Yet in whose commercial dealings
Vainly we attempt to find
Those disinterested feelings
Which adorn the Student’s mind,—
Seeing that, O my high-souled brothers!
There your dream of happiness
Is (like mine, and several others’)
Earning more for working less!
’Tis not that I blame your getting
Anything you think you can:
’Tisn’t that which I’m regretting,
Noble British Working Man!
No—although the facts I mention
Sometimes wake a mild surprise—
Still—the truth’s beyond contention—
You are good, and great, and wise:
Swell my taxes: stint my fuel:
Last, to close the painful scene,
Send me, rather just than cruel,
Send me to the guillotine:
Ere the knife bisects my spinal
Cord, and ends my vital span,
This shall be my utterance final,
Bless the British Working Man!
CONCERNING A MILLENNIUM
They tell me the Millennium’s come
(And I should be extremely glad
Could I but feel assured, like some,
It had):
They tell me of a bright To Be
When, freed from chains that tyrants forge
By the Right Honourable D.
Lloyd George,
We shall by penalties persuade
The idle unrepentant Great
To serve (inadequately paid)
The State,—
All working for the general good,
While painful guillotines confront
The individual who could
And won’t:
But horny-handed sons of toil,
Who now purvey our meats and drinks,
Our gardens devastate, and spoil
Our sinks,
Shall seldom condescend to take
That inconsiderable sum
For which they daily butch, and bake,
And plumb;
Such humble votaries of trade
No more shall follow arts like these;
Since most of them will then be made
M.P.s!
* * * * *
And can I then (with some surprise
You ask) possess my tranquil soul,
And view with calm indifferent eyes
The Poll,
While partisans, in raucous tones,
With doleful wail or joyful shout
Proclaim that Brown is in, or Jones
Is out?
I can: I do: the reason’s plain:
That blissful day which prophets paint
Perhaps may come: perhaps again
It mayn’t:
And ere these ages blest begin
(For Rome, I’ve heard historians say,
Was only partly finished in
A day)
In men of sentiments sublime
’Tis possible we yet may trace
The influence of mellowing Time
And PLACE:—
O who can tell? Ere Labour rouse
Its ever-multiplying hordes
To mend or end th’ obstructive House
Of Lords,
And bid aristocrats begone,
And their hereditary pelf
Bestow with generous hand upon
Itself—
Why, Mr. George,—his threats forgot
Which Earls and Viscounts cowering hear,—
Himself may be, as like as not,
A Peer!