An Old Man Muses
Can it be I - this Hindenburg, deferring
To demagogues, catch phrases, lucky charms
And all this mummery about me stirring?
Can it be I, lord of high feats of arms,
Smiling complancence on a rabble's blunders,
Counting a mountebank amongst my peers
I, who commanded with the voice of thunders?
Ah, what a role betrays me with the years!
Can it be I - condoning, cavallering
This sorry paint-and-tinsel paladin.
This braggart upstart, raging, racketeering
Like some cheap western gangster 'muscling in,'
Apeing the arts in which I loomed a master:
Acting with arms as children play with toys:
Mouthing fierce phrases, pregannt with disaster,
To lure brief loyalty from brain-sick boys?
Can it be I who saw the vision splendid
Shaping before these ageing eyes of mine,
When half a world, before my day had eneded,
Hurtled its might against my stubborn Line?
The Line of Hindenburg! the natons raging
Before an avatar who reached the sky! ...
And now? - A hapless figurehead, fast ageing,
The mighty Hindenburg! Can this be I?
Strange trick of Fate ... And yet, sometimes I wonder,
While factions rage and puny tyrants bray,
If victory might yet be snatched for blunder
Till gloriously dawned against The Day!
If - To what end? Youth seeks in other fashion
It's destiny. 'Tis world-worn age that drools
Of glories gone ... Enough to veil compassion
With weary tolerance. Poor dupes! Poor fools!
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!