Classic Poem

" Come! Sell me, friends, your shadows!
Election day for a trade! "
They saw that he cast no shadow
And huddled together, afraid.
" Ha! then if shadows come dearly " —
He laughed like the billy goats —
" Trade me your birthrights, merely:
I pay spot cash for your votes! "

Beneath a bridge he paid them
To vote as they were told:
" Now, keep your shadows, bullies,
But your manhood ye have sold! "
The peddler without a shadow
Their bodies retained for tolls,
And only their shadows voted
When there opened Norfwark's polls!

Since then all Norfwark's elections
By phantoms have carried been;
Their shadows are voted in sections,
But not the living men;
The coin of gold to buy them
Their images throws, like a sun,
And their neighbors identify them
By reflections, every one!

They are known by their purchase money,
Forever so bought and sold,
By their faces never sunny
And their sons aye poor and old,
And they moan: " Thou peddler, bad, oh!
Return us our manhood again!
O, take us out of our shadow
And vote us as real men! "