Excuse the indulgence. I posted a Ferlinghetti poem a couple of weeks ago and RobertinBeirut has sent me the original Khalil Gibran poem that inspired Ferlinghetti’s poem. I failed to note Ferlinghetti’s credit to Gibran in my original post. They make an interesting comparison.

Khalil Gibran:

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bull as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

Khalil Gibran
The garden of the Prophet (1934)

Ferlinghetti:

Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them.

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced, and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own and no other culture but its own.

Pity the nation whose breath is money and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.

Pity the nation -- oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away.

My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti 2007