Red Tape
I. THE CIVIL SERVANT
Maybe a son of storekeepers,
Maybe a son of belted Earls —
They catch him young and cramp his brains
Like feet of Chinese baby girls.
A blatant politician's pup,
A silly mother's hope and joy,
He never sees the glorious chance
That comes to every office boy.
From brain-dead North-Shore boarding-house
To soul-dead office, and the block;
From tennis assignations there
To wicked teas at four o'clock;
A custard spoon, a bunch of flowers,
A racquet in his nerveless hand —
The civil servant all complete!
His is the pen that rules the land.
His is the hand that signs all day
The ruin of many an honest life:
The glib lies taken down and typed
In dullness by his future wife,
From some dry departmental head
Born of the town, dead of the town,
Whose soul was nearly always dead —
Less than machine! Machines break down.
And high above the fat men wait,
Hog-like through all — unmoved as yet;
And — not through typewriters — dictate
Their mandate to the " Cabinet " .
The wretched guilty innocents! —
They'd sit the same and serve as well —
Unfeelingly and stupidly,
While their gross bodies grilled in hell.
What time the Minister for Muck,
While brave colleagues out-louse the louse,
Slangs beaten battlers in the ruck
Above the skiting of the " House " ,
Then job and rob — the same old mob
But wiser for the jobs gone by —
Behind blue-paper parapets,
Behind the coward's red-tape lie.
Imagine these as ministers
To slums and western watersheds,
Who, one short week in Parliament,
Had lost their blasted puppy heads;
Imagine these to save the land
From profiteers, distress and drought,
Tomorrow feeding from the hand
Of whosoever turns them out.
The simple truth is never heard
Where red-tape bound " returns " are stacked,
And at a smug official's word
A straight outspoken man is " sacked "
Boy louts, boy scouts, boy sneaks, boy freaks,
Boy College cads, boy anythings,
" Directed to communicate "
With, maybe, one of Nature's Kings!
And thus are Civil Servants trained,
Till eyes are blind and hearts are stone,
By Headquarters, where Wrong and Right
Are " not officially known " .
(For woman's lies and red-tape lies,
How many mourn their ruined youth?
Or rave in madhouses and gaols
" Delusions " that are all the truth?)
O Heroes of Gallipoli!
You know the Glory and the shame!
They fight amongst your buried dead
To save your sacrifice and fame!
It was not barbed-wire trench nor bomb
Nor shell, nor dysentery, nor " flu " ,
But greed, conceit, or pride of place —
Ring and Red-Tape that murdered you.
O Western friend with eyes that blink,
Bewildered at the candle light,
Up to your brow in honest ink,
When you should rest and sleep at night;
Write to the Minister for Shirks —
He said that something would be done
" In the near future " . Thus it works,
But you've no jargon! (I have one.)
Bushwoman! Wife of soldier dead,
Who fight the drought by Stony Creek!
Will Red Tape from your blurred " returns "
Sort out the tale you cannot speak?
Yet none is fit in Martin Place,
" The House " , or any house between,
To kneel down in the dust and lace
Your droughty blucher-boots, my Queen!
Maybe a son of storekeepers,
Maybe a son of belted Earls —
They catch him young and cramp his brains
Like feet of Chinese baby girls.
A blatant politician's pup,
A silly mother's hope and joy,
He never sees the glorious chance
That comes to every office boy.
From brain-dead North-Shore boarding-house
To soul-dead office, and the block;
From tennis assignations there
To wicked teas at four o'clock;
A custard spoon, a bunch of flowers,
A racquet in his nerveless hand —
The civil servant all complete!
His is the pen that rules the land.
His is the hand that signs all day
The ruin of many an honest life:
The glib lies taken down and typed
In dullness by his future wife,
From some dry departmental head
Born of the town, dead of the town,
Whose soul was nearly always dead —
Less than machine! Machines break down.
And high above the fat men wait,
Hog-like through all — unmoved as yet;
And — not through typewriters — dictate
Their mandate to the " Cabinet " .
The wretched guilty innocents! —
They'd sit the same and serve as well —
Unfeelingly and stupidly,
While their gross bodies grilled in hell.
What time the Minister for Muck,
While brave colleagues out-louse the louse,
Slangs beaten battlers in the ruck
Above the skiting of the " House " ,
Then job and rob — the same old mob
But wiser for the jobs gone by —
Behind blue-paper parapets,
Behind the coward's red-tape lie.
Imagine these as ministers
To slums and western watersheds,
Who, one short week in Parliament,
Had lost their blasted puppy heads;
Imagine these to save the land
From profiteers, distress and drought,
Tomorrow feeding from the hand
Of whosoever turns them out.
The simple truth is never heard
Where red-tape bound " returns " are stacked,
And at a smug official's word
A straight outspoken man is " sacked "
Boy louts, boy scouts, boy sneaks, boy freaks,
Boy College cads, boy anythings,
" Directed to communicate "
With, maybe, one of Nature's Kings!
And thus are Civil Servants trained,
Till eyes are blind and hearts are stone,
By Headquarters, where Wrong and Right
Are " not officially known " .
(For woman's lies and red-tape lies,
How many mourn their ruined youth?
Or rave in madhouses and gaols
" Delusions " that are all the truth?)
O Heroes of Gallipoli!
You know the Glory and the shame!
They fight amongst your buried dead
To save your sacrifice and fame!
It was not barbed-wire trench nor bomb
Nor shell, nor dysentery, nor " flu " ,
But greed, conceit, or pride of place —
Ring and Red-Tape that murdered you.
O Western friend with eyes that blink,
Bewildered at the candle light,
Up to your brow in honest ink,
When you should rest and sleep at night;
Write to the Minister for Shirks —
He said that something would be done
" In the near future " . Thus it works,
But you've no jargon! (I have one.)
Bushwoman! Wife of soldier dead,
Who fight the drought by Stony Creek!
Will Red Tape from your blurred " returns "
Sort out the tale you cannot speak?
Yet none is fit in Martin Place,
" The House " , or any house between,
To kneel down in the dust and lace
Your droughty blucher-boots, my Queen!
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