Modernity

Dedicated to the Zeitgeist.

There is no such thing
As your far-famed modernity.

Your rearing catapults of iron and steel,
Your bruited brunt
Of traffic, toil, and havoc,
Your impact of metals,
The hue and cry of concrete monoliths,
—No newer these than Egypt's pyramids,
Or Asia's discards of imagination.

This piquant brotherhood of man and man,
—How the old sages of the earth must laugh!

How whimsical to the enfranchised spirit
The strides gigantic of art's modern progress!

In one brief moment of contemporary
Time
Our uncouth efforts;
While Tahitian girls
Weave coral poppies in their cloudy hair,
And to an unknown music, haunting, strange,
Cambodgienne dancers of the golden age
Confuse chronology....
                                         Modernity!