Better or Worse?

We pondered just the other day if going back in time
Would bring us (like some old folk say) to pastures more sublime.
Would we see kind, hard-working folk - in rustic scenery,
Or see the pain - and taste the tears - of those in slavery?
Would going back remind us how a surgeon would perform
His operations in a world unknown to Chloroform?
Would we see kindly Romans helping men build better roads
Or see their press-gangs, hear their whips and feel their cruel goads?

So who would dare to say this world is not a better place?
Is Evolution not refining us - the Master Race?
Have we not reached the moon, created vaccines, cloned a sheep?
We even have these pills they say can comfort those who weep.
We've non-stop entertainment on our television screens;
The poorest citizen can hope of wealth beyond his dreams.
We have the information to ensure we will succeed,
We have the wealth, the skills, the health, - so what more could we need?
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There's just one thing we sadly lack - and maybe always will.
For wisdom isn't bought or sold - or taken in a pill.
It has a cost that few of us would ever choose to pay
And yet a value nothing in this world can take away.
It does not grow on well-trod paths of wealth and happiness
But by the steep and rocky tracks of hardship and distress.
Can anyone know victory who does not know defeat?
Without first tasting bitter fruit who knows the taste of sweet?

For only through the prison's bars can men smell liberty
And it's the blind who recognise the gift of those who see.
What man - until deprived of breath - can truly value air?
What heart can jump for joy but one acquainted with despair?
And so the few who find true wisdom will no more be seen
Among the crowds meandering in pastures lush and green.
For they have found a lonely way which each of us must tread
If we have any hope of being wise before we're dead.