And yet, when the years had humbled
The Kings in the Realm of the Boy,
Song-built bastions crumbled,
Ash-heaps smothering Troy;
Thirsting for shattered flagons,
Quaffing a brackish cup,
With all of his chariots, wagons --
He never could quite grow up.
The debt to the ogre, To-morrow,
He never could comprehend:
Why should the borrowers borrow?
Why should the lenders lend?
Never an oak tree borrowed,
But took for its needs -- and gave.
Never an oak tree sorrowed;
Debt was the mark of the slave.
Grass in the priceless weather
Sucked from the paps of the Earth,
And the hills that were lean it fleshed with green --
Oh, what is a lesson worth?
But still did the buyers barter
And the sellers squint at the scales;
And price was the stake of the martyr,
And cost was the lock of the jails.