There's always a conflict
Between the ideal and real,
And a more formidable conflict
Between the primeval and bred.

There's a conflict of loyalties
Belonging to opposite poles,
A loyalty to the old conservatism,
Half romantic and half selfish,
And a loyalty to open-eyed nihilism
Which craves for change and
A ruthless clean-sweeping of all
That is stale and moldy and putrid.

There's a more elementary conflict
Between shame and pride,
Between sheer national loyalty
And a critical impudence
For the present state of governing.

Sometimes there's only a thin margin
Between a sincere desire for changing
And a mere shallow modernity and
Worship of the modern bitch goddess.
To escape that is indeed a delicate thing.
Where is that unity of understanding
To be found if not in the self-cultivation?!