Matthew Arnold wrote a poor line once
Of iambic pentameter
Who prop thou ask’st in these bad days my mind
It’s got the caesura the proper distribution of stress
But these virtues can’t compensate
For the awkward contraction
The superfluous archaism
The puritanical subjunctive
A line that can’t be spoken
Not by my semi-paralyzed American tongue

The days were truly bad
The Hungry Forties
And yet Arnold asserted his mind was supported
And he answered
He had allowed
One person a poet William Wordsworth
To keep Arnold himself from falling before the brunt

The exaltations of art
The miracles of nature
The holy communion of family and friends
Avail not
I can’t keep my place
In this indifferent universe

I
The ridiculous number 1
In this infinitesimal moment
This dimensionless point of space
All due to the accident of consciousness

Men maimed and slain by uniformed assailants
Approved and authorized by duly constituted power
Women raped and debased as dishonorable
Children driven like debtors in a workhouse
Populations infiltrated by deadly disease
The cause and cure of which common knowledge
Needing only organization and decision
A state sustained by an ecstasy of barbarism
Powerful only to kill and degrade

And I a feckless adolescent with a long white beard
I have my good points
I serve to some extent the interests of others
But weak to affect the times and the customs