To The Private Member
By Thomas William Hodgson Crosland
My dear Sir, -
You may think it unkind of me
To interrupt the peaceful calm of your holiday
With a poem about business.
But I assure you, my dear sir,
That I do so with the very best intentions,
And at the call of what I consider to be duty.
Duty, as you know, is a tremendous abstraction,
And brings a man into all sorts of difficult corners.
It was duty that took you into Parliament:
Similarly it is duty that constrains me to Odes.
When a man sees another man and pities him,
It is the duty of the first man to let the other man know about it
Delicately.
I pity you, my dear Mr. Private Member,
From the bottom of a bottomless heart.
Many a time and oft in the course of my rambles
Through the lobbies and liquor bars of St. Stephens
It has been my ineffable portion to run across you -
Silk hat, frock coat, baggy trousers, patient stare, bored expression:
Suddenly you smile
And crook the pregnant hinges of the back of your neck.
Mrs. Wiggle, the three Misses Wiggle, and little Master Wiggle,
Wife, daughters, and son of Mr. Forthree Wiggle,
Draper, and burgess of the good old Parliamentary Division
Of Mudsher West,
Are up from Mudsher West,
And they want showin' round the 'Ouse, you know.
Round you go.
Again: you appear in the Strangers' Lobby,
Spectacles on nose, somebody's card in hand.
The policeman roars out name of leading constituent.
Leading constituent departed in a huff twenty minutes ago,
Because he thought you were not attending to him.
There being no answer,
Policeman roars out name of leading constituent once more.
Name echoes along Lords' Lobby;
But not being there, leading constituent fails to come forward.
You look embarrassed, turn tail, retire to your back bench,
And feel deucedly uncomfortable for the rest of the evening.
You would like to get away to the theatre,
But you dare not do it:
There are Whips about.
You would like to go home to bed;
You must wait the good pleasure of the course of the debate.
You would like to stand on your hind legs
And address the House on large matters:
But you know in your heart
That the House will stand absolutely nothing from you
Bar a question or so.
You sit, and sit, and sit through dull debate after dull debate,
And you sigh for the hustings and the brass bands,
And the banquets and the "He's-a-jolly-good-fellow"-s
And wonder how it comes to pass
That you, who were once set down in the Mudsher Mercury
For a blend of Demosthenes and John Bright,
Can never get more than twenty words off the end of your tongue
After "Mr. Speaker, Sir."
Oh! my dear Mr. Private Member,
Your case is indeed a sad one,
And it is all the sadder when one comes to reflect
That, as a general rule, you are a sincereish sort of man,
Burning and bursting with a desire
To do your poor suffering country
A bit of good.
You know that the men who have the ear of the House
Are mere talkers;
That they are only "playing the party game,"
And that the country may go to pot for anything they care.
And yet they make their speeches
And get them reported at length in the papers,
And are given places in the Cabinet,
And go for "dines-and-sleeps" with the King,
What time you grow old and grey and obese and bleary eyed,
And never get the smallest show.
I pity you, my dear Mr. Private Member, I do really.
But for your comfort I may tell you
That all you lack
Is courage
And brains.