I have been in the Place of the Gods and seen it! Now slay me, if it is the law — but still I know they were men. - Stephen Vincent Benét

I'm waiting. … For something new and strange, Something I've dreamt about in some deep sleep, Truer than any waking, Heard about, long ago, so long ago, In sunshine and the summer grass of childhood, When the sky seems so near. I do not know its shape, its will, its purpose And yet all day its will has been upon me, More real than any voice I ever heard, More real than yours or mine or our dead child's, More real than all the voices there upstairs, Brawling above their cups, more real than light. And there is light in it and fire and peace, Newness of heart and strangeness like a sword, And all my body trembles under it, And yet I do not know.

We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong. We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. We thought the long train would run to the end of Time. We thought the light would increase. Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it. Now the boar and the asp have power in our time. Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid. Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth. Our children know and suffer the armed men.

Remember that when you say ‘I will have none of this exile and this stranger for his face is not like my face and his speech is strange,’ you have denied America with that word.