Replies

My thoughts of similar bent, FD. Yeats' "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" was seared into my thoughts in the dark days right after 9/11; who among us can't relate Yeats words to the feelings we had?

With pardon to Yeats, I ask the tolerance of those on this thread to humor me by listening with me:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre; The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert. A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

We know what rough beast has come..may God help us all to fight it.

Ari:

I'm ashamed to admit not being up on my Yeats...but a very good point regardless.

We CAN and MUST fight, as our nation and way of life depend on it and the resultant victory that must come. Those who seek to appease only make another disaster inevitable. To NOT fight would be cowardice of the highest order.

Consider that Neville Chamberlain avoided conflict--the result was catastrophe. Even when the Nazi was finally defeated, the Iron Curtain of Soviet Communism took its place--a curtain not lifted for nearly fifty more years. We cannot ever have a repeat.

SF71

PS: If FD is a the decent chap I know him to be, there will be a Most Excellent Green Froggie in your future!

But Ari... Yeats would be puzzled by the use of his poem thus--as the intemperate views expressed herein were the exact opposite of his wish.

In some of the most famous words ...
...the centre cannot hold...
...he fears an extremist reaction to an extreme.

He warns against allowing the moderate to lose out to those who react in fear. Yes, we are in times as troublesome as his...let's not let ourselves plunge.

Fight the beast I will..but not at the cost of ourselves.

Prompted for a froggy by a fish?

First things first: here's to one of the finest poets of the 20th Century, W. B. Yeats:

Yeats' "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" was seared into my thoughts in the dark days right after 9/11; who among us can't relate Yeats words to the feelings we had? Apparently at least one other poster...I related to "Easter 1916" because I have long been fascinated by the strength of the commitment that the Irish leaders had towards achieving independence, and the haunting refrain of the "Terrible Beauty..." describes the birth of the Irish Republic.

09/11/01 also created a "terrible beauty" - Americans pulled together, rebuilt and set about making sure that it would not happen again, at a cost of reducing some freedom, but that;s the price to be paid for recovering what we lost: security and peace of mind. Perhaps if it had been done after the 1993 WTC or 1995 OK City attacks, 09/11/01 might have just been another day....

Now, for being so articulate, choosing Yeats and stimulating my fried brain, Ari, this is for you: