11/8/04
MEET THE NEW BOSS
SAME AS THE OLD BOSS
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops
and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make
fruit, the fruit rots to make earth,
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances,
ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay; not blameworthy;
life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor; meteors are not needed less than
mountains; shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance
from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the
monster's feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is a trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught
-- they say -- God, when he walked the earth
--Robinson Jeffers, "Shine, perishing republic"
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
--William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"
Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who art thou then if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurbed steed,
Must, vainly shrieking with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.
Accursed, who striveth after noble ends,
And with deliberate wisdom forms his plans!
To the fool-king belongs the world.
-- Friedrich von Schiller, The Maid of Orleans
The door it opened slowly, my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me, his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, "I've had a vision and you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told."
So he started up the mountain, I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of gold.
Well, the trees they got much smaller, the lake a lady's mirror,
we stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over. Broke a minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar, he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.
You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now, your hatchets blunt and bloody,
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain and my father's hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.
And if you call me brother now, forgive me if I inquire,
"Just according to whose plan?"
When it all comes down to dust I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform, man of peace or man of war,
the peacock spreads his fan.
--Leonard Cohen, "The Story of Issac"
"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"
--Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn