We can claim without elation or immodest fabrication
That the genius of our nation is embodied in our camps,
And futurity’s summation of our social cultivation
Will include the close relation of our millionaires and tramps.
For we have a keen selection, from the billets of correction,
For the personal connection of the broker and his bonds,
To the nobby log-erection on a primitive half-section
Where the plutocrat’s complexion tans among the bracken fronds.
By a process of gradation in this social segregation
Each shall find his proper station in respect to income tax;
But the truest revelation of our mental elevation
Is increasing population in our work and wages shacks.
For by mental convolution we’ve achieved a sound solution
Of the task of distribution, which is worthy of our wits;
All within the constitution, by progressive evolution,
Without nasty revolution scaring children into fits.
For each lucky son of riches who disports in riding breeches
We put ten along the ditches in an unemployed hotel,
And within apportioned niches each develops leisured itches
That, with no unseemly hitches, should make every man a swell.
When we reach the culmination of this scheme of rustication
Then a faction of the nation will be feeding all the gang;
And in case their indignation mar the others’ exploitation
We will force an obligation that they either work or hang.
Oh, I know the picture’s comic, but the situation’s chronic,
And the end is quite harmonic with our present policy;
So excuse a jeer sardonic o’er our crisis economic,
And prescribe a mental tonic for our hapless bourgeoisie.
(Burnett A. Ward)
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Based on Topics: Money & Wealth Poems, Business & Commerce Poems, Duty Poems, Genius Poems, Respect Poems, Tax Poems, Constitution Poems, Evolution Poems, Economics PoemsBased on Keywords: prescribe, elevation, scaring, progressive, billets, broker, selection, tonic, millionaires, chronic, unemployed