Ferlinghetti: Pity The Nation
I saw this at eyeteeth, a blog i follow.
PITY THE NATION
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (inspired by Khalil Gibran’s poem of the same title)
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars,
whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language
but its own and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
Pity the Nation – after Khalil Gibran.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti 2007
The one described by Ferlinghetti is Italky under the Prime Minister Berlusconi, a former seller offrying pans and dancer of tip tap on Atlantic liners in the early fifties