A granite tribute,
Memorial to the proud,
Topples to the earth ‘neath the waste of the flock.
“All oe’r which e’er toiled our hands,
Infected with blight and disease.”
Underfoot lie pieces, lie fragments,
lie mem’ries of glory that fade with the dusk.
“Gaze upon them, writhing and bleating:
thralls without masters that wallow in filth!”
“And now must we see
In hard white light
What burying our heads past the neck has here wrought:
And now must we swim
In tides of shame,
For even our very same blood has here erred.
For this we shall no more stand!
“Man your brands
While they yet smoulder here.
Man your brands and touch them to the air!
Raze the first
Of these bastions base and foul
Raze them and forsake the morrow’s heirs!”
The resolution
Erupts through the lines:
Purification through fire alone
“Forward’s path that we must now travel is
paved with the charred bones of cattle and sheep”
Dignity,
Now hereby restored,
Will be won at cost greater than aught else.
“No place here has remorse,
Has regret, has pity.
No: we crave only vict’ry!”
“And now let us burn
To ashes and dust
Those things that would have us to hang low our heads.”
“And now shall we look
Toward standing atop
The piles of rubble which will be their end.”
For this we can no more stand!
“Man your brands
While they yet smoulder here.
Man your brands and touch them to the air!
Raze the first
Of these bastions base and foul
Raze them and forsake the morrow’s heirs!”
“All triumphs of worth are hardly won.
Renaissance is only ever the first.
Judgement comes from us, the bearers of swords.
Sharpen then your blade and spare it not.”
“Immolate the other:
We number but few but there’s strength in our numbers.
Resignation never
Sufficed to cleanse by flame such wreckage as this.”
“We are the arsonists,
And we hold the keys to redemption.”
At last we’ve arrived at the time to turn speech into act.”
For this we have no more stood!
“Man your brands
While they yet smoulder here.
Man your brands and touch them to the air!
Raze the first
Of these bastions base and foul
Raze them and forsake the morrow’s heirs