Quote of the Day (W.H. Auden, on the Decline of a Once-Great Power)

“The piers are pummeled by the waves;

In a lonely field the rain

Lashes an abandoned train;

Outlaws fill the mountain caves….

“Unendowed with wealth or pity,

Little birds with scarlet legs,

Sitting on their speckled eggs,

Eye each flu-infected city.”—English poet W.H. Auden (1907-1973), “The Fall of Rome,” The Nation, June 14, 1947