Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NEW IDEA, by WALT MASON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NEW IDEA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Last fall I heard a candidate stand on a
Last Line: With broken backs.
Subject(s): Democratic Party (u.s.); Elections; Freedom; Voting; Voters; Suffrage; Liberty


LAST fall I heard a candidate stand on a rostrum and orate. To those assembled
in the hall, he talked good roads, and that was all. He'd primed himself with
useful facts, and dished them up in cataracts. He told how taxes go to waste
when we make roads in sloppy haste. I went to hear his rival speak; he talked
and talked, almost a week. An old time politician he, who boomed the Boon of
Liberty. Our Freedom was his foremost brag; he wept when speaking of the Flag.
He painted, with impassioned skill, our victory at Bunker Hill, and talked a
while of Valley Forge, and threw a harpoon at King George. And when election day

arrived, the good roads candidate survived, while he who talked of Precious
Boons was handed forty kinds of prunes. I'm glad we are outliving mush, and
tommyrot and bunk and slush. I'm glad old tricks are in disgrace, that patriots

who want a place, must talk horse sense and eke brass tacks, or leave the course

with broken backs.





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