Classic Poem

The Fool of the Family played with a fad,
And a knife, and deal, and a piece of wire,
In the midnight hours, till they thought him mad,
And they turned him out to a brute for hire.
And the years went by, and the world was blind,
And he lived or starved, and they did not care—
Till a great invention was given mankind,
And the Family Fool was a millionaire!

The Cur of the Family was thin and white,
More contemptible than the Family Fool—
A cur that would neither swear nor fight,
And they laughed in his shrinking face at school.
The years went by, and a charge was made
That altered a nation's destiny,
In the dust and blood of a Light Brigade—
And the leader was Colonel Kerr, V.C.

The Family Dunce was a delicate lad,
And he could not spell, and he scarce could write,
And they deemed him an idiot born, or mad,
For he'd dream and dream by the fire at night:
And the years went by and a song was writ,
And the music was made by the Idiot's friend—
And armies of Liberty marched to it
And won through a hundred defeats in the end.

The Wise Man gave to the Brave Man's cause
His money and brains for war or peace,
And the Poet—he sang of juster laws
That come and come as the war drums cease.
The red, red flags for a while are furled
And stored away with the guns and tents;
And the Brothers are sleeping all over the world,
And under a thousand monuments.