Time Does Not Go

Democracy is never a thing done.  Democracy is a thing a nation always must be doing.

Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)

Liberty

by Archibald MacLeish

When liberty is headlong girl
And runs her roads and wends her ways
Liberty will shriek and whirl
Her showery torch to see it blaze.

When liberty is wedded wife
And keeps the barn and counts the byre
Liberty amends her life.
She drowns her torch for fear of fire.

Why The Face Of The Clock Is Not Truly A Circle

by Archibald MacLeish

Time is not gone,
Time does not go,
Time can be found again,
Old men know
If you travel a journey.

Paris again
And the scent in the air.
That sound in the air,
that sound in the street,
And the time is still there
At the end of the journey.

Turn at the door
Climb the stone stair –
What fragrance is that
In the dark, on the air,
At the end of the journey?

Time does not go:
Time keeps its place.
But oh the brown hair
And oh the bright face!
Why?  By what journey?