Nine Dragons Poet Lyric

Of Common Blood

Does the lowered eye mark one, prey?  
Do mild manners detain the heirs of courage,  
And supplant servile, simpering cowards  
Who cater to the whims of the bullish,  
And ill-manner’d?  
The furrowing of the brow, upon meeting  
The eyes, a smouldering hate inferred?  

Prithee, tell the need of an otherwise  
Noble man  
To seek to humble one he knows not;  
But in all hubristic error,  
Deem a lesser man—  
Tho' the gods smite—  
Could sooner be his ending  
Than any beginning of cruelty  
He would defer.  

I beg thee, pass softly—  
For oft' times  
The gods walk among us,  
Unknown  
And clothed in beggar's  
Rags.  
But here we would tend  
The perception of  
The common man,  
Of which we all are.  

Were our titles stripped from us,  
Gold and coin, that seat us  
Well with advantage, prestige,  
And resource scarce divided  
Among those without,  
Relieved us—  
How far would we fall  
Before our imagined realms  
And self set crowns  
Shatter and break  
Upon the humble ground  
That wrought us up  
Through fortunes fated,  
Or generations generous  
With years honest toils and labors?  
In sooth these ephemeral devices  
Aside—  
Prick'd, our blood  
Bares but one shade  
That of red.  

All else are machinations  
Of the brain,  
Where the ego  
Would stroke us with  
Affirmations of  
Such lofty natures  
That we would see  
One another as  
High and low,  
Vengeance' victim  
Or as one justified  
To take beyond the need,  
Lest the low squander  
The fruitful seed.  

And utopia become too common a place,  
Thus polluted with the common blood.  

Nay.  
The true utopia, if thou seekest,  
Is humble fellowship,  
Compassion, and sacrifice;  
For all idylls may not be attained  
All at once.  
Let them be of such  
Continually strived toward  
And lived, and roads walked.  
See not my eyes lowered—  
See thy brother,  
See thy sister,  
See thy humble family  
Through trial and fortune's favor,  
Together.

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