I would sing the American people,

God send them some civilization.

I would turn from superficial things for a time into quite.

I would draw your minds to learn of life in quite.

Certain things really do matter: Compassion, and the comfort of friendship.

After we are burnt clear, or even deadened with knowledge;

After we have gone the whole gamut, exhausted our human emotions,

Still is there something greater, some power, some recognition,

Some bond beyond the ordinary bonds of passion and sentiment

That rewards us for foregoing blindness.

There is great virtue in strength, even in passive résistance.

God grant us an open mind and the poise and balance to use it.

I sing of the senses developed, I reach towards perceptions scarce heeded.

If you ask me to write world prescriptions I write so that any can read it:

I am that terrible thing the product of American culture

Or rather that product improved by considerable care and attention.

Write it thus: by their gods ye shall know them.

The chief god in hell is convention

got by that sturdy sire stupidity.

Upon pale fear, in some most proper way

Where humans worship a sham

There is hardly room for the devil.

There is more in heaven and Earth

than the priest and the scientists think.

Ezra Pound, American poet