As the blades their hands snatched up Before they cooled. But still Mankind listened deeply To the harmony of the whole creation, And aligned Every action to the greater order And not to the moment's blind Apparent opportunity. Last comes the Age of Iron. And the day of Evil dawns. Snares, tricks, plots come hurrying Out of their dens in the atom.
Violence is an extrapolation Of the cutting edge Into the orbit of the smile.
A god who peers Grinning from the roots of the eye-teeth. Now sails bulged and the cordage cracked In winds that still bewildered the pilots. And the long trunks of trees That had never shifted in their lives From some mountain fastness Leapt in their coffins From wavetop to wavetop, Then out over the rim of the unknown. Meanwhile the ground, formerly free to all As the air or sunlight, Was portioned by surveyors into patches, Between boundary markers, fences, ditches. Earth's natural plenty no longer sufficed.