The Wisdom of the West

The story goes that in Iran a worthy man, intelligent and wise;

Died, suffering great agonies, departing with a heart full of distress and smart;

He went up to God’s throne and said: ‘God I am one grieved at the way that I was made to die.

Your angel of death is supposed to be a specialist, and yet he has no expertise, no knowledge of the new skills that exist in the fine art of killing.

He kills, but does it so clumsily. The world is going rapidly ahead, but his growth has stopped dead.

The West develops wonderful new skills in this as in so many other fields. Fine are the ways it kills, and great are its skill’s yields.

It has encompassed even thought with death. Death is all its philosophies’ life-breath; it is what all its sciences devise.

Its submarines are crocodiles, with all their predatory wiles. Its bombers rain destruction from the skies.

Its gases so obscure the sky they blind the sun’s world-seeing eye. Its guns deal death so fast.

The Angel of Death stands aghast, quite out of breath in coping with this rate of death.

Dispatch this old fool to the West to learn the art of killing fast – and best.’