The Foreword to the new book “The Wisdom of Our Ancestors: Conservative Humanism and the Western Tradition.”
Winter in the Ruins
October 6, 2021
That sleepy winter on the Cape,
we sucked glacial pebbles.
Sea-wracked waves dragged from the sands
the porcelain arm of a retired doll.
The clapboard village kept its ghosts
at bay in the crook of the bay.
The seafood shoppe in sight of the sea
hired a forty-pound lobster as its mascot.
The old iambic roar raged, sands blowing
through shattered archways, over toppled
columns, the hardpan of a Roman road.
So much of the modern lay before us,
we could not see it coming.
William Logan is the author of Dickinson’s Nerves, Frost’s Woods: Poetry in the Shadow of the Past.
Get the Collegiate Experience You Hunger For
Your time at college is too important to get a shallow education in which viewpoints are shut out and rigorous discussion is shut down.
Explore intellectual conservatism
Join a vibrant community of students and scholars
Defend your principles
Join the ISI community. Membership is free.
You might also like
The Danger of Philosophy
In the wrong hands, it can easily lead to endless and perverse questioning of everything.
Was the Constitution a Coup?
H. W. Brands attempts to uncover the causes of the founding debates.
