Dissent and Destiny

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!*

In the shadowed halls of power sits our king,

Worn with the weariness of age, yet decked

In garb that dazzles with false majesty.

Powerless he remains, though crowned in gold,

His grandeur but a fading dream, a ghost

Of once-mighty reign. To his left and right,

Advisors perched, whose voices once were wise,

Guiding the realm with clarity and grace.

But now, ensnared by doctrines, they falter,

Caught in the web of economic creed

And social schemes, their hands too weak to hold

The crumbling weight of authority’s helm.

 

Yet still they strive, in vain attempt to bind

The ever-rolling tide of human thought,

Which, rising in dissent, breaks down their walls

Of greed-built dreams and hollow sovereignty.

The king, alas, has turned away his gaze,

Retreating from the realm he once did rule.

Now left and right, those factions once aligned,

Now quarrel, wrestle in the gilded hall,

Their visions growing wide as chasms deep,

Till left and right dissolve, mere phantoms both,

A smoke screen veiling truth with clever guile.

 

Yet see! The farthest left takes up the reins,

A dream made flesh, a vision of the few,

Who seek to shape the world as clay to mould,

Forgetting that chaos, wild and free,

Is nature’s course, untamed, unruled, unbound!

For human hearts, in beauty, dance unseen,

Beyond the grasp of those who claim to see

The destined path that all must tread alike.

 

Behind these bickering shades of false divide,

The grey-clad men of power stand, phantoms!

With hands that guide, yet cruel and cold as night,

With tongues of fire, they stoke the raging flames,

Till all the king's commands are but their own.

And yet above this folly, high and far,

God waits, with knowing smile, at mankind’s plight,

Their sense of rule a jest to heavens wide.

 

But lo! Behold, within these haunted walls,

Enters a figure robed in light divine,

Freedom, Reason, and Compassion bound,

In single form, to shatter dark’s domain.

With radiant hand, he drives away the clouds

Of greed and pride, of ego’s blinding thrall,

And in his wake, the halls of power stand

Aglow with truth, where once was only night.

Thus do we see the end of false pretense,

And the dawn of light in darkness, ever bright.

* opening lines to Henry V by William Shakespeare