THE UNHAPPY MEAN.
(How the Budget strikes a Brain-Worker.)
Would I were poor (but not too poor),
A working plumber, say, by trade,
One of the class for whom the lure
Of Liberal Chancellors is laid;
For then no single sou from my revénue
Should go to swell the Treasury's bin,
Save indirectly through my breakfast-menu,
My pipe, my beer, my gin.
Would I were rich (O passing rich),
One of the idlers, softly bred,
From whom the hands of David itch
To pluck their plumage, quick or dead;
For then, a super-man, I'd scorn to grudge it—
This super-tax on my estate,
But like a bird contribute to his Budget
The paltry two-and-eight.
Alas, not being this nor that,
But just a middling type of man,
Neither a bloated plutocrat
Nor yet a pampered artisan,
I am not spared, nay, I am hardest smitten,
Although 'tis held (and I agree)
That half the backbone of these Isles of Britain
Is made of stuff like me.
O brothers, ye who follow Art,
Shunning the crowds that strive and pant
Indifferent how you please the mart
So you may keep your souls extant,
Lloyd none the less is down upon your earnings,
And from the increment that flows
(With blood and tears) from your poetic yearnings
You pay him through the nose.
These very lines, in which I couch
My plaint of him and all his works—
Even from these he means to pouch,
Roughly, his six per cent. of perks;
This thought has left me singularly moody;
I fail to join in George's joke;
So strongly I resent the extra 2d.
Pinched from my modest poke.
O. S.