Heaven touches the downlands
And life springs over chalk and flint
In an Ages burial mold—the stone man's
Rampart, his city of stubborn dint.
There on a pile of flint chippings and clippings
Discarded (but earth does not discard),
It was an old flint knapper and tapper
Talked to the spirit of the bard—
The ghost of the flint acres
Emanating yet from his stone shards.
And the ghost of the Songmaker
Feeling the wind for the forms of words.
The Flint Worker
“We who remember nascent man
So perfected in reason and shape
God seemed to have made a mirror to scan
Himself in, lively and pure.
Remember too the caricature
Half man—Half Ape
That brooded heavily on the hills
Strong, using great clubs in his paws,
A race of giant imbeciles
Which knew not language or the laws.
Over the present cities now there broods
Like clouded purpose of an Apish brain
The cycle cyclops began, Cyclops concludes
And all his knowledge leaves him Ape again.”
The Songmaker
Knowledge never excelled!
Engines unparalleled
Knowledge not to be fulfilled
But in myriad brains as a structure many-celled
Engines only giant nations can build
And in their tentacles scarcely to be held.
To wield these vast powers is their only cult
Listless of law and reckless of result.
Riches of earth are raped and not conserved
And the machine selects masters in its own mould
Insentient, bought and sold for gold.
And now its criminal and monstrous brood
Intends by war to make all men subscribe
To one intolerable servitude;
And in the East there springs a monkey tribe.
Oh men having freedom to honour and love God
Your task is plain and twofold. Build machines
So you may wrest from the brute's hands the rod
Which made him, and break him by his own means.
But be tenacious also of the law
The vision which of old your fathers saw
So that, brute broken, you may keep a tryst
With God and give the kingdom to the Christ.
And life springs over chalk and flint
In an Ages burial mold—the stone man's
Rampart, his city of stubborn dint.
There on a pile of flint chippings and clippings
Discarded (but earth does not discard),
It was an old flint knapper and tapper
Talked to the spirit of the bard—
The ghost of the flint acres
Emanating yet from his stone shards.
And the ghost of the Songmaker
Feeling the wind for the forms of words.
The Flint Worker
“We who remember nascent man
So perfected in reason and shape
God seemed to have made a mirror to scan
Himself in, lively and pure.
Remember too the caricature
Half man—Half Ape
That brooded heavily on the hills
Strong, using great clubs in his paws,
A race of giant imbeciles
Which knew not language or the laws.
Over the present cities now there broods
Like clouded purpose of an Apish brain
The cycle cyclops began, Cyclops concludes
And all his knowledge leaves him Ape again.”
The Songmaker
Knowledge never excelled!
Engines unparalleled
Knowledge not to be fulfilled
But in myriad brains as a structure many-celled
Engines only giant nations can build
And in their tentacles scarcely to be held.
To wield these vast powers is their only cult
Listless of law and reckless of result.
Riches of earth are raped and not conserved
And the machine selects masters in its own mould
Insentient, bought and sold for gold.
And now its criminal and monstrous brood
Intends by war to make all men subscribe
To one intolerable servitude;
And in the East there springs a monkey tribe.
Oh men having freedom to honour and love God
Your task is plain and twofold. Build machines
So you may wrest from the brute's hands the rod
Which made him, and break him by his own means.
But be tenacious also of the law
The vision which of old your fathers saw
So that, brute broken, you may keep a tryst
With God and give the kingdom to the Christ.