Classic Poem

In a bowl to sea went wise men three,
On a brilliant night of June:
They carried a net, and their hearts were set
On fishing up the moon.

The sea was calm, the air was balm,
Not a breath stirred low or high,
And the moon, I trow, lay as bright below,
And as round as in the sky.

The wise men with the current went,
Nor paddle nor oar had they,
And still as the grave they went on the wave,
That they might not disturb their prey.

Far, far at sea, were the wise men three,
When their fishing-net they threw;
And at the throw, the moon below
In a thousand fragments flew.

The sea was bright with the dancing light
Of a million million gleams,
Which the broken moon shot forth as soon
As the net disturbed her beams.

They drew in their net: it was empty and wet,
And they had lost their pain,
Soon ceased the play of each dancing ray,
And the image was round again.

Three times they threw, three times they drew,
And all the while were mute;
And evermore their wonder grew,
Till they could not but dispute.

Their silence they broke, and each one spoke
Full long, and loud, and clear;
A man at sea their voices three
Full three leagues off might hear.

The three wise men got home again
To their children and their wives:
But touching their trip, and their net's vain dip,
They disputed all their lives.

The wise men three could never agree,
Why they missed the promised boon;
They agreed alone that their net they had thrown,
And they had not caught the moon.

I have thought myself pale o'er this ancient tale,
And its sense I could not ken;
But now I see that the wise men three
Were paper-money men.

"Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub,'
Is a mystic burthen old,
Which I've pondered about till my fire went out,
And I could not sleep for cold.

I now divine each mystic sign,
Which robbed me oft of sleep,
Three men in a bowl, who went to troll,
For the moon in the midnight deep.

Three men were they who science drank
From Scottish fountains free;
The cash they sank in the Gotham bank,
Was the moon beneath the sea.

The breaking of the imaged moon,
At the fishing-net's first splash,
Was the breaking of the bank as soon
As the wise men claimed their cash.

The dispute which lasted all their lives,
Was the economic strife,
Which the son's son's son of every one
Will maintain through all his life.

The son's son's sons will baffled be,
As were their sires of old;
But they only agree, like the wise men three,
That they could not get their gold.

And they'll build systems dark and deep,
And systems broad and high;
But two of three will never agree
About the reason why.

And he who at this day will seek
The Economic Club,
Will find at least three sages there,
As ready as any that ever were
To go to sea in a tub.