Senator Andy Maynard shared this with me yesterday at the Groton Federation of Democratic Women’s fundraiser, and I’m passing it along.
Does this sound like anyone you know:
A Dead Statesman
I could not dig, I dared not rob
and so I lied to please the mob
Now all my lies are proved untrue
and I must face the men I slew
What tales will serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young.
Oddly enough, it’s by the elderly Rudyard Kipling, written in 1924. Perhaps the old Imperialist was disillusioned towards the end by the results of the Great Game and other imperialist ventures he did so much to popularize.
Some things never change, as the poem illustrates. Unfortunately, as a non-believer, I can’t even take solace from the thought that the person whom the poem evokes today will ever have to face the multitudes he has slain. All the more reason, I suppose, that we should do our best to speak for them.
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