Eugene McCarthy's Lyrical Politics

written by John Nichols (a must read)

"Eugene McCarthy and his followers put their feet to the treadle in 1967 and 1968, challenged the men of distance years, betting on the inadvertence of a poet-senator, and changing the course of their party and their nation. For a moment, all too brief, they found a common ground between poetry and politics -- and they inspired a nation, or at least a few of its more adventurous states, to take a leap of faith.

Whose foot is on the treadle
That turns the burning stars
Has spun the world half way round
Since last I called
Come down, come down.


That stars that in September
Looked through the mournful rain
Now set their sight again
Upon a world half night, half light

Men of distant years have said
That much depends on change of seasons
On solstices and equinox
And they have given reasons.

I disagree.
Too much turns on inadvertence
On what seems to be
An accident of hand and knee
A chance sunrise
A glance of eyes
~Eugene McCarthy

The poet is gone now. But something of him lingers, on a shelf of finer books than we have much right to expect of a politician and in the memory of a campaign more lyrical than all but the luckiest of of us have since experienced." posted by Cyndy | link | | |
Home