| |
| HER faith abandoned and her place despised, | |
| Her mission lost through ridicule, hooted forth | |
| From the forum she erected, by cat calls, | |
| And tory sneers and schemes. Her basic law. | |
| Scoffed out of court, amended at the need | 5 |
| Of stomachology by the judges, or | |
| A majority of States, as it is said— | |
| Rather by drunks and grafters, for the time | |
| The spokesmen of the States, coerced and scared | |
| By Methodists with a fund to hire spies, | 10 |
| And unearth women scrapes, or other sins | |
| With which to say: Vote dry, or be exposed. | |
| A marsh Atlantis drifting, towed at last | |
| By pirates into harbor, made a pasture | |
| For alien hatreds, greeds. A shackled press, | 15 |
| And voices gagged, creative spirits frozen, | |
| Obtunded by disgust or fear. War only, | |
| Armies and navies speak the national mind, | |
| And make it move as a man; for other things | |
| Resistance, thought divided, ostracism, | 20 |
| Or jail for their protagonists. At the mast | |
| The cross above the cross-bones, in between | |
| The starry banner. A people hatched like chickens: | |
| Of feeble spirit for much inter-crossing, | |
| Without vision and without will, incapable | 25 |
| Of lusty revolution whatever right | |
| Is spit upon or taken. A wriggling mass | |
| Bemused and babbling, trampling private right | |
| As a tyrant tramples it, calling it law | |
| Because it speaks the majority of the mob. | 30 |
| A land that breeds the reformer, the infuriate | |
| Will in the shallow mind, the plague of frogs | |
| That hop into our rooms at Pharaoh’s will, | |
| And spoil our banquet dishes, hour of joy. | |
| A giantess growing huger, duller of mind, | 35 |
Her gland pituitary being injured!
The Nation | |
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