(ROOSEVELT)
He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion … And the men of the city said unto him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?—Judges, 14.
THE PALMS of Mammon have disowned | |
| The gift of our complacency; | |
| The bells of ages have intoned | |
| Again their rhythmic irony; | |
| And from the shadow, suddenly, | 5 |
| ’Mid echoes of decrepit rage, | |
| The seer of our necessity | |
| Confronts a Tyrian heritage. | |
| |
| Equipped with unobscured intent | |
| He smiles with lions at the gate, | 10 |
| Acknowledging the compliment | |
| Like one familiar with his fate; | |
| The lions, having time to wait, | |
| Perceive a small cloud in the skies, | |
| Whereon they look, disconsolate, | 15 |
| With scared, reactionary eyes. | |
| |
| A shadow falls upon the land,— | |
| They sniff, and they are like to roar; | |
| For they will never understand | |
| What they have never seen before. | 20 |
| They march in order to the door, | |
| Not knowing the best thing to seek, | |
| Nor caring if the gods restore | |
| The lost composite of the Greek. | |
| |
| The shadow fades, the light arrives, | 25 |
| And ills that were concealed are seen; | |
| The combs of long-defended hives | |
| Now drip dishonored and unclean; | |
| No Nazarite or Nazarene | |
| Compels our questioning to prove | 30 |
| The difference that is between | |
| Dead lions—or the sweet thereof. | |
| |
| But not for lions, live or dead, | |
| Except as we are all as one, | |
| Is he the world’s accredited | 35 |
| Revealer of what we have done; | |
| What You and I and Anderson | |
| Are still to do is his reward; | |
| If we go back when he is gone— | |
| There is an Angel with a Sword. | 40 |
| |
| He cannot close again the doors | |
| That now are shattered for our sake; | |
| He cannot answer for the floors | |
| We crowd on, or for walls that shake; | |
| He cannot wholly undertake | 45 |
| The cure of our immunity; | |
| He cannot hold the stars, or make | |
| Of seven years a century. | |
| |
| So Time will give us what we earn | |
| Who flaunt the handful for the whole, | 50 |
| And leave us all that we may learn | |
| Who read the surface for the soul; | |
| And we’ll be steering to the goal, | |
| For we have said so to our sons: | |
| When we who ride can pay the toll, | 55 |
| Time humors the far-seeing ones. | |
| |
| Down to our nose’s very end | |
| We see, and are invincible,— | |
| Too vigilant to comprehend | |
| The scope of what we cannot sell; | 60 |
| But while we seem to know as well | |
| As we know dollars, or our skins, | |
| The Titan may not always tell | |
| Just where the boundary begins. | |
