XIII Metamorphoses

(Changes of Form)
Apes goggle from their cyan sandy cage,
They stare at finest specimens of Man,
Their greatest soldier, and their wisest sage,
Are naught but ash to those whose legs can stand!
Those noble ones are Nature's best design,
Selected not by Her but by themselves,
Their willed success, against the foes of time,
Evolves them from the bestial to themselves!
To cross the desert sand they boarded ships,
To till the Promised Land, they used their will,
They dipped and dodged despair from death's own lips,
To match the woes of Nature with their skill!
No clan of apes can match these Israelites;
They fear defear while suns alight their nights!
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies XIII Septembris, Anno Domini MMVII

XII Vita Bona

(The Good Life)
The man of virtue is the only Man,
The law of virtue is the only Law,
The only ever fully happy land
Is in the self of Him without a flaw!
Remorse for ev'ry sin is part of life,
The cry of torment, parcel of the soul-
If only one could end the horrid strife
Between his action and his Perfect Goal!
Is sorrow not the opposite of joy?
Is evil not the opposite of good?
Is life a boon, if one must self-destroy,
Because one never does what'ere he should?
Is he who stumbles verily alive,
If he has not a purpose to survive?
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies IV Septembris, Anno Domini MMVII

XI Amor Prudentitatis

(The Love of Wisdom)
A summer spent in leisurely distress,
Teh windless heat burns down upon the soul,
No joy is full, all life is but a mess,
A mix of pointless passion, empty goals!
Then what- I hear a voice among the trees,
The silence broke by tremors of the sun!
I feel, to end the heat, a cooling breeze-
Which seeks to finish answers left undone!
I am a man, a thinker and a sage,
The world is matter geared to higher cause,
All life is beauty, sung from age to age,
All death does serve the Master's Holy Laws!
As daybreak floods the land with blazing light,
The silence ends with songs of wrong and right!
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies II Septrembris, Anno Domini MMVII

X Temperantia

(Temperance/ Moderation)
The world has never been a perfect place,
At least we can't remember if it was.
Yet listen, ye reformers, in your haste-
You err too much in fighting what it does.
No virtue on its own can be enought-
The courage without principle is dead;
A wisdom lost for action is but fluff,
And careless kindness ever weighs as lead.
Ye mustn't pick but one to be your guide-
To follow one is folly in the least,
It would be worse than if you hadn't tried,
Obsession makes a demon of the priest.
To right the wrongs that everyone can see,
The virtues must be mixed in harmony.
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies XXVIII Iunii, Anno Domini MMVII

IX Complexio Animantis

(The Creature's Dilemma)
I long to find the path of highest worth,
On which I may fulfill and be fulfilled,
To chance return the love which made my birth,
And match the will by which my life was willed.
Yet how can one repay so great a debt?
My very life itself was paid in full,
This very gift I find I must regret,
When duty is, my purpose, to fulfill.
For how is one to know why he was formed?
His conscience must direct his ev'ry step,
And if unto its path he's not conformed,
What justice can he do to pay his debt?
The sinner needs forgiveness to rebuild,
To rest in peace, and be in short, fulfilled.
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies XXVIII Iunii, Anno Domini MMVII

VIII Bellum Tacitum

(The Silent War)
Oh, when and where have men of virtue gone?
Their footsteps died away an age ago,
We strain to hear their noble fading song,
While rising up the banner of its foe.
That noblest excuse for lechery-
The artistry and pleasure of the base
Does ever hail that grand debauchery,
The beauty that is shallow in its haste.
Pale art is not alone in its attempt,
Cruel science holds its standard higher still.
The works of Man do ever seem unkept,
And power over nature boosts his will.
The artistry and virtue are at war,
Indulgence and the gloried days of yore.
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit dies XXVII Iunii, Anno Domini MMVII

The Temple of Wisdom

The orb within the sky doth shine its ray,
From God does come the root of every day.
Yet man does own his glory, also great,
Where such doth lie, a subject of debate.
Alas, the answer here in glory lies,
A beauty here, that riseth to the skies!
The word of gold sublime upon the stone,
Doth show the world the glory which we own!
Majestic columns stand to lift the sky,
They do support the majesty of time.
A land that rose upon the ancient truth,
A nation strong, imbibed such written truth.
They built a structure white and gold, sublime,
To hold the greatest riches of all time.
Its name doth speak so little of its grace,
Its majesty surrounds and fills its place-
No mask can hide the beauty lying here,
No word can match the glory or the fear.
Indeed in such a temple to the wise,
Its fall or loss, mankind would ere despise.
It holds the glory lost across the sea,
And speaks of greater glory soon to be.
As tall Minerva stands and holds the scroll,
The gold and white cascade upon the wall!
A sky so gold and brilliant roofs her head,
As man does worship her, though she is dead.
The light of knowledge holds a bitter dark,
As faith does flee, one builds another ark.
The glory held in majesty sublime
Does speak corruption in a newer time.
As Greece we worship knowledge, Rome, the games,
Yet still we are so blind to their last days.
Corruption lies in wait to end our might,
And still destruction lies beyond our sight!
Our faith, the very cornerstone of life-
Decays and rusts away upon our strife.
The life not worth a cause is not sublime,
The loss of glory doth corrupt the mind.
This building stands so white in majesty-
It sayeth naught of those whose lives are free!
Too free to see the glory known in death,
Too wise for wisdom, lost in fear of death.
This rock now stands, to bring a faith in thought,
And yet, it is destroyed, its gold for naught!
The glory here speaks well upon our prize,
A freedom linked with wisdom in our eyes!
A goal for those who do not fear the end,
But rather search for where, their life, to send!
Here stands the temple for the wisest man,
Whose life is bent, to find what ere he can,
To find the glory lost in newer time,
To see and speak new beauty unto rhyme.
His day will come, a time so blessed to see,
Then he as I, to glory bows the knee.
-Viennarising
-June 19,2006

The Voice Upon the Breeze

Upon this night, the clearest ever seen,
Upon the mist, unknown by senses keen,
A floating wind now passeth through the soul,
A waking breeze ignites a deadened coal,
A blazing soul hears mysteries untold,
As spirit burns anew, no longer cold!
A myriad of voices indistinct,
Still travels through the air, but somehow linked
To nature's purpose, our unending quest
To ere decipher better from the best.
This wisdom deep within the soul now wakes,
As spirits speak the ground within me shakes,
Such beauty ne're confined to speech so plain,
To utter meanings vast t'would be in vain!
The starlit moonlight ever shows its rays,
The cry of deepest sorrow ne're decays,
Yet on the silent curtain of the breeze
Lies wisest knowledge in between the trees.
The voice of him who traveled here and there,
The voice of all mankind upon the air,
Speaks in a tongue not known to modest Earth,
And still its meaning holds the utmost worth.
What bitter longings of the ages past,
Have echoed in your mind unto the last,
The farthest knowledge you can know, surpassed!
There lies the glory of what now is past!
For here, among our family and friends,
A longing of the past begins and ends,
For as the poet Homer sang the song,
I, with my pen, for beauty toil long.
And as Prince Hector longed for glory's peace,
Each man alive, does strive for honor sweet.
This now does melancholy claim as hers,
This spirit of the past, benign and curse,
For with the wisdom of the ages past
Does come sweet sorrow to the very last.
Alas, to feel the grief of those long gone,
Or listen to the dead's immortal song,
Does rise a pity sorrowful and true,
To think, this even may be said of you.
For as I read the Elegy's true words,
I feel ideas of old take flight as birds.
I, like to Grey, have reverence for the past,
And we must ever hope that this will last.
For when our words are sung in time afar,
To them we are as distant as that star.
To think, how will the airy voices sound,
When my soul joins them, rising from the ground?
To hear the whispers faint that I will bring,
It will, perhaps, incite a man to sing
And speak again of voices in the breeze,
Of mankind's voice in air among the trees.
-Jerusalemrising
-April 10, 2006

VII Pretium Estne?

(Does Worth Exist?)
To live, perchance to - live, Aye, there's the rub,
To die, perchance to - die, what lies in that?
Who life is worth your own, which is your club?
Whose death is worth your death, Nay, All is flat!
What substance lies in greatness? Statues fall.
What honor lies in ruches? What is gold?
What wisdom lies in love? All lovers fall!
For what then shall we live, as we grow old?
What honor lies in wisdom, victory?
What glory lies in courage, mindless whim?
For what does shallow life forever plea?
What mustic does compose its silent hymn?
A purpose must exist, the concept does...
One virtue on its own is not enough.
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies XVIII Iunii, Anno Domini MMVII

VI Incendamus Signum?

(Shall We Burn the Flag?)
The march directed to a noble goal-
The mighty sound of brass upon the air-
The raising of the flag, so stately whole-
A texture both so noble and so fair!
The stars and stripes are more than simple hues-
They stand to represent the heroes past-
Their glory and the lives they had to lose,
To raise the flag of freedom to the mast!
And still this mighty bastion flies above-
It triumphs in its ever noble stance!
No enemy will burn the flag I love,
No rival crushes such magnificence!
So on we march beneath Old Glory's hue,
No curse condemns the red, the white, the true.
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit XIII Iunii, Anno Domini MMVII

V Admonitum

(The Warning)
Oh rise the mighty chorus of- the boy.
Behold the throne of stately- mistresses.
Do honor noble men who now grow- coy,
Do listen to the scholar’s wise- guesses.
The insecure will have the final say,
They cry the most when victors do succeed,
And so they fight to sanctify their play,
And fight nobility- now christened “greed.”
The truly noble man will never rise-
The insecure will ever hamper him-
His name will be forgotten when he dies,
Because the world seeks only mindless whim.
The menace which the Founding Fathers feared-
The mass’s tyranny seems ever near.
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies VIII Iunii, Anno Domini MMVII

IV Ars aut Probitas

(Art or Virtue)
An age ago, more truly two or three,
The qualitative query did appear-
As Athens wrote and danced a jubilee,
And Sparta taught all other states to fear.
In affluence the thinkers did emerge,
In scarcity the heroes could be seen-
Virility and art did then diverge,
The hero’s bloody sword, and beauty’s gleam.
The modern west is clearly feminine,
Its virtue long deceased and buried low,
Yet many miss the glory while in sin,
And all decry the weakness which we sow.
A couple quarrelling may gain repose,
Yet how can both submit, if they are foes?
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies VI Iunii, Anno Domini MMVII