Speaking of Poetry…

Here’s a ditty from Revolutionary America, as fresh today as when a newspaper published it in 1776. Loyalists savored these lines at the expense of Patriots, but the ridicule of Congress — a dangerous and incompetent body even then, though at least it wasn’t replete with socialists and corporatists as it is now — is delicious:

The Congress

 …These hardy knaves and stupid fools, Some apish and pragmatic mules,

Some servile acquiescing tools, These, these compose the Congress.

When Jove resolved to send a curse, And all the woes of life rehearse,

Not plague, not famine, but much worse, He cursed us with a Congress.

With freemen’s rights they wanton play; At their command, we fast and pray;

With worthless paper they us pay; A fine device of Congress.

With poverty and dire distress, With standing armies us oppress;

Whole troops to Pluto swiftly press, As victims to the Congress. …

You can read more about the American Revolution in my novel, Halestorm, available in paperback or for Kindle.

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9:54 am on October 26, 2012