When blackguards and murderers
undercover of those offices
accuse the world of those villainies
which they themselves invent to
torture us – we have no choice
but to bend to their designs,
buck them or be trampled while
our thoughts gnaw, snap and bite
within us helplessly – unless
we learn from that to avoid
being as they are, how love
will rise out of its ashes if
we water it, tie up the slender
stem and keep the image of its
lively flower chiseled upon our minds.

William Carlos Williams