Energized Enthusiasm for bedtime reading may result in strange dreams.

Well . . . let me doublecheck that.

Bierstadt is great. You can get high resolution images of his work on artchive.org.

And those, the poorest, in him they trust,
Shall be the first to be ground to dust.
There will be no joy when this island sink
For all Atlanteans, those who fight and those who think
Alike will share the fate and feel the sting
Of the misguiding, mean-minded spiteful king.

An amazing trick for one so slighted,
Morally, if not yet criminally, indicted,
Those who love him, know he’s flawed,
But he’s their brassy, bullish god,
And those who use him, those mislead,
Lower themselves to be used instead.

So he promised to gird the land
With walls and towers of shifting sand
Where life is brighter and the whites are whiter
And a cloudy fortress bars all decency.
But oh! what wonderful things he’ll bring to pass
From his impotent tower of gold and glass
He refashions old traditions to new conformity.

A poem I wrote in 2017. Looks like a sequel is in order.

In Atlantis did a dwarfish king
A stately treason dome decree:
Tinseled with a childish pomp
Drudged from a foul and undrained swamp
And festooned with pride of brigandry.

"Man has the right to move as he will upon the face of the earth."