Written by
Sylvia Plath |
This is the easy time, there is nothing doing.
I have whirled the midwife's extractor,
I have my honey,
Six jars of it,
Six cat's eyes in the wine cellar,
Wintering in a dark without window
At the heart of the house
Next to the last tenant's rancid jam
and the bottles of empty glitters ----
Sir So-and-so's gin.
This is the room I have never been in
This is the room I could never breathe in.
The black bunched in there like a bat,
No light
But the torch and its faint
Chinese yellow on appalling objects ----
Black asininity.
Decay.
Possession.
It is they who own me.
Neither cruel nor indifferent,
Only ignorant.
This is the time of hanging on for the bees--the bees
So slow I hardly know them,
Filing like soldiers
To the syrup tin
To make up for the honey I've taken.
Tate and Lyle keeps them going,
The refined snow.
It is Tate and Lyle they live on, instead of flowers.
They take it.
The cold sets in.
Now they ball in a mass,
Black
Mind against all that white.
The smile of the snow is white.
It spreads itself out, a mile-long body of Meissen,
Into which, on warm days,
They can only carry their dead.
The bees are all women,
Maids and the long royal lady.
They have got rid of the men,
The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors.
Winter is for women ----
The woman, still at her knitting,
At the cradle of Spanis walnut,
Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.
Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?
The bees are flying.
They taste the spring.
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Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
The Premier and the Socialist
Were walking through the State:
They wept to see the Savings Bank
Such funds accumulate.
"If these were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be great.
"
"If three financial amateurs
Controlled them for a year,
Do you suppose," the Premier said,
"That they would get them clear?"
"I think so," said the Socialist;
"They would -- or very near!"
"If we should try to raise some cash
On assets of our own,
Do you suppose," the Premier said,
"That we could float a loan?"
"I doubt it," said the Socialist,
And groaned a doleful groan.
"Oh, Savings, come and walk with us!"
The Premier did entreat;
"A little walk, a little talk,
Away from Barrack Street;
My Socialistic friend will guide
Your inexperienced feet.
"
"We do not think," the Savings said,
"A socialistic crank,
Although he chance just now to hold
A legislative rank,
Can teach experienced Banking men
The way to run a Bank.
"
The Premier and the Socialist
They passed an Act or so
To take the little Savings out
And let them have a blow.
"We'll teach the Banks," the Premier said,
"The way to run the show.
"There's Tom Waddell -- in Bank finance
Can show them what is what.
I used to prove not long ago
His Estimates were rot.
But that -- like many other things --
I've recently forgot.
"Advances on a dried-out farm
Are what we chiefly need,
And loaned to friends of Ms.
L.
A.
Are very good, indeed,
See how the back-block Cockatoos
Are rolling up to feed.
"
"But not on us," the Savings cried,
Falling a little flat,
"We didn't think a man like you
Would do a thing like that;
For most of us are very small,
And none of us are fat.
"
"This haughty tone," the Premier said,
"Is not the proper line;
Before I'd be dictated to
My billet I'd resign!"
"How brightly," said the Socialist,
"Those little sovereigns shine.
"
The Premier and the Socialist
They had their bit of fun;
They tried to call the Savings back
But answer came there none,
Because the back-block Cockatoos
Had eaten every one.
|
Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
I never saw any difference
Between playing cards for money
And selling real estate,
Practicing law, banking, or anything else.
For everything is chance.
Nevertheless
Seest thou a man diligent in business?
He shall stand before Kings!
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
I was the Sunday school superintendent,
The dummy president of the wagon works
And the canning factory,
Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique;
My son the cashier of the bank,
Wedded to Rhodes' daughter,
My week day spent in making money,
My Sundays at church and in prayer.
In everything a cog in the wheel of things-as-they-are:
Of money, master and man, made white
With the paint of the Christian creed.
And then:
The bank collapsed.
I stood and looked at the wrecked machine --
The wheels with blow-holes stopped with putty and painted;
The rotten bolts, the broken rods;
And only the hopper for souls fit to be used again
In a new devourer of life, when newspapers, judges and money-magicians
Build over again.
I was stripped to the bone, but I lay in the Rock of Ages,
Seeing now through the game, no longer a dupe,
And knowing "the upright shall dwell in the land
But the years of the wicked shall be shortened.
"
Then suddenly, Dr.
Meyers discovered
A cancer in my liver.
I was not, after all, the particular care of God!
Why, even thus standing on a peak
Above the mists through which I had climbed,
And ready for larger life in the world,
Eternal forces
Moved me on with a push.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
So, the bank has bust it's boiler! And in six or seven year
It will pay me all my money back -- of course!
But the horse will perish waiting while the grass is germinating,
And I reckon I'll be something like the horse.
There's the ploughing to be finished and the ploughmen want their pay,
And I'd like to wire the fence and sink a tank;
But I own I'm fairly beat how I'm going to make ends meet
With my money in a reconstructed bank.
"It's a safe and sure investment!" But it's one I can't afford,
For I've got to meet my bills and bay the rent,
And the cash I had provided (so these meetings have decided)
Shall be collared by the bank at three per cent.
I can draw out half my money, so they tell me, from the Crown;
But -- it's just enough to drive a fellow daft --
My landlord's quite distressed, by this very bank he's pressed,
And he'll sell me up, to pay his overdraft.
There's my nearest neighbour, Johnson, owed this self-same bank a debt,
Every feather off his poor old back they pluck't,
For they set to work to shove him, and they sold his house above him,
Lord! They never gave him time to reconstruct.
And their profits from the business have been twenty-five per cent,
Which, I reckon, is a pretty tidy whack,
And I think it's only proper, now the thing has come a cropper,
That they ought to pay a little of it back.
I have read about "reserve funds", "banking freeholds", and the like,
Till I thought the bank had thousands of assets,
And it strikes me very funny that they take a fellow's money
When they haven't got enough to pay their debts.
And they say they've lent my money, and they can't get paid it back.
I know their rates per cent were tens and twelves;
And if they've made a blunder after scooping all this plunder,
Why, they ought to fork the money out themselves.
So all you bank shareholders, if you won't pay what you owe,
You will find that on your bank will fall a blight;
And the reason is because it's simply certain that deposits
Will be stopped, the bank will bust, and serve you right!
|
Written by
Ambrose Bierce |
How blest the land that counts among
Her sons so many good and wise,
To execute great feats of tongue
When troubles rise.
Behold them mounting every stump,
By speech our liberty to guard.
Observe their courage--see them jump,
And come down hard!
'Walk up, walk up!' each cries aloud,
'And learn from me what you must do
To turn aside the thunder cloud,
The earthquake too.
'Beware the wiles of yonder quack
Who stuffs the ears of all that pass.
I--I alone can show that black
Is white as grass.
'
They shout through all the day and break
The silence of the night as well.
They'd make--I wish they'd go and make--
Of Heaven a Hell.
A advocates free silver, B
Free trade and C free banking laws.
Free board, clothes, lodging would from me
Win wamr applause.
Lo, D lifts up his voice: 'You see
The single tax on land would fall
On all alike.
' More evenly
No tax at all.
'With paper money,' bellows E,
'We'll all be rich as lords.
' No doubt--
And richest of the lot will be
The chap without.
As many 'cures' as addle-wits
Who know not what the ailment is!
Meanwhile the patient foams and spits
Like a gin fizz.
Alas, poor Body Politic,
Your fate is all too clearly read:
To be not altogether quick,
Nor very dead.
You take your exercise in squirms,
Your rest in fainting fits between.
'Tis plain that your disorder's worms--
Worms fat and lean.
Worm Capital, Worm Labor dwell
Within your maw and muscle's scope.
Their quarrels make your life a Hell,
Your death a hope.
God send you find not such an end
To ills however sharp and huge!
God send you convalesce! God send
You vermifuge.
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