Herbert Lloyd Williams
Depopulation
They say this is no place for the ambitious.
The young men leave, trailing
A pity for the people left behind,
Nailing the coffin of the town they go,
Finding refreshment in familiar lies.
Far from the accustomed hills, they build
The structure of success which they were told
Would monument their paragon advance,
If only they were bold enough to leave
The moment they were old enough to go.
So now this is no place for the ambitious.
With every decade it is more
Conclusively a place which people leave
The moment they are bold enough to go.
Some have no regrets. But others find
A virtue in the ruin left behind,
And long to verify the truths
Their fathers read, and tread
The ways that scored their rooted enterprise,
And nurture a simplicity, until
A darkness comes to cover up their eyes.
But ambitious they are, ambitious to a man,
Made ambitious by their education,
Prisoners of their nourished talents.
So they display the customary
Pity for the people left behind.
But their bleak hearts speak
The bitter language of the dispossessed.
Page(s) 15
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