GOP Clatter

Who is in charge of the clattering GOP?

Like a doomed train, they have a slip-slop.

Check the steering creaks and the joints strains.

It set forth 200 years behind the nexus swain.

And we're a fewer, no less now to the bane.

At every minute mark, alarms ring in vain.

Who is controlling the clanking GOP?

Who is in charge of the clattering GOP?

You may talk of men of courage till hoarse.

The shafts are banging with a prate of force.

Cain is in charge of the jabbering main!

The title-tattle reverberates like a drain.

Cain, in the shape of a conceited cyclone;

He claims a boastful life on the capstone.

A not-a-so-stolid, and mostly gruff,

Still unpolished of unsteady stuff.

Only a man, he carries away on his back,

many caprice passengers with their trust.

In this fellow of ashes and dust—

they hail a monarch.

He roused them to confidence in the dark.

In slumber's trance, up goes the moral decline.

These men are dirge-caroling, their heads incline.

Fast in the mazy ride for the punishing beeline.

A shell now, the grim miles of disservice defined.

Nerves are cheap to purchase but stout to serve.

Strained too fiercely, it will faint the single brave.

Some claim the over-weight and underpaid wave.

Many hearts beat placidly on blithe and unsaved.

This Cain wields tools exploiting infomercial steal.

He feigned tougher than leather, tenser than steel.

Bails at last, on the inauguration, his senses reel,

His nerves collapse from unsighted eyes congeal.

Prone and helpless, a log, he leaves the stage!

Many hearts beat serene with unturned rage.

The vile warder is gone in pain, writhe-engage.

Slow burn overtakes the GOP clattering freight!

Source: Milliken, Edwin. The Clattering Train, Ireland, The Punch, 1890