“Amazing State!”

Here is a poem that was published, not in the heat of our current economic dilemma, but in 1984… the nostalgic days of Reaganomics.  It was drawing attention to the failure of Lyndon Johnson’s “The Great Society “and the “War on Poverty” that the federal government began during that era.  But oh how apropos it is today!

“Amazing State ” by Marlyn Marshall

Amazing State! Spread wealth around
To save a sloth like me!
I once was poor, but now I’ve found
My trade: Egality.

‘Twas welfare taught me work to fear,
The same my fears relieved;
How precious did that State appear,
Whose wealth have I received?

Thro’ many strangers’ toils, their shares
Mine own have now become;
Their work hath paid my way thus far,
‘Twill pay beyond my tomb . . .

As we’ve spent thousands o’er the years,
State-son begets State-son;
We’ve no more ways fat funds to raise,
We’re paupers everyone

–as quoted in George Grant’s Bringing in the Sheaves (Atlanta, GA: American Vision Press, 1985).

~ by Kirk on March 14, 2009.