The Old King's New Jester

YOU that in vain would front the coming order

With eyes that meet forlornly what they must, / And only with a furtive recognition

See dust where there is dust, -

Be sure you like it always in your faces,

Obscuring your best graces, / Blinding your speech and sight, / Before you seek again your dusty places

Where the old wrong seems right.

Longer ago than cave-men had their changes

Our fathers may have slain a son o two, / Discouraging a further dialectic

Regarding what was new; / And after their unstudied admonition

Occasional contrition

For their old-fashioned ways

May have reduced their doubts, and in addition

Softened their final days.

Farther away than feet shall ever travel.

Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State;

But there are mightier things than we to lead us, / That will not let us wait.

And we go on with none to tell us whether

Or not we've each a tether

Determining how fast or how far we go;

And it is well, since we must go together, / That we are not to know.