​
It may be you are jealous of
    The diction of my verse,
As strikes your ear a something gruff,
    Words’ friction grating worse
Than your tones’ mellifluity
    Carefully studied—not
Haphazard as my own: but we
    Diverge in sense and thought.

Let time discern—if man survive— 
    Which verse stands truest then:
If I have failed, as years arrive,
    The mockery of men
Will weigh more heavily than yours
    So deftly leveled now,
But protest coming with such force
    Seems like to kill a cow.

Friend, let me, even as I prate,
    Not caterwaul your verse
Or use such words to denigrate— 
    Indeed mine may be worse— 
But rather praise that little wit
    I see as makes me chuckle:
Your harsh pride wants me to submit
    Who’s not inclined to truckle.

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
​And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
​And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

​
My countrymen resign themselves
    To liars and their lies,
As years go by in monthly twelves,
    And tell themselves, “Time flies.”

A dozen years have come and gone,
    Two dozen, maybe three,
While honesty it seems has flown
    And lies are currency.

A candle let me hold beneath
    The broad light of the sun— 
“Where is an honest man?” Has death
    Abducted every one?

You let the virus fester long,
    First caring not to notice,
Who proffered virtue for a song,
    Regretting with Miss Otis.

The common bond was cast away,
    You gained a couple shekels,
But—as the curtain ends the play— 
    There’s no applause but heckles.

It could have been an artistry,
    This human life your birth,
But—once forsaken honesty— 
    All gains exhaust their worth.