Uploaded on January 28, 2012
Though loves languish and sour
Fruit puts the teeth on edge,
Though the ragged nests are empty of song
In the barbed and blistered hedge,
Though old men’s lives and children’s bricks
Spell out a Machiavellian creed,
Though the evil Past is ever present
And the happy Present is past indeed,
Though the stone grows and grows
That we roll up the hill
And the hill grows and grows
And gravity conquers still,
Though Nature’s laws exploit
And defeat anarchic men,
Though every sandcastle concept
Being ad hoc must crumble again,
And though to-day is arid,
We know — and knowing bless —
That rooted in futurity
There is a plant of tenderness.
—Louis MacNiece
Ireland in Poetry
edited by Charles Sullivan
01.28.2024: I did pretty well with minimalism.