I leant upon a ballot-box
When Edgbaston declar'd,
And watched them altering the clocks
While all the beds were air'd.
Yon brand new broom threw up the dust
Like sparks of gilded light,
And all mankind that hunted crust
Found sanctuary that night.
The Leader's features seemed to mean
The Century's corpse revived,
His face as sweet, and thereto clean
As ever Fate contrived.
The fulgent pulse in skin and bone
Bespoke a breath of spring,
And every grub beneath a stone
Grew moth-white on the wing.
At once there rose the scritching sound
Of bristle-beaten hearth
Like aged powder scrubbing round
The tidemark on a bath;
A besom-brush, with sudden case,
Pushed forward through the fug,
And swept the crud of centuries
Beneath new Labour's rug.
So little cause for celebrants
To raise their tankards high
I never saw, but looked askance
As on the brush rushed by,
Some hope, indeed, who watch it flail,
It drives out all Despair,
But I'm half-cut on Dorset ale
And bugger'd if I care.
