Classic Poem

Can it be true we need the Muses' aid —
We of this seething, self-sufficient day,
We of our confident and bounteous land —
" God's Country " called by flippant patriots
Whom the physician Travel cannot cure
Of their content with comfort — still unawed
By the majestic mystery of Rome,
The golden smile of Venice, or the trance
Of Beauty's capital by Arno stream?
Ah, who shall tell them Art is not a toy,
An incident in the pageant of the day,
But sacred symbol of the breath of life!

The stars are reached but by humility.
You, satisfied inheritors of those
Who reared the nation's house with toil and trembling,
Sure of their purpose not of the event:
I hear a voice, no counsel of despair,
But oracle of warning. 'Tis of one
In civic battle served his country well,
Disdaining, for her honor and her weal,
Ease and the nights of love and praise of men;
For he had hearkened to an earlier voice,
" Oh, be ashamed to die till you have won
Some victory for mankind. " I hear him say,
With sorrow which the young can never know:

" How lost my land in greed and noise and haste!
Where shall I find repose? The city towers,
That first were eloquent in their isolation,
Now make intruding commerce with the clouds,
Lead the eye up in wonder not in worship,
And domineer by numbers and by bulk.
Ah, 'tis no trifle to affront the sky
With petty thoughts made permanent. (How few
Of all these masses, Gilbert, rise like thine
With something of cathedral eminence, —
Perpetual benediction of delight!)
How many who build our laddered Babylon,
Brazen, confused, inchoate, whimsical,
Dream but of piling cubes on cubes of gold,
Rivals in riveting vanity to avarice,
Defying heaven with self-conscious spires!
Oh, we are city-mad, and the furor spreads
Till the far fields, that in their reticence
Once held the soothing sanity of sleep,
The quiet ways 'twixt heavenly horizons,
Are now become but precincts of the Town.
Where shall I find repose?
Time, long our master, has become our slave,
But to what purpose? Yesterday I breathed
With the full breath of freedom: now sweet Space
Science has banished to the calm of stars.
We stifle and stumble and like herded sheep
Jostle each other in a vague unrest.
The violence of war has robbed our days
Of joy, until the foot-worn cloister seems
The only refuge from the thing called Life.
Where shall I find repose?
Manners, that were the blossom of good-will,
Wither apace and all their fragrance dies.
The separate soul of each is daily bruised
By the harsh multitude. We clamor for peace,
And war upon the nations with our laws.
What peace is in our lives? Can this be peace,
This hectic competition of display;
This discontent that lashes gayety
To lassitude; this soft, compliant fibre
That we are wont to call prosperity;
This counterfeit supineness that sits quiet
While Evil tampers with the scales of Justice
And in her scabbard tombs her naked sword,
And nothing is too sacred to be sold?
Where shall I find repose? "