Dear Aesop, the sun has come;
the turtle’s won the race;
the hare is far behind;
Jerusalem’s delivered, and
Blake is lying down
on the greensward with Wordsworth,
the tyger and the lamb.
The angel with the sword
is plowing Eden; Paradise
is being subdeveloped.
Milton sees and is blinded again
by neon lights proclaiming:
“See the original sin!”
Man’s heart is no lighter,
no darker than before.
We are guided in the wilderness
between the city dump
and the White House
by dark clouds of smog
fresh from the god of Industry.
We learn the Decalogue anew —
in perversity it’s true —
from the authoritative voice of media
massaging our weary brains.
On to the Promised Land,
led by politicians and their crew.
Sounding like cuckoos in cloud-cuckoo-land
Cockledoodledoo!