Son of a Fool
Gyved and chained in his father's home,
He toiled 'neath a conqueror's rule;
Bowed to the earth in the land of his birth;
The Slave who was Son of a Fool.
Poor remnant he of a conquered race,
Long shorn of its power and pride,
No reverence shone in his sullen face
When they told how that race had died.
But the meed that he gave to his father's name
Was a down-drooped head and a flush of shame.
Burned in his brain was the pitiful tale
Of a sabre too late unsheathed;
Deep in his heart lay the poisoned dart
Of the shame that his sire bequeathed:
The searing shame of a laggard life,
Of an arm too weak in the hour of strife.
Oh, the Fool had reigned full many a year
In the Land of the Bounteous Gifts,
Dreaming and drifting, with never a fear,
As a doomed fool pleasantly drifts;
And he ate his fill of the gifts she gave
The Fool who was sire of a hopeless Slave.
Through years of plenty and years of peace
he lolled in the pleasing shade,
Marking his flocks and his herds increase,
Watching his waxing trade;
And he smiled when he heard of the old world's wars,
With never a care for his own rich stores.
Year by year as his harvest grew,
He gleaned with a lightsome heart;
His barns he filled, and he sowed and tilled,
Trading in port and mart.
Proud of his prowess in psort and trade
Was the Fool, who scoffed at an alien raid.
Little he recked of the gathering cloud
That boded a swift disgrace.
Was he not seed of a manly breed,
Proud son of a warlike race?
And he told of the deeds that his sires had done
While he wielded a bat in the place of a gun.
Small were his fears in the rich fat years,
Loud was his laugh of scorn
When they whispered low of a watching foe,
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
Added by Poetry Lover
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