a new athens

after Yeats

growing and growing in mindless profusion,
the human imitates the vegetable;
reason fails; the master cannot choose;
bold progression is lost to decadence;
the vision is lost, and everywhere darkening,
precise, lucid thought is muddied;
the gods have fled reality, and man
suffocates time with his overgrown culture.

out of this jungle, a history must rise;
out of this jungle, a new athens must rise.
a new athens! words no sooner uttered
than distant voices from the realm of forms
enter my ear: amid crackling fire,
friends, moved to feeling by laughter and wine,
pronounce a solemn oath to worship truth
and discover for themselves what values
the age demands to redeem humanity.
then silence falls. but now i can believe
that twenty-five centuries of dormancy
might still erupt in a leap of consciousness,
and what band of youth approach new soil to lay
the cornerstone of the next mythology?