POLITICS

You say a thousand things,

Persuasively,

And with strange passion hotly I agree,

And praise your zest,

And then

A blackbird sings

On April lilac, or fieldfaring men,

Ghostlike, with loaded wain,

Come down the twilit lane

To rest,

And what is all your argument to me?

Oh, yes — I know, I know,

It must be so —

You must devise

Your myriad policies,

For we are little wise,

And must be led and marshalled, lest we keep

Too fast a sleep

Far from the central world’ s realities.

Yes, we must heed —

For surely you reveal

Life’ s very heart; surely with flaming zeal

You search our folly and our secret need;

And surely it is wrong

To count my blackbird’ s song,

My cones of lilac, and my wagon team,

More than a world of dream.

But still

A voice calls from the hill —

I must away —

I cannot hear your argument to-day.