Finally Comes The Poet

"After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)

After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,

After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,

Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,

The true Son of God shall come singing his songs."

(Walt Whitman, “Passage to India”)

“After the engineers, inventors, and scientists, after all such control through knowledge, ‘finally comes the poet.’ The poet does not come to have a say until the human community has engaged in its best management. Then perchance comes the power of poetry – shattering, evocative speech that breaks fixed conclusions and presses us always toward new, dangerous, imaginative possibilities.”

(Walter Brueggemann, “Finally Comes the Poet”)