Hippie glop?

Creeping Tiny-Tim-ism?

Sanctimonious metaphysical puffery?

Dangerously subversive pagan gobbledygook?

"Desiderata" has been called all that, and worse, by a fairly wide range of commentators, from Olympian intellectuals to rabid religionists.

The document first came to widespread attention in that most dubious of decades, the 1960s when it was sold as a poster in quaint retail outlets known as "headshops."

Its author allegedly anonymous, the poster carried a note to the effect that the words had been founded inscribed in a church in Baltimore and were dated 1692.

Hundreds of thousands of copies were sold and hung on hippie walls, to be contemplated by minds in various states of focus or un-focus.

Soon enough, it was discovered that "Desiderata" was in fact the creation of one Max Ehrmann (1872-1945), who wrote it in 1927. Now in its 30th printing, the document can be had at amazon.com as a small illustrated book: "Desiderata."

Hippie glop or not, we herewith add our online version to the many others already available:

Desiderata 

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