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— William Blake

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?

Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Or Love in a golden bowl?

…

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noun

One who, or that which, accelerates.

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THE IRON AGE.

30 lines
John Dryden·1631–1700
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---Hard steel succeeded then;And stubborn as the metal were the men.Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook;Fraud, avarice, and force, their places, took.Then sails were spread to every wind that blew;Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:Trees, rudely hollowed, did the waves sustain,Ere ships in triumph ploughed the watery plain.Then land-marks limited to each his right;For all before was common as the light.Nor was the ground alone required to bearHer annual income to the crooked share;But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,Digged from her entrails first the precious ore;Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid,And that alluring ill to sight displayed.Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold;And double death did wretched man invade,By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed.Now (brandished weapons glittering in their hands)Mankind is broken loose from moral bands:No rights of hospitality remain,The guest, by him who harboured him, is slain;The son-in-law pursues the father's life;The wife her husband murders, he the wife;The step-dame poison for the son prepares;The son inquires into his father's years.Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;And Justice, here oppressed, to heaven returns.
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