I found the following stanzas from W. B. Yeats' poem Nineteen Hundred Ninetee particularly applicable to our time. Maybe it should be read aloud with a French or German accent:

Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare

Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery

Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,

To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;

The night can sweat with terror as before

We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,

And planned to bring the world under a rule,

Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

. . .


O but we dreamed to mend

Whatever mischief seemed

To afflict mankind, but now

That winds of winter blow

Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.


IV
We, who seven [twelve?] years ago

Talked of honour and of truth,

Shriek with pleasure if we show

The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth.

Fascinating.