THE RETURN
"Back to the earth," a voice whispers,
"Back to the bare bosom of the ground,
To the shaggy-haired pines, and the pungent carpet beneath,
To the lisp of waves, chiding our forgetfulness,
To the whispered wind, and its roaring summons on high peaks,
And the hurled lightning,
Arms spread and breast bared to receive it!"
"Back to the bare bosom of the ground,
To the shaggy-haired pines, and the pungent carpet beneath,
To the lisp of waves, chiding our forgetfulness,
To the whispered wind, and its roaring summons on high peaks,
And the hurled lightning,
Arms spread and breast bared to receive it!"
A cultured onlooker counsels,
"But this is regression, retreat!
Rather plunge forward into the roar of modern life,
The whirr of machinery, the red furnace gleam
On the glistening backs of half-naked toilers,
The unleashed passion of labor against capital,
With a fantasied and regulated Utopia
Gleaming at the end of the way
Like a Doré illustration
Of New Jerusalem!
This is the part of modern man."
"But this is regression, retreat!
Rather plunge forward into the roar of modern life,
The whirr of machinery, the red furnace gleam
On the glistening backs of half-naked toilers,
The unleashed passion of labor against capital,
With a fantasied and regulated Utopia
Gleaming at the end of the way
Like a Doré illustration
Of New Jerusalem!
This is the part of modern man."
Shall I refuse to look at the moon,
Until it adopts an 8-hour day?
Until it adopts an 8-hour day?
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