Paradox
In the night wisdom came to me and the next day I committed the folly which I no longer had any desire to commit.
Kay Sage
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
In the night wisdom came to me and the next day I committed the folly which I no longer had any desire to commit.
The speaker has a moment of clarity in the night: wisdom simply arrives, unasked. But the next day, the speaker goes ahead and does the foolish thing anyway, even though the urge to do it has already gone. That's the paradox of the title. The wisdom doesn't prevent the folly; it just drains it of any point, and the speaker acts out of habit or momentum rather than desire.
The tone is dry and quietly self-mocking. There's no drama here, only a calm admission of a very human failing: we can understand what we should do and still do the opposite. The short, plain lines slow the poem down, so the last two lines land with a small sting. What's left is a mood of rueful amusement mixed with something sadder, the sense that insight and action don't always move at the same speed, and that knowing better is no guarantee of acting better.