<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=510921" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Benefactors</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! What avails the classic bent<br>And what the cultured word,<br>Against the undoctored incident<br>That actually occurred?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And what is Art whereto we press<br>Through paint and prose and rhyme--<br>When Nature in her nakedness<br>Defeats us every time?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It is not learning, grace nor gear,<br>Nor easy meat and drink,<br>But bitter pinch of pain and fear<br>That makes creation think.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>When in this world's unpleasing youth<br>Our godlike race began,<br>The longest arm, the sharpest tooth,<br>Gave man control of man;</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Till, bruised and bitten to the bone<br>And taught by pain and fear,<br>He learned to deal the far-off stone,<br>And poke the long, safe spear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So tooth and nail were obsolete<br>As means against a foe,<br>Till, bored by uniform defeat,<br>Some genius built the bow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then stone and javelin proved as vain<br>As old-time tooth and nail;<br>Till, spurred anew by fear and pain,<br>Man fashioned coats of mail.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then was there safety for the rich<br>And danger for the poor,<br>Till someone mixed a powder which<br>Redressed the scale once more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Helmet and armour disappeared<br>With sword and bow and pike,<br>And, when the smoke of battle cleared,<br>All men were armed alike. . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when ten million such were slain<br>To please one crazy king,<br>Man, schooled in bulk by fear and pain,<br>Grew weary of the thing;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, at the very hour designed,<br>To enslave him past recall,<br>His tooth-stone-arrow-gun-shy mind<br>Turned and abolished all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob<br>Whose head has grown too large,<br>Ends by destroying its own job<br>And works its own discharge;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Man, whose mere necessities<br>Move all things from his path,<br>Trembles meanwhile at their decrees,<br>And deprecates their wrath!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Rudyard+Kipling">Rudyard Kipling</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=510921" data-title="The Benefactors de Rudyard Kipling" data-description="Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme-- When Nature in her nakedness Defeats us every time? It is n..."></div> </div> </div>

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