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it was a strange and mottled thing
all the colors and stripes of life,
a blend of all voices upon its timid tongue.
It has been fed to grow and while naturally shy
yet so much attention each second and fourth year
It seems to shine like the greatest of fascinations.
It was the anchor that dragged an awful war
until the ship-of-conflict ran aground
public opinion stood like the stand at New Orleans
when young America found a stone walled will.
But in recent times it has been battered
abused and terribly despoiled; when her dim eyed guardians
failed; she became the victim of a false crusade
so many bombs bursting in meaningless airs
and New Orleans fell beneath the sea...
Treated so shabbily, even by those once so adoring
now they put on skirts to mock it , and paint it
in colors that frighten and warn, but none so much
as those it holds most dear.
Poor public opinion and now those that
worship at the altar of a vengeful,frigid love
have given her over to those who speak
from the fattened land of profits, while many suffer
they grow great, deciding the fates of pieces of the world.
Oh, poor public opinion, where to rest our weary frame
when the mountains that make war come to take you?
Where will you go...the back alleys, ahh, yes
will be safer than Main Street, and the ballot boxes
will frighten you...they will look like the boxes you once knew
covered with flags, one by one come home...
to your tearful refuge.
Now, you will sink beneath waves of tainted green
here when truth comes to auction
Public Opinion, you can do nothing more,
if you cannot pay the price of freedom...
I last saw public opinion on a rooftop howling at the moon
it was a dream, I am sure, but the lonesome desolate sound...
made me weep.
