Lollius

by Rudyard Kipling

    Why gird at Lollius if he care
    To purchase in the city’s sight,
    With nard and roses for his hair,
    The name of Knight?

    Son of unmitigated sires
    Enriched by trade in Afric corn,
    His wealth allows, his wife requires,
    Him to be born.

    Him slaves shall serve with zeal renewed
    At lesser wage for longer whiles,
    And school- and station-masters rude
    Receive with smiles.

    His bowels shall be sought in charge
    By learned doctors; all his sons
    And nubile daughters shall enlarge
    Their horizons.

    For fierce she-Britons, apt to smite
    Their upward-climbing sisters down,
    Shall smooth their plumes and oft invite
    The brood to town.

    For these delights will he disgorge
    The State enormous benefice,
    But, by the head of either George,
    He pays not twice!

    Whom neither lust for public pelf,
    Nor itch to make orations, vex,
    Content to honour his own self
    With his own cheques,

    That man is clean. At least, his house
    Springs cleanly from untainted gold,
    Not from a conscience or a spouse
    Sold and resold.

    Time was, you say, before men knew
    Such arts, and rose by Virtue guided?
    The tables rock with laughter, you
    Not least derided.