| |
| AH! What avails the classic bent | |
| And what the cultured word, | |
| Against the undoctored incident | |
| That actually occurred? | |
| |
| And what is Art whereto we press | 5 |
| Through paint and prose and rhyme— | |
| When Nature in her nakedness | |
| Defeats us every time? | |
| |
| It is not learning, grace nor gear, | |
| Nor easy meat and drink, | 10 |
| But bitter pinch of pain and fear | |
| That makes creation think | |
| |
| When in this world’s unpleasing youth | |
| Our god-like race began, | |
| The longest arm, the sharpest tooth, | 15 |
| Gave man control of man; | |
| |
| Till, bruised and bitten to the bone | |
| And taught by pain and fear, | |
| He learned to deal the far-off stone, | |
| And poke the long, safe spear. | 20 |
| |
| So tooth and nail were obsolete | |
| As means against a foe, | |
| Till, bored by uniform defeat, | |
| Some genius built the bow. | |
| |
| Then stone and javelin proved as vain | 25 |
| As old-time tooth and nail; | |
| Till, spurred anew by fear and pain, | |
| Man fashioned coats of mail. | |
| |
| Then was there safety for the rich | |
| And danger for the poor, | 30 |
| Till someone mixed a powder which | |
| Redressed the scale once more. | |
| |
| Helmet and armour disappeared | |
| With sword and bow and pike, | |
| And, when the smoke of battle cleared, | 35 |
| All men were armed alike…. | |
| |
| And when ten million such were slain | |
| To please one crazy king, | |
| Man, schooled in bulk by fear and pain, | |
| Grew weary of the thing; | 40 |
| |
| And, at the very hour designed, | |
| To enslave him past recall, | |
| His tooth-stone-arrow-gun-shy mind | |
| Turned and abolished all. | |
| |
| All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob | 45 |
| Whose head has grown too large, | |
| Ends by destroying its own job | |
| And works its own discharge; | |
| |
| And Man, whose mere necessities | |
| Move all things from his path, | 50 |
| Trembles meanwhile at their decrees, | |
| And deprecates their wrath! | |
| |
