage change through classic form and gradual dismantling while trusting romance to return.

The mouse, rats and sewer turn safety into a domestic calculation. The speaker advises gradual dismantling to avoid collapse, then invokes the chicken or the egg. The final claim that romantic thought appears on its own qualifies the earlier effort to make life classic and keep it that way.

Claude

'Never Gone' begins 'All is well, so good, that we fear change' and admits 'We know romantic ideas brought us here', then resolves to 'make ourselves classic, / and keep it that way'. It reasons through pests ('When there is a mouse in the house, / there arn't any rats') and advises 'Let structure dismantle gradually, / or it will collapse', before 'The chicken or the egg' and the close 'Romantic thought will always / appear on its own'.

The poem weighs order against romance, proposing slow, managed change as protection against sudden collapse. Its homely mouse-and-rat logic and the chicken-or-egg line give the argument a wry, proverbial tone. The ending suggests that romantic feeling cannot be planned away, which explains the title.