Classic Poem

POET:

I know not my beginning; neither whence nor whither;
But I perceive my own littleness and my own greatness.
I am one with the mole, blind, beneath the grass;
But one also with the burning sun;
One with the rolling and majestic earth;
One with great Canopus,
Giant of heaven who could swallow our leafy home
And roll our solar system in his belly.
He too moves to his destiny helpless as I.
I am child of the generations beyond imagining,
Patiently toiling up from the fecund ooze,
The warm and steamy womb of the great mother.
And as these were my father so am I
Father to the unborn procession which shall pass
Until the heavens are dark and knowledge
Is swallowed up in eternal unconsciousness.
I am not myself, but all men:
The dead, the living, and those to come.
Who is not father to all children?
Who is not child of all mothers?
Who is not brother unto all?
Murderers, thieves, prostitutes, criminals,
You are my brothers and my sisters.
Yet my hand has been upon your throat;
And my insolence has reviled you.
Before you were born, I prepared you
For the brothel and the gallows,
And I prepared the brothel and the gallows for you.
I have consented to the Master-made conditions
Which lay with you in your mother's womb.
I have made you murderers, thieves and prostitutes.
Drunkards, morons, weaklings.
The scum and froth of the great kettle.
Jetsam along the cruel shore.
Filth of the sewer prepared for you;
And it need not be.
Little children, O little children.
You are mine as much as you are your fathers';
Yea, more; beyond the count of suns,
He is the father who is the elder.
He who, having knowledge, deserts you,
Betrays fatherhood.
I will not desert you.
Though I could weigh the soul and balance it
And know Life's beginning and Death's ending,
The more I would not desert you.
Little helpless children,
It is not right that you be born to die before you have lived.
I know Life has not been hurled at us
As a sharp and poisonous javelin.
I know it is an alabaster-cup
Offered by an unseen hand, holding sweet and bitter;
Aloes and honey and the wine of dreams.
I will not make a song of balmy Spring
Which lifts so shyly her ecstatic veil,
Jeweled and odorous; showing her buds.
Nor will I sing of Summer, the voluptuous,
Who lies down in the meadows when the birds
Have sunk to silence.
Nor will I celebrate the abundance of bough-bending Autumn
When apples lie in golden pools beneath the trees
And the wind whirls painted leaves about,
As a strong youth at play;
Nor of honest Winter, that hopeful mimicry of Death,
White, quiet, cold and fallen to rest, promising the resurrection
When sap shall run in the greening willows.
How can I sing of our playground
While innocent children labor?
Or tell of golden abundance,
While starving children stare into a merciful grave.