Empire Building Poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Somehow I never liked you, John, your ways were crude
Your smile was pharisaical, your manners rude;
Although you prospered well in wordly things,
Ay, were on nodding terms with Czars and Kings,
I seem to see the counter and the store,
And all the shopman's manners learnt before
You donned the regal robes of finer folk,
And in your brain the strong desire awoke
To play the master where you were the man,—
Plain Hodge, make blue the plebeian blood that ran
To warm the grocer of those early days,
Who sanded sugar and who mixed his tea
Before he bowed in Sunday sanctity,
With that lank Scotsman who your partner was.
Ah, no, I never liked you, John, because
You were a braggart and a pharisee,
Held many slaves, yet prated 'Liberty.'

Your sweated people toiled to make you great,
Swept out your store and laboured long and late.
Their pay was poor, their faces lined with care,
Of all good things you took the lion's share.
In foreign lands, half naked, they slaved on
To gather gold to heap your plate upon;
You'd swagger past, proud of their dull amaze,
In Royal purple, eager for all praise.

Oh, long ago, when you were yet a boy,
You always took the other children's toy;
And you were best at playing games of bluff,
And no one liked you, John; your ways were rough.
I well remember Kate, who lived next door,
Her pretty eyes and snowy pinafore,
Which oft you would mud-spatter and then call
'Oh, see the dirty girl,' to one and all.

A jealous and a greedy boy you were,
And loved to make a spectacle of her,
Because she never liked you, John, since you
To her sweet garden forced your rough way through.
She heard you beg 'Oh, Father, let me go;
I'll teach her how to make the white flowers grow.'
And always since I hear the same old cry
'There's none so good, so fine, so brave as I.'
Ay, even when I roam to some far spot
'Neath Eastern skies, by world and time forgot,
I see the dusky people creeping by,
Alarmed to hear your shout of 'I, I, I.'
'I'll show them how, I'll tell them what, and why;
I'll bid them how to live, and how to die.'
And when I, yawning, seek some further shore,
Some Indian strand, I hear your voice once more

'I'll teach them how to work, and how to pray.'
Oh, John, you never think before your day
Rome was, Greece was—can one believe it true?—
Great Egypt died, and never heard of you!

How all the small folk hated you, big John!
As you grew fat their little pastures on;
And yet they quailed before you, or your state,
And walked behind you—all save little Kate!
She could not tame you with her gentle ways
Yet her right anger filled you with amaze.
When she would face you, giving jeer for jeer,
You struck her down, and laughed to see her tear.
With her great heart for pity not too strong,
Yet not too weak for anger at the wrong
You loved to plague her with, as when a child
You gave her grief if e'er you thought she smiled.
You snatched her flag, her gun, her little ships—
The very bread that touched her parted lips!
Her pretty chainey and her shining glass,
And all that took your greedy eyes, alas!
Then with rough promise sought to still her cry,
And named her 'Vixen' to the passer-by.
Ah, with what care a seething pot you'd brew
A bitter draught none mixed so well as you;
You'd force her take, so, weakened, you might cry
'She's ne'er contented, yet how good am I.'

The little Church wherein she loved to tell
Her pretty beads, I do remember well,
How you would push her out, and there would stay,
With eyes uplifted, as you seemed to pray—
Ah! when, indeed, I most mistrusted you
Was when you prayed, whose Trinity I knew
The scrubbing brush, the belly, and the purse,
All badly served. Your cleanliness a curse
Of little minds, that have no thoughts to fill
The chambers of their brain, and have no will
But service to the petty things of life,
Destroy sweet Calm with their incessant strife,
Cleaning, yet never clean, they ever seek
To whiten sepulchres. Your table rude
With all its ill-prepared and heavy food
To feed your dull yet eager appetite.
Your purse well filled can shrink or can expand
To thirty silver pieces to your hand.

Yet, John, I must admit in many ways
You have your virtues not devoid of praise.
Could I forget sweet Kate who lived next door,
With sweetest eyes and snowy pinafore.
She was of finer clay—a child of dreams
Who knew the secret songs of hills and streams.
Made from the passions of the four great seas,
Lithe as the swaying of the storm-swept trees,
Sweet as the heather-bell on moorland height,
Blue were her eyes, her hair a clouding night.
What knew you, Hodge, of such a one as this,
Whose lips were lewd and had a ploughman's kiss?
She'll never love you, John, howe'er you smile—
A sour grimace that hides the deeper guile.
Too often you her tender heart betrayed
For her at last to listen unafraid
Of some new plan to strike her down again,
To break her heart in plotting for your gain.
Yes, as I love her, John, I you despise
And loathe you for the sorrow in her eyes.
Ah, no, we'll never like you, Hodge, your ways are crude,
Your smile is pharisaical, your manners rude.