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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AFTER TENNYSON, by AMBROSE BIERCE Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: You ask me why, though ill at ease Subject(s): Modern Life; Freedom; Politics & Government; United States; Liberty; America | |||
AN EMIGRANT You ask me why, though ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Where honor's dead, and law is hissed, You ask me why, though ill at ease,. Within this region I subsist And all men pillage as they please. Where all defaulters fill the fist Ere sialing o'er the western seas. It is the land where freemen kill In warm debate their party foes; It is a land where one may kill The land where judges come to blows With sober-sided freedom-?? - bruise And speak the things that make us ill; And shoot and stab wome'er he choose, And thugs may wreak their own sweet will. A land of such misgovernment A land of base expedient; That Justice here has not a frown, A land where gold can justice drown; Where Freedom's chains are handed down And greed still broadens slowly down, From President to President; From Scavenger to President; Where Faction gathers to a head, And in his greasy, foulest thought Where factions wrangle for the bread Sets law and order all at naught-?? - Of honest men; where, fearing naught, Goes in for anarchy instead. Accurst monopolies have caught The people in the nets they spread; If banded unions prosecute Our unions like the deuce, and I'm Where branded convicts execute About to be had up for crime, The laws that in a better time Or made to keep my clapper mute; They broke, and every kind of crime Stalks unashamed and resolute. And Power should take from purse and till, The gains that I appropriate From every coffer of the State, Should honor e'er possess the land, And I to fight have not the will, And patriots control the State, And Justice rise, divine with hate, Then waft me from the harbor south, Wild winds! I seek a safer sky, To choke the politician band, Where I can plunder still, and I Can still shoot off my loaded mouth. O waft me from the harbor forth, Wild winds. I'll see Alaska's sky. Here 'twill have grown too warm, and I Will run for office in the North. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JULY FOURTH BY THE OCEAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS WATCH THE LIGHTS FADE by ROBINSON JEFFERS MEETING YOU AT THE PIERS by KENNETH KOCH |
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