The pomps of butchery, financial power, <br />Told 'em to die in war, and then to save, <br />Then cut their saving to the half or lower; <br />When will this system lie down in its grave? <br /> <br />The pomps of Fleet St., festering year on year, <br />Hid truth and lied, and lied and hid the facts. <br />The pimps of Whitehall ever more in fear, <br />Hid health statistics, dodged the Labour Acts. <br /> <br />All drew their pay, and as the pay grew less, <br />The money rotten and more rotten yet, <br />Hid more statistics, more feared to confess <br />C.3, C.4, 'twere better to forget <br /> <br />How many weak of mind, how much tuberculosis <br />Filled the back alleys and the back to back houses. <br />'The medical report this week discloses . . .' <br />'Time for that question!' Front Bench interposes. <br /> <br />Time for that question? and the time is NOW. <br />Who ate the profits, and who locked 'em in <br />The unsafe safe, wherein all rots, and no man can say how <br />What was the nation's, now by Norman's kin <br />Is one day blown up large, the next, ducked in?<br /><br />Ezra Pound<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/alf-s-fifth-bit/
