In a cemetery it is to kinship

That honour is given; in army, to rank;

In the neighbourhoods, to age;

In the conduct of affairs, to keen insight;

Such is the order in those great rites.

If we speak of the course to be chased in them,

And do not observe their ritual arrangement,

We violate that course as a whole. If we speak

Of the course and do not follow it diligently,

Why do we apply that name to the process?

Those whose words are thus an inversion

Of the proper course or in opposition to it,

Are only fit to be ruled by others --

How can they rule other men themselves?

Elections, competitors, numbers, campaigns,

With all the minutiae of jurisprudence,

It is by these that inferiors serve their superiors;

It is not by them that those superiors

Nourish the world before, not after getting their post.