Great Oracle, why are you staring at me, <br />do I baffle you, do I make you despair? <br />I, Americus, the American, <br />wrought from the dark in my mother long ago, <br />from the dark of ancient Europa-- <br />Why are you staring at me now <br />in the dusk of our civilization-- <br />Why are you staring at me <br />as if I were America itself <br />the new Empire <br />vaster than any in ancient days <br />with its electronic highways <br />carrying its corporate monoculture <br />around the world <br />And English the Latin of our days-- <br /> <br />Great Oracle, sleeping through the centuries, <br />Awaken now at last <br />And tell us how to save us from ourselves <br />and how to survive our own rulers <br />who would make a plutocracy of our democracy <br />in the Great Divide <br />between the rich and the poor <br />in whom Walt Whitman heard America singing <br /> <br />O long-silent Sybil, <br />you of the winged dreams, <br />Speak out from your temple of light <br />as the serious constellations <br />with Greek names <br />still stare down on us <br />as a lighthouse moves its megaphone <br />over the sea <br />Speak out and shine upon us <br />the sea-light of Greece <br />the diamond light of Greece <br /> <br />Far-seeing Sybil, forever hidden, <br />Come out of your cave at last <br />And speak to us in the poet's voice <br />the voice of the fourth person singular <br />the voice of the inscrutable future <br />the voice of the people mixed <br />with a wild soft laughter-- <br />And give us new dreams to dream, <br />Give us new myths to live by!<br /><br />Lawrence Ferlinghetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-oracle-at-delphi/
