  He hears his father pray when he's a boy: "Jesus we know, the Savior, and we ask, In Thy great plenitude of mercy, grace, Forgiveness for our waywardness; we invoke Thy blessing, and may righteousness and peace Prevail in all the earth. Meekly we rest Upon the precious promise of Thy word. Gather us home with Thine own people, Lord, And all the glory shall be Thine." So much To show the father's prayer which he heard. The father is a saint, a quietist, Save that he has his hatreds, strong enough: Turns face of stone and silence to the men Whose ways of life are laid in sin, he thinks And calls them dirty dogs and scalawags, Because they vote a ticket he dislikes, Or love a game of cards, a glass of beer, Or go to see the County Fair, where once A drunken bus-man drives upon a boy And kills him. Then the saint is all aflame, And tries to have the fair put out for good. And so the son, who will become at last The Christian Statesman, hears his father pray, And prays himself, and takes the lesson in Of godliness, the Bible as the source Of truth infallible, divine. This boy Is blessed with health, a body without flaw, His forehead is a little low, perhaps, And has a transverse dent which keeps the brain Shaped to the skull; a perfect brain is sphered, As perfect things are circles; but a brain Something below perfection, which is fed By a great body and an obdurate will, And sense of moral purpose will go far, Farther than better brains in craft of states, For some years anyway, if a voice be given Which reaches to the largest crowded room, To speak the passionate moralities Which come into that brain creased straight across The forehead with a dent. He goes to school, And from the first believes he has a mission To make the world a better place, avows His mission in the world, bends all his strength To make his armor ready: health of body, A blameless life, hard studies, practices With word and voice. It is a country college Where he matriculates—the father wished it; A college where the boys are mostly poor, And waste no time, have not the cash to buy Delight, if they desired. He ruminates Upon the pebbles and Demosthenes, And sets his will to be an orator That he may herald truth and save the world. After much toil, re-writing, he delivers A speech he calls, "Ich Dien," and loses out Against a youth who speaks on Liberty. And then he uses Gladstone for his theme, The Christian Statesman; for exordium Tells of the ermine which will die before It suffers soilure—that was Gladstone—yes! But still he cannot win the prize; a boy Who talks about the labors of Charles Darwin, His suffering and sacrifice, is awarded The prize this time—a boy who had the wit To speak in praise of Darwin's virtues—saying Nothing about his hellish doctrines, thus Winning the cautious judges to his theme. But is our little Gladstone crushed, dismayed? He plucks up further strength and takes a hint: A larger subject may bring down the prize. He thinks of Thomas Jefferson—but then Jefferson was a deist, took the Bible And cut out everything but Jesus' words. "Yet I can speak on what was good in him, His work for liberty, the Declaration, And close my eyes to all his heterodoxy." Then something of this plan crept like a snake Into his brain, he petted it with hands: Be ye as wise as serpents, and as doves Harmless, he smiled—and went to work again, And won the prize. And now he has stepped forth Into the world's arena to become A Savior, an evangel, as he thinks, In truth a pest. He runs for Congress first And when his manager takes out a check And shows him, given by the local brewery, Another check a bank gives, he maintains A smiling silence, thinking to himself, Jesus accepted gifts from publicans, And if I am elected then this money, However dirty, will be purified By what I do. But then he was defeated. He thinks the banks and breweries did the trick. In truth they knew the Christian Statesman, knew The oleaginous smile and silver voice Concealed the despot. Did he scourge them then? Well, scarcely then—he wrote a public letter And said the people had decided it. And what the people said was law. He nerved His purpose for another trial—that body So big and flawless could not be exhausted— That voice still carried to the farthest corner, That oily smile deceived the multitude That he was hurt, embittered, only waited To see if body, voice and oily smile Could win by any means; if not, the scourge Would be brought forth, the smile dropped, the complaints Against the breweries, what not, opened up, Unmasked. For when your hope is gone, you're free To scold and tell your bitterness. And then He made a third and last attempt, though edging Toward the sophistry that moral ques If he thought so much The Christian Statesman thought this way—at least He acted out a part which seemed to say He analyzed so far. He went to work To make his country just a despotism Not governed by a King, but by the people Laying the hand of law on everything Most intimate and private, having thought For moral aspects, as all politics Are moral in their essence, to repeat. Did not the Christian Statesman have revenge In building his theocracy, who saw All bills of right and fruit of revolution Ground into mortar, made into a throne For Demos? And behold King Demos now! A slouch hat for a crown upon his brow, Stuffed full of bacon and of apple pie, The Christian Statesman leaning on his shoulder A tableau of familiarity. The Christian Statesman having lost his hair Betrays the Midas ears—the oily smile Beams on the republic he has overthrown! |
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