An Ayn Rand Centennial

October 2007 -- (b. 1905, St. Petersburg, Russia)

Philosophy saves us one mind at a time,

Or not at all, and only by our choice.

You knew that, witnessing the master crime

That spawned our century and set man’s voice

To amplifying assent. The very mind

Resounded like a sanctum overthrown

By mere bedazzled savages, purblind

To all that private man had made his own.

The altar of our age is politics:

For heaven, power; for sanctity, the plan

To end all plans; and prayerful edicts

To fashion forth the perfect good of man.

How could they bear to hear your lonely voice

Summoning us before that honest bar

Where each alone with reason makes his choice

And pays the price to things as they are?

                            II

In cities, jungles, mountains, and at sea:

For some, the fighting was their only school,

Their calling to kill for a century

Of brotherhood. To die was merciful:

Idealists spared the bumper crop of death

As socialism swept the world to cleave

Mankind’s collective neck, and those still left

Uncertain who the master, who the slave.

A price in blood unknown in history

Had made us doubt the very human clay,

Abjure ideals, and make philosophy

Of going back. But you arose to say

Two thousand years of tribute to the creed

Of sacrifice, with almsman for our priest—

No hostage held too dear for haughty need—

Had ushered in this hour of the beast.

                           III

“The world’s salvation lies in beauty,”

Said one dark seer, who knew that art compels

Assent beyond mere argument, that we

May know of worlds where catastrophe dwells.

With you we walked through cities once higher

Than sunrise, seeing all we thought our birthright

Brought down because that brash hero with his fire

But earned his awful ledge and endless night.

On the skyline of man’s incandescent day

An infinity of brave lights died.

Alone you knew that all was swept away

By festering envy of human pride.

And by what grace, we wondered, could you see

Those cities fade, forsaken by an age,

That famished souls might sate their envy—

Could see, and speak, and yet not die of rage?

                            IV

The shifting signs of stars could not explain

His birth. The holy men did not declare

His soul redeemed from the immortal stain

(Or come to marvel at his golden hair).

He told us that he lived for joy alone,

His warrant reason’s right. And suddenly,

Because a guiltless gaze returned our own,

We knew that he had banished God, and was free.

Behold the man whose soul is no god’s grant,

Is not a sojourner on Earth, nor guest

Escorted by the body, nor supplicant.

The Earth is his by right of his conquest.

For nature’s stubborn virtue will succumb

To none but men of reason, who can take her

Even within her high, sequestered sanctum.

And of his soul this man alone is maker.

                          V

Notations never are ideas, which live

In minds when minds are thinking. That day

When you had given all you had to give,

And we became your ideas, none could say

If man would ever elevate the light

Of reason, long tormented and estranged,

Because a score of grateful mortals might

Have comprehended you and been changed.

Yet to remit one tithe of man’s distress,

Redeem an age long leached of pity,

Somehow rescind that perplexed emptiness

Engraved upon the sky of freedom’s city,

But pay with life and joy, would be a crime.

Does death absolve the prophet for his voice?

Philosophy saves us one mind at a time,

Or not at all, and only by our choice.

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