As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorilas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither clud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promiced these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promiced perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'Stick to the Devil you know.'

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promiced the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'The Wages of Sin is Death/'

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'If you don't work you die.'

The the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tounged wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to belive it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four---
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man---
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:---
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

>>25063979
>Poetry is about beauty and politics is opposed to beauty
Based and true opinion, OP. That's part of why art/poetry is in such bad shape these days, everything is politicized and intended to cultivate some worldview.

>>25063979
>Poetry is about beauty and politics is opposed to beauty
A lot of great poems are political. The Ring. Shelley's Prometheus. Much of Shakespeare. Dante. You can't compartmentalize existence. The thing is most politics suck... anything attached to a particular party line, rather than gaining objectivity and freedom from contemporary political struggle, will be compromised

>>25063979
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

>>25063979
>can't capitalize
The greatest nigger poet everybody.

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>>25063979

>>25063979
Masque of Anarchy

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I've always loved this one.

>>25064752
And this one.

>>25063979
The Present Crisis

June, 1943

If you had thrown a little more boldly in the flood of fortune
You’d have had England; or in the slackening
Less boldly, you’d not have sunk your right hand in Russia: these
Are the two ghosts; they stand by the bed
And make a man tear his flesh. The rest is fatal; each day
A new disaster, and at last Vae Victis,
It means Weh den Gesiegten. This is the essence of tragedy,
To have meant well and made woe, and watch Fate,
All stone, approach.

But tragedy has obligations. A choice
Comes to each man when his days darken:
To be tragic or to be pitiful. You must do nothing pitiful.
Suicide, which no doubt you contemplate,
Is not enough, suicide is for bankrupt shopkeepers.
You should be Samson, blind Samson, crushing
Al his foes, that’s Europe, America, half Asia, in his fall.
But you are not able; and the tale is Hebrew.

I have seen a wing-broken hawk, standing in her own dirt,
Helpless, a caged captive, with cold
Indomitable eyes of disdain, meet death. There was nothing pitiful,
No degradation, but eternal defiance.
Or a sheepfold harrier, a grim, grey wolf, hunted all day,
Wounded, struck down at the turn of twilight,
How grandly he dies. The pack whines in a ring and not closes,
The head lifts, the great fangs grin, the hunters
Admire their victim. That is how you should end — for the prophesied
You would die like a dog — like a wolf, war-loser.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h08jdLoHBac

>>25064742
This is embarrassing and doddering chud-think from the old man

Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy are both explicitly political. So is the Aeneid, but that's not a good poem.

Cavafy's Waiting for the Barbarians

>>25063986
Based Kipling enjoyer

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk--
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control--
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

This was my father's belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf--
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children's teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.

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>>25063979
kanye just released heil hitler and you dont think political poetry exists

>>25063979
There is; it's my favorite poem, too:

THERE'S a haunting horror near us
That nothing drives away;
Fierce lamping eyes at nightfall,
A crouching shade by day;
There's a whining at the threshold,
There's a scratching at the floor.
To work! To work! In Heaven's name!
The wolf is at the door!

The day was long, the night was short,
The bed was hard and cold;
Still weary are the little ones,
Still weary are the old.

We are weary in our cradles
From our mother's toil untold;
We are born to hoarded weariness
As some to hoarded gold.

We will not rise! We will not work!
Nothing the day can give
Is half so sweet an hour of sleep;
Better to sleep than live!
What power can stir these heavy limbs?
What hope these dull hearts swell?
What fear more cold, what pain more sharp
Than the life we know so well?...

The slow, relentless, padding step
That never goes astray--
The rustle in the underbrush--
The shadow in the way--
The straining flight--the long pursuit--
The steady gain behind--
Death-wearied man and tireless brute,
And the struggle wild and blind!

There's a hot breath at the keyhole
And a tearing as of teeth!
Well do I know the bloodshot eyes
And the dripping jaws beneath!
There's a whining at the threshold--
There's a scratching at the floor--
To work! To work! In Heaven's name!
The wolf is at the door!

>>25063979
politics might be opposed to beauty, but artists paint what they see, and politics is probably what impacts our lives more than anything else. Most art is political in some way or another. If you knew anything about art, you'd know this.

>>25066936
>politics might be opposed to beauty
orwell said that war is what historically constrained european elites to the truth. war is politics through other means. the european elites successfully jailbroke themselves from the peninsular westphlian national competition and subjugated politics to service them, therefore everything is bullshit forever

>>25063986
>>25066696
On the subject of Kipling I'll also add:
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say:—
"We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a reach and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:—
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the
time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:—

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

>>25063986
>>25066696
>>25067423
I was going to add The Female of the Species but it's too long to paste in. I'm sure you're all familiar with it, though, and if you're not you can look it up. I find it interesting because I feel like it's easy to read it as unintentionally undermining its own point and ending up saying not "this is why we can't let women have power" but "this is why men won't let women have power, because they're afraid of what they're capable of". But maybe I just can't fully grasp his reasoning because he is a man and I am a woman.

A song, a song, for the beldame Queen,
A Queen that the world knows well;
Whose portal of state is the workhouse gate;
And throne, the prison cell.

I have been crown'd in every land
With nightshade steep'd in tears;
I've a dog-gnawn bone for my sceptre wand;
Which the proudest mortal fears.

No gem I wear in my tangled hair,
No golden vest I own;
No radiant glow tints cheek or brow;
Yet say, who dares my frown?

Oh! I am Queen of a ghastly court,
And tyrant sway I hold;
Baiting human hearts for my royal sport
With the bloodhounds of Hunger and Cold.

My power can change the purest clay
From its first and beautiful mould;
Till it hideth from the face of day,
Too hideous to behold.

Mark ye the wretch that has cloven and cleft
The skull of the lonely one;
And quail'd not at purpling his blade to the heft,
To make sure that the deed was done:

Fair seeds were sown in his infant breast,
That held goodly blossom and fruit;
But I trampled them down—Man did the rest—
And God's image grew into the brute.

He hath been driven, and hunted, and scourged,
For the sin I bade him do;
He hath wrought the lawless work I urged,
Till blood seem'd fair to his view.

I shriek with delight to see him bedight
In fetters that chink and gleam;
"He is mine!" I shout, as they lead him out
From the dungeon to the beam.

See the lean boy clutch his rough-hewn crutch
With limbs all warp'd and worn;
While he hurries along through a noisy throng,
The theme of their gibing scorn.

Wealth and Care would have rear'd him straight
As the towering, mountain pine;
But I nursed him into that halting gait
And wither'd his marrowless spine.

Pain may be heard on the downy bed,
Heaving the groan of despair;
For suffering shuns not the diadem'd head,
And abideth everywhere.

But the shorten'd breath and parching lip
Are watched by many an eye;
And there is balmy drink to sip,
And tender hands to ply.

Come, come with me, and ye shall see
What a child of mine can bear;
Where squalid shadows thicken the light,
And foulness taints the air.

He lieth alone to gasp and moan,
While the cancer eats his flesh;
With the old rags festering on his wound,
For none will give him fresh.

Oh! carry him forth in a blanket robe,
The lazar-house is nigh;
The careless hand shall cut and probe,
And strangers see him die.

Where's the escutcheon of blazon'd worth?
Who is heir to the famed, rich man?
Ha ha! he is mine—dig a hole in the earth,
And hide him as soon as ye can.

Oh, I am Queen of a ghastly Court,
And the handmaids that I keep,
Are such phantom things as Fever brings
To haunt the fitful sleep.

See, see, they come in my haggard train,
With jagged and matted locks
Hanging round them as rough as the wild steed's mane,
Or the black weed on the rocks.

They come with broad and horny palms,
They come in maniac guise,
With angled chins, and yellow skins,
And hollow staring eyes.

>>25067537
They're more deadly and selfish. True in most species because they only have one womb. They can never fully grasp real cooperation, honesty, honour, appeals to logic etc so they have to be kept out of the halls of power where the entire point is compromise and logical application of the rules. Males are generally adapted to sacrifice themselves for principles that benefit the genes he shares with the group. The exceptional male has many children he doesn't know distributed across the local tribes and the outlier on the other end won't breed himself, his genes only propagate through his extended family surviving.

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her
frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him, who denies!
He will meet no cool discussion, but the instant, white-hot wild

>>25067591
They come to be girded with leather and link,
And away at my bidding they go,
To toil where the soul-less beast would shrink,
In the deep, damp caverns below.

Daughters of Beauty, they, like ye,
Are of gentle womankind,—
And wonder not if little there be
Of angel form and mind:

If I'd held your cheeks by as close a pinch,
Would that flourishing rose be found?
If I'd doled you a crust out, inch by inch,
Would your arms have been so round?

Oh, I am Queen with a despot rule,
That crushes to the dust;
The laws I deal bear no appeal,
Though ruthless and unjust.

I deaden the bosom and darken the brain,
With the might of a demon's skill;
The heart may struggle, but struggle in vain.
As I grapple it harder still.

Oh, come with me, and ye shall see
How well I begin the day;
For I'll hie to the hungriest slave I have,
And snatch his loaf away.

Oh, come with me, and ye shall see
How my skeleton victims fall;
How I order the graves without a stone,
And the coffins without a pall.

Then a song, a song for the beldame Queen—
A Queen that ye fear right well;
For my portal of state is the workhouse gate,
And my throne, the prison cell.

>>25063979
lol
Imagine being this retarded.
Only pajeet-tier imbeciles and liberals think that art should be about X topic.

>>25067596
What about infertile women who have zero wombs?

>>25067603
Why would that change anything about the difference in adaptations over generations?

>>25063979
>Poetry is about beauty and politics is opposed to beauty
Why can't there be beauty to politics? And what gives you the right to be the arbiter of beauty? Quit making shallow claims about matters you don't understand.

>>25067614
Aren't psychological sex differences generally a matter of averages rather than absolutes, such there will always be some people who are significantly psychologically atypical of their sex? Just like there are some very tall women and very short men even though on average men are taller than women.

>>25067686
Sure and these are already subtle differences fundamentally but they lead to large scale consequences. Diversity itself is more selected for in males, they're more experimental because they're more expendable from the perspective of genetics. This leads for example to a subtle difference in the IQ and general competence distribution that means almost all geniuses on the high end are men but the same applies to the low end, women are more reliably of average competence and less likely to be idiots.
This does not work out well in a world full of propaganda and compromised education that doesn't elevate people based on merit since the average people are most vulnerable to it and other forms of social pressure. The negative effects of women in power are amplified even more.

>>25067708
But doesn't that imply that psychologically sex-atypical women ought to be qualified to lead (and conversely psychologically sex-atypical men oughtn't)?

>>25067860
If everyone accepted some objective measurement of merit but that's irrelevant to any point in the poem or to tribal organization. In the past atypical women proved themselves is by actively proving their merit in specific fields, overcoming the justified bias against them. Today, thanks to women, merit is demonized and reasonable justified biases are considered morally wrong.

>>25063986
Kipling doesn't really do much experimentation and he's not one for subtlety, but he's just so fun to read and unpredictable when reading.

>>25068618
>he's not one for subtlety
basically this indian told me kipling was responsible for colonialism because he couldnt understand the irony of "the white mans burden" that kipling was trying to get them to stop

>>25067537
Musical references to Kipling are almost always better than the written version anyways
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1NBpVKWh_c

>>25068758
I figured you were going to link Leslie Fish's version, which is at least the actual poem set to music (if abridged).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwqpUHr8a4

>>25069189
They're all good, even the ones that take liberties
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P2cUy8pZlk