On the Scales + 

The proverb hath it, Waterman: + 

“There never is great loss without + 

Some little gain.” ’Tis Nature’s plan + 

Of restitution, I’ve no doubt; + 

As sometimes a repentant thief + 

Restores, for conscience’s relief, + 

Some ten percent, or thereabout, + 

Of all the loot with which he ran. + 

Dear Governor, when you were ill + 

You lost, they say, some twenty pound; + 

But, muse and ponder as I will. + 

And cast my searching thoughts around, + 

I find in that great loss no gain⁠— + 

Unless indeed in heart and brain + 

You suffered it; but I’ll be bound + 

That they are unaffected still. + 

For still you’re foolish and absurd, + 

And still malicious and perverse + 

As ever; and in truth I’ve heard + 

That since recovering you’re worse. + 

The inference, I think, is fair: + 

You lost not what we best could spare: + 

Your character remains to curse + 

The State until you’re sepulchred. + 

’Tis true there’s measurably less + 

Of you to pack⁠—and you’re a load⁠— + 

But chiefly that concerns, I guess, + 

The patient beast that you bestrode + 

When, booted, spurred and gloved and all, + 

You led Mark Boruck from the stall, + 

To ride him on that rocky road, + 

Political unrighteousness. + 

In gain to Boruck, though, we scan + 

A loss to every honest soul, + 

It aids the weekly Harridan, + 

His thoroughbred-and-butter foal. + 

To end: the weight whose loss we mourn, + 

From Waterman by illness torn, + 

Was mostly water⁠—it were droll + 

To learn he’d twenty pounds of man! + 