I was the patriarch of the shining land, <br />Of the blond summer and metallic grain; <br />Men vanished at the motion of my hand, <br />And when I beckoned they would come again. <br /> <br />The earth grew dense with grain at my desire; <br />The shade was deepened at the springs and streams; <br />Moving in dust that clung like pillared fire, <br />The gathering herds grew heavy in my dreams. <br /> <br />Across the mountains, naked from the heights, <br />Down to the valley broken settlers came, <br />And in my houses feasted through the nights, <br />Rebuilt their sinews and assumed a name. <br /> <br />In my clear rivers my own men discerned <br />The motive for the ruin and the crime— <br />Gold heavier than earth, a wealth unearned, <br />Loot, for two decades, from the heart of Time. <br /> <br />Metal, intrinsic value, deep and dense, <br />Preanimate, inimitable, still, <br />Real, but an evil with no human sense, <br />Dispersed the mind to concentrate the will. <br /> <br />Grained by alchemic change, the human kind <br />Turned from themselves to rivers and to rocks; <br />With dynamite broke metal unrefined; <br />Measured their moods by geologic shocks. <br /> <br />With knives they dug the metal out of stone; <br />Turned rivers back, for gold through ages piled, <br />Drove knives to hearts, and faced the gold alone; <br />Valley and river ruined and reviled; <br /> <br />Reviled and ruined me, my servant slew, <br />Strangled him from the figtree by my door. <br />When they had done what fury bade them do, <br />I was a cursing beggar, stripped and sore. <br /> <br />What end impersonal, what breathless age, <br />Incontinent of quiet and of years, <br />What calm catastrophe will yet assuage <br />This final drouth of penitential tears?<br /><br />Yvor Winters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/john-sutter/
