Her faith abandoned and her place despised, Her mission lost through ridicule, hooted forth From the forum she erected, by cat calls, And tory sneers and schemes. Her basic law Scoffed out of court, amended at the need Of stomachology by the judges, or A majority of States, as it is said -- Rather by drunks and grafters, for the time The spokesmen of the States, coerced and scared By Methodists with a fund to hire spies, And unearth women scrapes, or other sins With which to say: "Vote dry, or be exposed." A marsh Atlantic drifting, towed at last By pirates into harbor, made a pasture For alien hatreds, greeds. A shackled press, And voices gagged, creative spirits frozen, Obtunded by disgust or fear. War only, Armies and navies speak the national mind, And make it move as a man; for other things Resistance, thought divided, ostracism, Or jail for their protagonists. At the mast The cross above the crossbones, in between The starry banner. A people hatched like chickens: Of feeble spirit for much intercrossing, Without vision and without will, incapable Of lusty revolution whatever right Is spit upon or taken. A wriggling mass Bemused and babbling, trampling private right As a tyrant tramples it, calling it law Because it speaks the majority of the mob. A land that breeds the reformer, the infuriate Will in the shallow mind, the plague of frogs That hop into our rooms at Pharaoh's will, And soil our banquet dishes, hour of joy. A giantess growing huger, duller of mind, Her gland pituitary being lost. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO KNOW IN REVERIE THE ONLY PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE ABSOLUTE by HAYDEN CARRUTH SONGS FOR TWO SEASONS: 1. AFTER GRAVE ILLNESS by CAROL FROST BEARING LEAVES AGAIN by DAVID IGNATOW GETHSEMANE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON BONNYBELL: THE BUTTERFLY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TO WHISTLER, AMERICAN; ON LOAN EXHIBIT OF PAINTINGS AT TATE GALLERY by EZRA POUND |