A Dream of Votes and Frogs

Vote, vote, vote, vote!

Mr. Atkinson (F.), a Ministerialist, was on his feet when Mr. Brennan sought to apply the closure, resumed the discussion and as the hands of the clock approached other Labor members rose crying,"Vote! The monotonous cry at last resembled the croaking of frogs in a pond. Mr. Atkinson endeavored to make himself heard, but the monotonous chant proceded. "Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote!"

Vote, vote, vote, vote!
Oh, how the politicians dote
Upon that strange and abstract thing
In praise of which the members sing.
Oh, brothers, their loud paeans note:
Vote, vote, vote, vote!

Brothers, I have been a goat
All my life about the vote.
When I came to twenty-one
Deep I studied how 'twas done;
Step into the polling place,
Mark your cross with simple grace;
Then all things you need, may hap,
Will be landed in your lap.

Unsophisticated I
Thought that I was home and dry.
For the man who made the cross,
To my mind, seemed to be boss.
But as years brought common sense
And as I became less dense,
Brothers I began to note
How the members treat the vote.

Votes are money; votes are life;
Votes are food for child and wife.
Votes are just the difference—
Quite colossal and immense—
'Twixt a life of ease and shirk
And a life of honest work.

For, behold ye, brothers mine,
Yesternight, at half-past nine,
I retired me to my couch;
And, I own, I had a grouch
On humanity at large.
I was quite prepared to charge
All the world with being crook.
Then a little nap I took.

So I slept, and so I dreamed.
Tossing wildly, and it seemed
I was strolling in a marsh
Where the voices, loud and harsh,
Of the frogs kept croaking, croaking
Till the matter seemed past joking,
And revenge crept in my bones.
So I stooped and gathered stones.

And it seemed, as I was dreaming,
Casting stones and loudly screaming,
That the stones with which I smote
Represented, each, a vote,
And I threw them, hard and hot,
Killing frogs with every shot.

Later on, the last lone frog
Rose and sat upon a log—
Bent, and sadly he addressed me,
Asking what it was possessed me.
"What," he said, "in play to you
Means just death to all our crew?
Why?" he cried, in mournful tones,
"Will you not cease casting stones?"

Then, just as the chief frog spoke,
In the darkness I awoke.
And I thought, "These votes I cast
Have had some effect at last."
But, ever since, four days a week,
When I note the members speak,
I can hear—'tis most provoking—
Just a croaking, croaking, croaking.