Robert Duncan

re: politicians and Presidents and seekers of high office, an excerpt from "A Poem Beginning With A Line By Pindar"



...where among these did the power reside
that moves the heart? What flower of the nation
bride-sweet broke to the whole rapture?

...hear the factories of human misery turning out commodities.
For whom are the holy matins of the heart ringing?
Noble men in the quiet of morning hear
Indians singing the continent's violent requiem.

...hear the cries of men in meaningless debt and war.
Where among these did the spirit reside
that restores the land to productive order?

How sad "amid lanes and through old woods"
echoes Whitman's love for Lincoln!