III
We top the poisonous blooms that choke the state,
At flower and fruit our flashing strokes are made,
The whetted scythe on stalk and stem is laid,
But deeper must we strike to extirpate
The rooted evil that within our gate
Will sprout again and flourish, branch and blade;
For only from within can ill be stayed
While Adam's seed is unregenerate.
With zeal redoubled let our strength be strained
To cut the rooted causes where they hold,
Nor spend our sinews on the fungus mold
When all the breeding marshes must be drained.
Be this our aim; and let our youth be trained
To honor virtue more than place and gold.
IV
A hundred cities sapped by slow decay,
A hundred codes and systems proven vain
Lie hearsed in sand upon the heaving plain,
Memorial ruins mounded, still and gray;
And we who plod the barren waste to-day
Another code evolving, think to gain
Surcease of man's inheritance of pain
And mold a state immune from evil's sway.
Not laws; but virtue in the soul we need,
The old Socratic justice in the heart,
The golden rule become the people's creed
When years of training have performed their part
For thus alone in home and church and mart
Can evil perish and the race be freed.
The Dust Dethroned. [George Sterling]
Sargon is dust, Semiramis a clod!
In crypts profaned the moon at midnight peers;
The owl upon the Sphinx hoots in her ears,
And scant and sear the desert grasses nod
Where once the armies of Assyria trod,
With younger sunlight splendid on the spears;
The lichens cling the closer with the years,
And seal the eyelids of the weary god.
Where high the tombs of royal Egypt heave,
The vulture shadows with arrested wings
The indecipherable boast of kings,
As Arab children hear their mother's cry
And leave in mockery their toy — they leave
The skull of Pharaoh staring at the sky.
Kinchinjunga. [Cale Young Rice]