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Bread and Circuses

Chapter 27: LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS PRAISING A NOBLE LORD RECENTLY CREATED
By Helen Parry Eden
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Poetry

About This Book

A lyrical collection of short poems ranges from quiet country scenes and childhood memories to urban sketches and religious reflections. The poet renders streams, gardens, market sellers, and domestic interiors in close sensory detail while pairing everyday observation with moral and spiritual meditation. Animal vignettes and playful pieces for children sit alongside elegies, prayers, and ironic portraits of modern life, producing tones of humour, tenderness, and solemnity. Varied forms and concise portraits move between pastoral lanes, London streets, and intimate household moments while attending to time, sorrow, and faith.

LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS
PRAISING A NOBLE LORD
RECENTLY CREATED

[“Finally it is proof of his faith in his race and his country that he owns twenty thousand acres in England and fifteen thousand in Scotland; and he has no terrors even of Mr. Lloyd George’s budgets.”]

Permit, Dear Sir, that the judicious grieve Hearing you thus old Mammon’s faith profess And the career of commerce interweave With terms of more than standard unctuousness;
For (you yourself have said it) what reward Hope you enrolled among the sworn defenders Of one who, while you tender your regard, Remains impassive and regards his tenders?
True he has great possessions, well they might Stagger your brain and sway your understanding, His English leagues—while English paupers fight To hang their washing on a London landing;
Also (’tis as you say) while they the facts Deplore of governmental tolls, his rest Is still secure, nor any Georgian Acts Rouse panic terror in that sturdy breast.
And yet, and yet, Dear Sir, it would not do For all of us to kiss the feet that Fate Has set upon our necks although (with you) We own they are superlatively great;—
Here is a rule to save the like mistakes And sift the patriots from the money-makers, These take an interest in their country’s aches, And those an interest on their country’s acres.