The Politician by Willliam Wilfred Campbell

Carven in leathern mask or brazen face,
Were I time’s sculptor, I would set this man.
Retreating from the truth, his hawk-eyes scan
The platforms of all public thought for place.
There wriggling with insinuating grace.
He takes poor hope and effort by the hand.
And flatters with half-truths and accents bland,
Till even zeal and earnest love grow base.

Knowing no right, save power’s grim right-of-way
No nobleness, save life’s ignoble praise;
No future, save this sordid day to day;
He is the curse of these material days:
Juggling with mighty wrongs and mightier lies,
This worshipper of Dagon and his flies!

From: Campbell, Wilfred and Sykes, W.J. (ed.), The Poetical Works of Wilfred Campbell, 1922, Hodder and Stoughton: London, p. 240.
(http://www.archive.org/stream/poeticalworks00campuoft#page/240/mode/2up)

Date: 1905

By: William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918)