Iceland Scholar and University Librarian [Heinrich Erkes], circa 1914
When even minds are mobilized,
The chemist who taught crops to grow
Must wreck the fields he fertilized
With clouds of chlorine gas that mow
Down men like stalks of rotten corn,
Whose offspring the demographer
Now calculates will not be born,
Costing the government its share
Of future population growth
Which the joint chiefs of staff require
To feed them new supplies of youth
To throw into the line of fire,
Where the historian has taught
Them they’ll fulfill the destiny
The poets now go on about
In lines of morbid majesty.
Doomed to be useful, all of these
Are racing to subordinate
Their various forms of expertise
To the imperatives of state.
Prudent or pure enough to know
Not one thing that could be of use,
Only the scholar dares to show
Himself to time without excuse,
Having done nothing but to gaze
Into the northern distance where
The skald recites his song of praise
Guiltlessly to the frozen air.