I much esteem the rubber-stamp cartoons, <br />Symbols of paleozoic pedigree -- <br />Age-battered emblems that for moons and <br />moons <br />Have roused my righteous wrath or gurgling <br />glee: <br />Stern Justice with her Scales and Snicker <br />snee, <br />The Horn of Plenty stuffed with plums and <br />pears <br />And hothouse grapes, in wild luxuriancy, <br />The dear old Paper Cap that Labor wears. <br /> <br />Dear to my heart as dim remembered runes <br />Of childhood twittered from a nurse s knee. <br />Are Uncle Sam s starred Hat and Panta <br />loons, <br />The Ship of State, the Snake of Anarchy, <br />The smoking stacks of good old Industry, <br />The tyrant Trust that nought and no one <br />spares <br />All these I cherish, one especially-- <br />The dear old Paper Cap that Labor wears. <br />Fresh as the dew upon a peck of prunes, <br />Green as Joe Miller s jocund jeux d' esprit -- <br />So fresh, so green those mossy old lampoons <br />That never fail to make a hit with me: <br />The Dinner Pail, the Presidential Bee, <br />Oblivion s Chasm, to which the dead one <br />fares, <br />And rooted like an oak in memory -- <br />The dear old Paper Cap that Labor wears. <br /> <br />Immortal lid, I lift my own to thee! <br />Tenacious lid, that Time nor dents nor tears! <br />Symbol encrusted with antiquity! -- <br />The dear old Paper Cap that Labor wears.<br /><br />Bert Leston Taylor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-of-a-moss-grown-symbol/
