At Six O'Clock In the Morning Upon the Sixth of June

At six o’clock in the morning Upon the sixth of June Came Michael-Paul O’Higgins Into this bustling world. At school he was but middling, He never cut much ice In English, Maths, Geography, In Scripture, Sport or Art. In early adolescence On the back seat of a bus He found a tract on how we must Seek out Salvation’s path. Soon at the local gospel hall He preached with fire and zeal. “Put all your trust in Jesus, In no prelate, prince or priest.” He learned a thousand texts by heart, Knew the number of the Beast, And having read the Bible through, Turned back to Genesis. His school performance soon shot up, He banished ease and sloth. No dirty jokes would pass his lips, Like they might from other folks. N this world, too, is virtue blessed. His hard work soon bore fruit. He gained a place at Oxford. His ambition was the Church. But lofty halls of learning May stifle simple faith, And Michael-Paul had fits of doubt That caused his lapse from grace. He switched to Economics And flirted with Karl Marx. To a secular millennium He strove to find the path. Soon active carrying banners, Their colour deep-dyed red, He got caught up in fisticuffs And was bundled off to clink. They noted his particulars, Affiliations, too. The magistrate just said “tut tut” And he was free to go. However minor was this brush, He aimed to live it down. He learned to mind his P’s and Q’s And be just plain bourgeois. Forgetting youth’s illusions, For a salary safe and sure Than ran into six figures He sold Babylon his soul. Up higher, ever higher, He climbed each echelon Until the plum job of his dreams Was juggling on his nose. But in some data memory bank Was that record from his past, The which, recalled in a routine check, Gummed up his future plans. He lost his job, his house, his wife, He lost his heart and soul, And now he’s palely loitering In the long queue for the dole. O wise man, give an answer, O say what devil’s art Has turned his world reformer, This promising performer, Into a mere statistic On an economic chart?