Prudent, self-satisfied, rubicund faces
Stare out of canvases by Rembrandt and Hals,
Their mansions’ facades along misty canals
Dignified, restrained, built by restless generations
Of bourgeois conscience and calculated risk,
As God wills, without flamboyance or panache,
Sober lives guarding their self-righteous pride.
O, cities of illusion, swan islands ordered in trust,
Slowly rotting timbers and weathered stone
Claiming a permanence that does not exist!
How well they know their riches’ jeopardy,
Their beleaguered republic shoring up the Flood,
As argosies bring triumph or disaster
And strange fever sweats on ledger-book brows,
Tulip mania, frenzied speculation on the Bourse.
Reality is guttural and Dutch; the gnarled present
Is their element, immune to profitless nostalgia,
Horizon-scanning pilots who live and die at sea.
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