Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, 
Candidate for president who sketched a silver Zion... 
There were truths eternal in the gab and tittle-tattle, 
There were real heads broken in the fustian and the rattle, 
There were real lines drawn; 
Not the silver and the gold, 
But Nebraska's cry went eastward against the dour and the old, 
The mean and the cold....

Oh, the longhorns of Texas, 
The jay hawks from Kansas, 
The plop-eyed bungaro and giant gassicus, 
The varmint, chipmunk, bugabo, 
The horned-toad, prarie-dog, and ballyhoo, 
From all the newborn states arow... 

And all these in their helpless days 
By the dour East oppressed, 
Mean paternalism 
Making their mistakes for them, 
Crucifying half the West, 
Till the whole Atlantic coast 
Seemed a giant spider's nest...