Oh, excuse me. This is a solemn occassion. I forgot myself for a moment.
Thank you for signing the guest book. It will mean so much to the family in the years to come when the long knives are out and heads are displayed on the battlements....
Shine, Perishing Republic
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;
and home to the mother.
You making haste, haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it
stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the
thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught -- they say --
God, when he walked on earth.
-- Robinson Jeffers
(Okay, Okay I'll admit that Jeffers is not always palatable. But at this poignant moment in history can we not be as large in our poetic tastes as in our tastes in booze?)