Could you translate that into English?...............
Interesting how the greatest works of English literature were created in blank verse by Shakespeare and Milton....
W. H. Auden’s no slouch either...
“Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions... Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces. Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Life after death will be an eternal dinner party where all the guests are 20 years old... Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish... The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”
“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles to betray’s in deepest consequence.
Cousins, a word, I pray you.”
Banquo, “Macbeth”
Act 1 Scene 3
“Were such things as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?”
Banquo, Macbeth
Act 1 Scene 3
Choruses from The Rock
T.S. Eliot, 1934
The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.
The world turns and the world changes,
But one thing does not change.
In all of my years, one thing does not change,
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor
Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.
Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore
I have given you the power of choice, and you only alternate
Between futile speculation and unconsidered action.
And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”
When the Stranger says: “What is the meaning of this city ?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?”
What will you answer? “We all dwell together
To make money from each other”? or “This is a community”?
Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger.
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is shall shadow
The man that pretends to be.
But it seems that something has happened that has never happened
before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.
Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no God; and this has
never happened before
That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason,
And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.
Who went by the name of Obama,
He learned from his Mommy,
How to be a true Commie,
And to not stutter with a teleprompta.
All is dust...
Why doest thou puketh on the floor, even tho in times as numerous as the stars in the sky I have chastised thee for eating plants?
Doest thou thinkest that Daddy will not spank you? For I have spanked many a bad cat, and you shall be no different.
Hide! Hideth now, under the bed goest thee! For once Daddy hast cleaneth up thine green pukiness, his hand will smite thee ...
Nay. It shant be so. I will carresseth thee gently, and offer soothing words, and thou knowest this to be so. Perhaps this is why thou eat the plants ... for love!
Anyway, it's usually something like that. They seem to enjoy it.
Don’t worry, we in the Commonwealth will probably see the writing on the wall. It is the Mother Country itself who can’t.
Egad, the USA needs a William Wordsworth right now!!!
Otherwise we’ll be Greece sooner, not later.
What a perfect poem for the United States 2010. Profound beyond words...
Can you please ping me when you post anything like this? Thanks!