Passage 18. The Props to Help Man Endure (II)

Until he does so, he labors under a curse.

He writes not of love, but of lust,

of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value,

of victories without hope, and most of all, without pity or compassion.

His grief weaves on no universal bone, leaving no scars.

He writes not of the heart, but of the glands.

Until he relearns these things,

he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man.

I decline to accept the end of man.

It’s easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure:

that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged

and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tireless in the last red and dying evening,

that even then, there will still be one more sound:

that of his puny and inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this.

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.

He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice,

but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion,and sacrifice, and endurance.

The poets’, the writers’ duty is to write about these things.

It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart,

by reminding him of the courage,and honor

and hope and compassion and pity

and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.

The poets' voice need not merely be the record of man,

it can be one of the props,

the pillars to help him endure and prevail.