Reading from Dear Judas and Other poems, 1929, Horace Liveright, NY, pages 115-120
The seven verses of this perspective poem begins with a reference to a passage in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla. [Plutarch is well worth reading and I hope to do so again before its over.]
Verse Two is To The Children, concerning that stage of civilization when, “…abundance…makes pawns of people…”
Verse Three, unnamed is central and from which I quote at length below:
“While men molding themselves to the anthill have choked
Their natures until the souls die in them;
They have sold themselves for toys and protection…”
“…having no function but to serve and support
Civilization, the enemy of man…”
“Their ancestors were good hunters. Good herdsmen and swordsmen,
But now the world is turned upside down;
The good do evil, the hope’s in criminals; in vice…”
Verse Four discusses a world sickening with change according to a root and vine metaphor.
Verse Five looks forward to the mending of the Broken Balance when the last man dies, this poet’s most consistent theme.
Book Six: Palinode, considers man as a passing dream, a day-flower, “…their cities merely an offense.”
Verse Seven returns to the mind’s eye of the poet, under the stars, before the vast ocean beyond his window.
He: Gilgamesh: Into the Face of Time
Oh to be pure in heart and purpose, as the creatures of this earth, but man be tainted, with his own purpose, and a corrupt heart.
For the heart of the wise, live in the house of mourning.