"because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out"
...Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
...We, who but seven years ago
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we show
The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth...
--from "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen," by Yeats - that is to say, after the Great War - published in The Tower (1928).
As they say, read the rest.
...Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
...We, who but seven years ago
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we show
The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth...
--from "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen," by Yeats - that is to say, after the Great War - published in The Tower (1928).
As they say, read the rest.