HYMN TO THE REPUBLIC

HYMN TO THE REPUBLIC

They say you have too many hydrogen bombs.
I do not think so: you do not have enough.

They say you have too many ICBM’s.
I do not think so: you do not have enough.

They say you have too many soldiers and sailors and airmen.
I do not think so: you do not have enough.

They say you are too rich and too powerful.
I do not think so: you are not rich and powerful enough.

They say your fingers itch with empire and grab.
I do not think so: your sensitive fingers do not itch enough.

Shine on, glorious republic.

I love your baseball heroes, America.
I love your movie stars, America.
I love your pop art, America.
I love your politicians, America.
I love your great Jewish comics, America.
Land of the brave, home of the free
Defender of human liberty.

Beside you other lands are bad plumbing and rusted toilet seats.
Beside you other lands are anaemia and bad breath.
Beside you other lands are privilege and decaying perukes.
Beside you other lands are somnolence and embroidered counterpanes.
Beside you other lands are the belch of dictators and ukases.

God bless you America.

I revere your great presidents, America.
I revere your great generals, America.
I revere your great writers, America.
I revere your great philanthropists, America.
I revere your great rebels, America.
O say can you see!
I’m wild about your hospitality to fearful Russian poets.
& your hospitality to Canadian talent and brains
unable to find anybackers at home.
& Bobby Kennedy’s new hairstyle.
& your plunging, adventuring financiers and businessmen:
more power to them at home - and abroad where they’re especially needed.
& the Negro riots in Buffalo and Detroit.
& President Johnson:
in my crystal ball I see the seraphim already dusting the golden chair he’ll occupy at the right hand of Abraham Lincoln.
& Judy Garland and Casius Clay.
I’m wild about your guts, dash, generosity,
your dreams and idealism.
I’m wild, America, about your heroic and persistent sense of failure.

God bless you, America.

May the Stars and Stripes wave briskly forever;
May it wave from the highest mountain peak,
The breeze bringing to tyrants and terrorists everywhere
A fatal bone-chilling pneumonia
But to Canadian socialists & nationalists & academic creeps
Only the common cold
for with us parochialism and stupidity are geopolitical
Fate for the same reason that moralic syrup is the favourite beverage of all
Little peoples condemned to crawl between the feet of towering historic giants.
Without its warming taste how could they endure themselves or one another
As croaking in their barren frogponds their round, empty eyes blink across
The surrounding gloom:
cowardice is wisdom; mediocrity, sanity, philistinism.
Olympian serenity; and the spitefulness of the weak, moral indignation.

I am sorry for you, America.
You deserve grander neighbours
Than assholes covered with ten-gallon hats!

Shine on, glorious republic, shine forever.

Irving Layton, 1966