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The Only WayLouis V. LedouxIMemphis and Karnak, Luxor, Thebes, the Nile: Of these your letters told; and I who read Saw loom on dim horizons Egypt’s dead In march across the desert, mile on mile, A ghostly caravan in slow defile Between the sand and stars; and at their head From unmapped darkness into darkness fled The gods that Egypt feared a little while.There black against the night I saw them loom With captive kings and armies in array Remembered only by their sculptured doom, And thought: What Egypt was are we to-day. Then rose obscure against the rearward gloom The march of Empires yet to pass away.III looked in vision down the centuries And saw how Athens stood a sunlit while A sovereign city free from greed and guile, The half-embodied dream of Pericles. Then saw I one of smooth words, swift to please, At laggard virtue mock with shrug and smile; With Cleon’s creed rang court and peristyle, Then sank the sun in far Sicilian seas.From brows ignoble fell the violet crown. Again the warning sounds; the hosts engage: In Cleon’s face we fling our battle gage, We win as foes of Cleon loud renown; But while we think to build the coming age The laurel on our brows is turning brown.IIIWe top the poisonous blooms that choke the state, At flower and fruit our flashing strokes are made, The whetted scythe on stalk and stem is laid, But deeper must we strike to extirpate The rooted evil that within our gate Will sprout again and flourish, branch and blade; For only from within can ill be stayed While Adam’s seed is unregenerate.With zeal redoubled let our strength be strained To cut the rooted causes where they hold, Nor spend our sinews on the fungus mold When all the breeding marshes must be drained. Be this our aim; and let our youth be trained To honor virtue more than place and gold.IVA hundred cities sapped by slow decay, A hundred codes and systems proven vain Lie hearsed in sand upon the heaving plain, Memorial ruins mounded, still and gray; And we who plod the barren waste to-day Another code evolving, think to gain Surcease of man’s inheritance of pain And mold a state immune from evil’s sway.Not laws; but virtue in the soul we need, The old Socratic justice in the heart, The golden rule become the people’s creed When years of training have performed their part For thus alone in home and church and mart Can evil perish and the race be freed.
The Little Book of Modern Verse
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William Vaughn Moody: An Ode in Time of Hesitation
- William Vaughn Moody: An Ode in Time of Hesitation
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
- Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
- The Twelve Dancing Princesses
- Current Events This Week: January 2023
- African Americans by the Numbers
- Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
- The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
