Oh, When can we let something glitter
without drawing thieves out for gold?
The eternally envious and bitter
whom nothing that glitters can hold

What shadow can hide the bright fire
and what ash our once glorious flags
when the people who conquered all continents
are conquered by women in rags?

Where now will prestige find its refuge
whereto can the best of us flee
as the people who hunted the mammoth
are hunted for wanting to be?

How could we betray the essential
and choose such a fate that we got
when men did not yet require ruins
and Niagara had not yet been shot?

Oh, why do I live in an era
where everything beauteous and pure
devolves into three-faced Chimera
then dies when diversified more?

Who now can return us to standards
of style as high as the old
when those have been granted acceptance
whom nothing with standards can hold?