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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOMESDAY BOOK: IRMA LEESE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS A MEDITATION FOR HIS MISTRESS by ROBERT HERRICK WHY I WRITE NOT OF LOVE by BEN JONSON SONNET: 107 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE KINGS OF THE EAST by KATHARINE LEE BATES RHAPSODY by MATILDA BARBARA BETHAM-EDWARDS |