(A SOLILOQUY AFTER A DAY'S WORK AT THE MINISTRY OF FOOD).
[Sir JOHN FIELD BEALE, formerly First Secretary of the Ministry of
Food, has been in consultation with the Supreme Council for Supply
and Relief in Paris. Sir WILLIAM BEVERIDGE has just returned from
a mission of inquiry into the food situation in Austria.]
Let others speed to far Sequanian shores
To end the War that was to end all wars,
Where peace-pursuing Discord loud debates
And all hotels are packed with Delegates;
Where pundits in the Parliament of Man
Discuss or Georgian or Wilsonian Plan;
Where fickle Fate dispenses weal or woe
Respectively assigned to friend and foe;
Where Cornucopia meekly comes to heel
Under instructions from Sir JOHN FIELD BEALE.
Let others in Icarian feats engage
With the ingenious aid of HANDLEY PAGE;
Haste to discover all that may be known
About the situation in Cologne;
Or, like Sir WILLIAM BEVERIDGE, to appease
The clamourings of esurient Viennese--
In none of these things Fortune waits for me,
Nor Knighthood cheap, nor unctuous O.B.E.
Ah, not for me to note with facile pen
Successive stages of the L. of N.
With calorimetric and statistic arts
Administer the prog of Foreign Parts,
Or, eager not to do the thing by halves,
To reconcile the Czechs and Jugo-Slavs--
I will, resigning honours, kudos, pelf,
Administer hot cocoa to myself;
Then to repose; for it is truly said
The best location of mankind is BED.
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