Dead Language

"Poetry is language to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed,"
The language also of imagination,
A tongue now foreign to the modern, "Christian" nation.

Nor writ, nor bought, nor sold, nor sought, nor read,
A tongue, like Latin, poetry is dead.
And why should poetry be so out of fashion
Since imagination is essential to compassion?

Without a metaphoric turn of mind,
The ancient myths and bibles prove unkind.
Without compassion for His suffering and loss,
How meaningless the figure on the cross.

How fundamental might a course in poetry
For literal-minded, fundamental Christians be?
Whose creed is Mammon resurrected, or
Take nothing from the rich and give it to the poor.