Classic Poem

Come , let us sing of Drought,
Drought—the hate of the sun;
Come, let us sing of Hate,
Which is a drought of the spirit:
For these blind serfs of death
Lay waste this Land of Hope,
Strangling its springs of action,
Blighting its wistful buds,
Heralding sterile torpor
And desolation.

Come, let us sing of Drought,
And meditate on Hate:
From these dark stones and sand
How shall we build bright towers?
How sing in a desolate waste
Where the voices of water are dumb—
No longer making the barren rocks
Blossom with song?

It is not fitting to sing
The nakedness of earth,
And the poverty of the spirit,
With foppish embroideries
And adornments of rhyme,
With cunningly-fashioned rhythms,
And colourful epithets:
Let us then modulate our voices
To a simple recitative,
Monotonous and austere,
And so chant sadly:
The stark monotonies of Drought,
The harsh monotonies of Hate.