The Bloody Sire

It is not bad. Let them play. Let the guns bark and the bombing-plane Speak his prodigious blasphemies. It is not bad, it is high time, Stark violence is still the sire of all the world’s values. What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine The fleet limbs of the antelope? What but fear winged the birds, and hunger Jewelled with such eyes the great goshawk’s head? Violence has been the sire of all the world’s values. Who would remember Helen’s face Lacking the terrible halo of spears? Who formed Christ but Herod and Caesar, The cruel and bloody victories of Caesar? Violence, the bloody sire of all the world’s values. Never weep, let them play, Old violence is not too old to beget new values.