Tags
Achaemenid Empire, Alexander the Great, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Darius the Great, East versus West, Formal poetry, Persian Empire, Persian Empire vassal states, Persian invasion of Greece, poem, poetry, Refugees from the Levant, Spenserian sonnet, Syrian refugees, The Levant, Western Civilization, Xerces the Great
Be welcoming? Show kindness and compassion?
No! Self defense must be the Hellene’s goal.
This new, naive (some say progressive) fashion:
To rescue every body and each soul,
Must surely of a nation take its toll.
They once repulsed the pushy Persian tossers.
It wasn’t in their nature to console
Darius and King Xerces for their losses.
The Persians now nail Christians to their crosses;
They blindly follow leaders cruel and mad —
Fanatical, insane, barbaric bosses;
Yet for their plight today’s Greeks should be sad?
The ancient Greek admired the free and brave;
He thought the Persian, to his King, a slave.
— D.N. O’Brien