(ALEXANDER POPE OBSERVES THE CURRENT ELECTION SEASON WITH A NOD TO WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS)
What has this election season wrought,
But clishmaclaver passed as cogent thought?
To every age where one or others rule
Will come a crop of freshly minted fools
Who stand in opposition as the Right
And promise to the poor a worsened plight.
Hands that pull our strings will make the choice
Of whom they want to buy as peoples’ voice
Who tells us what to think and to believe—
But are we all so easy to deceive?
Have we had enough of outright lies,
Arrant greed in blessing-us disguise?
Yeats, you know I write in rhyme:
Washington, not Bethlehem, this time.