PRaYeR oF a KeYNeSiaN FooL

PRAYER OF A KEYNESIAN FOOL

(The Fool's Prayer, Edward Roland Sill)

WilliamBanzai7

HE royal feast was done; the Chairman

Sought some new monetary trick to banish care,

And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a Keynesian prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,

And stood the mocking court before;

They could not see the bitter smile

Behind the fractional reserved grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee

Upon the desperate Chairman's silken stool;

His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with debt to darkened wool;

The markets must heal the sin: but Lord,

Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!

"'T is not by gilt the downward steep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

'T is by our follies that so long

We hold titled men of fraud away from Dante's fate.

"These clumsy feet, still in the economic mire,

Go debasing common wealth without end;

These duplicitous hands we thrust

To pull the heart-strings of our bankrupt friends.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept--

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?

The word we had not sense to say--

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask.

The chastening jail stripes must cleanse them all;

But for our fiat blunders -- oh, in shame

Before the eyes of market heaven we shall fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool

That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose

The Chairman, and sought his gardens cool,

And walked apart, and murmured low,

"Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!"

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