Storm-saved we were, and sheltered now at last;
proclaimed our rights through years to come; grew ways glad and great,
commodious; a place where justice flourished free and fast;
beguiled our bright-born ones to singing halls and happy fate.
He came wind-dinted, shrived by weary sorrow, nor might,
nor power, nor fine-filigreed certainties in his dirty hands
but a babbler to the last and baffled us with cant; light
fell lustreless, breath-beaten dreams and songs of other lands.
Called our good lives lackey, simulacrum, engorged;
dared to displace us with the mouthing of a child’s awesome sovereignty,
the rich rising rolling rhythms of a whetted world forged
not in deep-pocketed tradition but the stench and stink of poverty.
We mocked. And he coarse hope half-hurled and heaving
left us flaming, barren inheritors, embellished in our grieving.