6 Then there's little more to say,
7 Except that the ajoy of discovery,
8 Must have died with all the heroes,
9 Who first dared to lead the way.
CHAPTER 181 The way of the east is the seasons,
2 Turning and turning around,
3 Hearing their own inner rhythms,
4 Creating the years one by one.
5 You may sneer at the bChinks,
6 And the cBeaks and the dNips,
7 Or curl your lip at the eRusskies,
8 If that's what you want to do.
9 But maybe there's more to the eastern ways,
10 Than apes with sticks and slanted eyes,
11 Or a death wish that's migrating west.
CHAPTER 191 The way of the fBeaks is a summer,
2 Of heat that scorches the fields,
3 And beliefs that harrow the hearts of men,
4 As they labor to master the plough.
5 But their lands have survived,
6 In the gpitiless sun,
7 hUnwatered by rain through the ages.
8 And the icrops they have nourished,
9 jWith monsoons of blood,
10 Have the power to keep them alive,
11 Still burning with visions of ancient gods,
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12 Who demand and ennoble and dream.
13 kAnd while other men turn away from the past,
14 Or bury it in tombs,
15 They use it as a chain to lead,
16 Their lpeoples through the mstorm.
17 nThe dunes may change,
18 oThe sands do blow,
19 And desert monuments are scrubbed to pblanks.
20 But the qtribes have weathered it,
21 All of it,
22 Conquered it,
23 And move in the shadowless sand,
24 Toward oases that promise to end their thirst,
25 And bring paradise back to their rland.
CHAPTER 201 The way of the Russkies is winter,
2 A blanketing sensuous ssnow,
3 Enfolding its people in sorrow,
4 For the leaves that can't learn to grow.
5 tYou can hear the snow in their music,
6 And the wolves that run down the sleigh,
7 The enemy ulonging to fade into sleep,
8 And the vmemories that death could erase.
9 But the earth under cover is futile,
10 And wseeds lie deep in the ice,
11 Still dreaming of trees xoverarching,
12 The chasms of misery beneath.
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