While The Billy BoilsSearch(With profuse apologies to the shade of Tom Hood.)'Twas near the chime of supper time, the night was calm and cool,As five and-twenty legislators bounded out of school.And they sought the snug refreshment-room as tadpoles seek a pool.
And as they passed the jovial glass their tongues all glibly ran,Stones of the Democratic Arch, they gloried in its span,But the “Keystone" sat remote from all, a melancholy man.
He wore a meek and crumpled look, his voice was but a wheeze,An air of care was on his brow, for his mind was ill at ease;So he leaned his head on his hand and read the papers on his knees.
Sheaf after sheaf he turned them o'er, nor ever glanced aside,He read the cost of wild-cat schemes and the price of humbled pride;He saw the ghosts of buried hopes, and wondered why they died.Then leaping to his feet upright, some moody turns he took,He sought the Labour Members' room to find a quiet nook;And, lo! he saw a swarthy man, who pored upon a book.
"Jimmy, my boy, what is't you read? Some tale of bygone ages?Or is it some new scheme to get less work for bigger wages?”But Jimmy gave an upward glance: “'Tis Hansard's classic pages.”
Six hasty strides the “Keystone" took, as smit by Jimmy's glance,Then slowly he came back to talk political romance;And sitting down by Jimmy's side, he spoke about finance.
He told how Fat Men walk the earth with stores of wealth untold,All eager to invest it in a policy that's bold;And how to prop the Sacred Arch he'd spent the Fat Man's gold.
"Ah, well,” quoth he, “I know for truth their wealth must be extreme;It ought to keep on flowing in a vast perennial stream.But, Jim, methought last night I killed the Fat Man in a dream.
“I did not use a knife or gun to strike him stiff and cold,I hit him with a policy that was both new and bold;I guessed that that would lay him flat, and I could spend his gold.
"Two sudden blows with the Income Tax and one with a Heavy Loan,One extra squeeze with the Day-Work stroke and then the deed was done;There was nothing lying at my feet but lifeless flesh and bone.
"Methought a crowd then gathered round, from town and bush they came,Ten thousand thousand unemployed, all crying out with blame;
I took the Fat Man by the hand and called upon his name.
"And, lo! from forth the famished crowd, from starving child and wife,There came a bitter, mournful cry that filled my ears with strife:'Thou foolish man, take up thy dead and bring it back to life!’
"I took the Fat Man's body up and bore it to a stream,I bathed his brow with Common Sense! my fright was so extreme;But Jim, my boy, remember this was nothing but a dream.
"For months I lived in agony, from weary chime to chime,The Arch, that stood so solid once was shaking all the time;The very rock on which it stood seemed changing into slime.
"My only hope was now a loan, and I resolved to try,I called upon the Fat Man with a wild despairing cry;But the Fat Man lay a heap of clay, and the stream of gold was dry.
"Then down I cast me on my face, and first began to weep,For I felt my billet then was one I could not hope to keep;And I cursed the howling unemployed with curses loud and deep.
"And now that wretched, horrid dream, pursues me while awake,Again, again, with frenzied brain, the Fat Man's life I take;And the constant wobbling of the Arch makes e'en the 'Keystone' shake.
"And still no peace from the hungry throng will night or day allow;The unemployed pursue my soul. They stand before me now!”The frightened Jim looked up, and saw huge drops upon his brow.
That very night, while gentle sleep Jim's tired eyes caressed,The “Keystone" tumbled from the Arch, then down fell all the rest;And Harum-Scarum lay beneath with the ruins on his chest.