To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue,