I

Who pray for calm, abhorring flood and fire,
Would shun the purging and espouse the blight.
Lo, in the marshland where the tempest's might
Has raged not, how life's meaner forms aspire!
How breeds and skitters in the fetid mire
Spawn reminiscent of the primal light!
What saturnalias of the parasite
Where corpse-lights ape the elemental fire!

Disaster, riding on a thunder-smoke,
Serpents of flame upon his forehead set,
Hurls the black legions of cyclonic strife!
We trace his progress by the shattered oak,
Bewail the wasted centuries — and yet,
The land shall know a more dynamic life.

II

They hasten to the ancient bath again,
And shall emerge unto a saner peace.
Lo, how they made a fetich of caprice,
And worshipped with aberrant brush and pen!
What false dawns summoned by the crowing hen!
How toiled the lean to batten the obese!
What straying from the sanity of Greece
While yet her seers and bards were fighting-men!

A canting generation, smug in greed.
With neurasthenic shudders, suavely wroth,
Bemoans the ruin of Icarian wings!
Lo, latent in its luxury, the Mede;
Potential in bland cruelties, the Goth —
Stern teachers of the fundamental things!