Hark!

Hark at Joe Davis.

Hark the herald angels sing

Hark, the herald angels sing!

You're only a kid. Hark at Father Time!

Hark ye, sir, everything we said was true!

Hark at them, gazing on me with their trusting little eyes.

Hark ye, Allworthy, I'll bet thee a thousand pounds to a crown we'll have a boy tomorrow nine months.

The question today is whether the current crisis of American consciousness marks the beginning of America s decline or, let us hope, the beginning of a return to multilateralism. Will America hark back to the spirit of 1945 or, despite being sobered and disappointed, decide to stick to its lone and lonely path?

And the poem goes On the idle hill of summer, lazy with the flow of streams, hark I hear a distant drummer, drumming like a sound in dreams, far and near and low and louder on the roads of earth go by, dear to friend and food to powder, soldiers marching, soon to die.

The freedoms that they were so accustomed to, and maybe even took for granted, have now been snatched away. But, for older journalists like me, there is a strong sense of déjà vu the controls hark back to the times of the partyless absolute monarchy that existed here before 1990, when self censorship was the order of the day.