[from March 24 2025]
Lawrence Ferlinghetti‘s Birthday and today, of course, is Ferlinghetti Day
Ferlinghetti wrote this sadly timeless poem in 2007:
PITY THE NATION
Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!
– Lawrence Ferlinghetti (after Khalil Gibran) –
and here’s the 1933 Khalil Gibran poem that Ferlinghetti’s poem was based upon:
PITY THE NATION
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.
More on Ferlinghetti and Pity The Nation – here
thank you I needed that
Thanks Andrew for both poems.
Ferlinghetti was to the Beats what Wallace Stevens was to poetry: a towering figure. He was what Tom Lehrer was to musical comedy.
Ferlinghetti was European-born, multi-lingual, PhD, father and husband, poet and painter and publisher and bookstore owner.
He promoted others, published others, Bay area resident and much more, all in his obits.
Always standing for justice and the highest good.
Rick Hill
Reading this from Africa gives a feeling of affirmation. Yeah, affirming our heritage of struggle, and yet from within the capital(ist) stand, stands those bent to help correct and point their nation(s) to right.
Thank you for these.
Gibran was writing this for his time. Ferlinghetti was re-writing for our time. The Pity is that it is so apt, for everyone’s time.
It’s been going on for 10,000 years.
the 4th is a lie