From Linda Dawe, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, UK
As a scientifically curious artist I was interested to read Laura Spinney's article on the possible collapse of Western civilisation as we know it (20 January, p 28). But what would earlier writers have made of it all? Well, the writer Rudyard Kipling : “Cities and Thrones and Powers / Stand in Time's eye, / Almost as long as flowers, / Which daily die.”
On our inability to deal with our own personal contribution to impending doom, he : “We had a kettle: we let it leak: / Our not repairing it made it worse. / Now we haven't had any tea for a week… / The bottom is out of the Universe.”
But the last word goes to another poet and lyricist, Paul Simon, summing up all human history in his song .
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