Lesser Evils

From best intentions breed foulest ends
This was not his vision of the world
When first the plan was forged
When witness to those wrongs
To right, within his power
To fix a world in need
But in the fixing, in those details
He became their Devil
The means, he prays, are justified
But in the end
The moment betrayed
The vision perverted
Becomes the means
And all his engines driven by them
Lesser Evils, he preys anew
Is there such a thing?
Of Corruption, there surely is
Of Compromise, of course
And the world before, not once imagined
Now is realized
And he glories in it
All he once despised.

"Nor aught availed him now
To have build in Heaven high towers
Nor did he scape
By all his engines
But was headlong sent
With his industrious crew
To build in Hell"
- Milton, 'Paradise Lost'