Confucius

DEEP in bright iron of the past he cut
His chiseled sentences. They still remain.
Their meaning spells no Peradventure, But,
Nor If. And in cold iron, might and main,
At that same smithy worked his forebears who,
In homely words, drove home by hammer blows,
Wrought sentences the earlier sages knew
Not other than the Truth our people knows.

And yet when men today would write on steel,
Thin ardent acid bites a facile line
Etching a witty phrase. Who reads this fine,
This shallow-bitten, mannered stuff shall feel
Quadruple loss. Where is the smith, the power,
The sledge blow, and the chisel for this hour?