Tonight my children hunch <br />Toward their Western, and are glad <br />As, with a Sunday punch, <br />The Good casts out the Bad. <br /> <br /> <br />And in their fairy tales <br />The warty giant and witch <br />Get sealed in doorless jails <br />And the match-girl strikes it rich. <br /> <br /> <br />I’ve made myself a drink. <br />The giant and witch are set <br />To bust out of the clink <br />When my children have gone to bed. <br /> <br /> <br />All frequencies are loud <br />With signals of despair; <br />In flash and morse they crowd <br />The rondure of the air. <br /> <br /> <br />For the wicked have grown strong, <br />Their numbers mock at death, <br />Their cow brings forth its young, <br />Their bull engendereth. <br /> <br /> <br />Their very fund of strength, <br />Satan, bestrides the globe; <br />He stalks its breadth and length <br />And finds out even Job. <br /> <br /> <br />Yet by quite other laws <br />My children make their case; <br />Half God, half Santa Claus, <br />But with my voice and face, <br /> <br /> <br />A hero comes to save <br />The poorman, beggarman, thief, <br />And make the world behave <br />And put an end to grief. <br /> <br /> <br />And that their sleep be sound <br />I say this childermas <br />Who could not, at one time, <br />Have saved them from the gas.<br /><br />Anthony Evan Hecht<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/it-out-herods-herod-pray-you-avoid-it/
