Kipling again
When I was in junior high we had to memorize a lot of poetry. One poem was Kipling’s old chestnut (which was not quite as old at the time as it is now, but then again, neither was I) “If.”
A few minutes ago I had occasion to quote the poem. I had still remembered much of it, but not every word, and as I looked it up (thank you, internet!) and re-read it, I noticed two lines I’d forgotten but which seemed to be especially apropos for the right these days:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools…
They are followed by these lines, which seem to fit, too:
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools…
The left may have felt that way back in 1980, when Reagan was elected, and then again in 1984, when he was re-elected. They certainly managed to build them up again, didn’t they?
The right faces that situation now. Let’s hope the tools aren’t really all that worn out, or that we come up with some more effective new ones. Fast.
Spot on! Thanks!
Please, God, that you are right, Neoneocon. Even here in Southern California I see glimmers of hope that more than we’d think of the younger generation are scratching their heads over a whole lot of insanity that we conservatives note daily. I’m at a well known film/tv studio and see a number of (very careful) youths in the creative end of things who are not as stupidly left as I’d assumed.
One of my favorite Kipling poems is The Broken Men. It ends with the question “are Dover’s cliffs still white?”. Many of us instinctively recognize that a tipping point approaches, like Keats’ rough beast that neoneocon has referred to many times. I think that is why we look in the rear view mirror and long to rest on the ‘shoulders of giants’. As stated in Ecclesiastes there is nothing new under the sun. We as a species have all been here before waiting to discover if we are facing an apocalypse or a renewal.
Prepare for an apocalypse and work for a renewal.
Lyrics by Rudyard Kipling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDQEoK0-J9c
But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
Deuteronomy 32:15
I think the cycle time is now heading for diet and discipline.