WAYS
The Barbarian Way
Chapter 14
The Barbarians borrowed the ways that they found,
2And started all over when new ways looked good.
3They broke what would break,
4iAnd used what survived,
5Till they learned how to build,
6Which took them a long time to do.
7They made about a jmillion mistakes,
8Drenched their fields with oceans of kblood,
9And they struggled in ldarkness with not enough tools,
10To fix some of the lanterns they’d msmashed.
11But their faith was a force that endured through it all,
12And their courage was nmythic and fierce.
13They paid their way with osacrifice,
14And gave pall they had for their Christ,
15Scorning the comforts of earth’s easy joys,
16For a promise of qlife in the time after death.
17So you have been taught to smile at their zeal,
18Now that God is revealed as a farcical rphase,
19In man’s suicide sduel against nature,
20And you think of barbarians hardly at all,
21Except to say, with sarcastic grin,
22“Thank God I’m not with them.”
23For if you were alive in the time back then,
24You just might waste all your precious days,
25Building cathedrals that wouldn’t be done,
26Till your grandchildren’s children were dust in their graves.
27And, of course, you’re entitled to scoff at their ways,
28Since even a fool can see,
29That your life is much better spent than theirs,
30Who built tChartres for a myth,
31And a ukingdom of lies in the dark.
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Chapter 14 / 40