Classic Poem

The panoply of Paradise is mine
No armourer wrought it on Eteian forge
No dear luxurious maiden brought the gift
By lying bards profanely deemed divine
I am clad in mail of celestial proof
I brandish Michael's sword of flame
And I come to quell the pride of the world
But avaunt these toys of poesy Why wrap
The fiery truths in riddles dark
Truth treads on the pride of Plato
Truth treads on lovesick rhymes
The fashion of riddling priests
The trick of Delphos & Dodona
The cunning of Homer & Hesiod
Mischievous polytheists who deceived mankind
These delusions are overpast.
The altar of the Capitoline god is crushed
The spindle of ancient Fate is broken
The sisters do not spin the eternal thread
There is no fire glowing on Persic mountains
Where the sun was greeted with fragrant spikenard
The Nile breeds crocodiles in his slime
And the pyramids are by great Alcairo
But the swarthy votary will not adore the reptile
And the dead oppressor is not entombed in the piles
The immortal Gods are deceased
Go let your fabled muses chant their obituary.
Do you see how the world slides away
How its huge pomps dwindle to unsubstantial things
Tho' they were dear to the heart & solid to the eye
There is a sentence on the lip of Tully
That Truth shall last tho' the fabrics of imagination decay.
Many incidents up & down in the world shall verify
The simple oracle.
The proud hieroglyphic shall be the child's bauble alphabet
The spectral tale that blanched the forefather's cheek
Makes merriment for vermillion maids.
Fools judge by outside show, for while
The champion vanquishes in vain
And armed kings are met unprofitably
(Great things that have no harvest home)
The unconscious wit scratches his paper in a corner
And the words that are writ
Burn like pains in ten thousand memories
And are chanted in thunder to the four winds.
And the pillars of social fabrics are shaken at the sound like bulrushes.