It's funny 'coz it's true...
(h/t @LayeredRisk)
and as we have previously noted (via William Banzai),
The Fool's Prayer, Edward Roland Sill, 1841-1887
Cleverly Adapted by WilliamBanzai7
THE ROYAL FEAST WAS DONE; the Chairman sought some new monetary trick to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool, Kneel now, and make for us a Keynesian prayer!"
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the fractional reserved grin he wore.
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the desperate Chairman's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!
"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with debt to darkened wool;
The markets must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!
"'T is not by gilt the downward steep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'T is by our follies that so long
We hold titled men of fraud away from Dante's fate.
"These clumsy feet, still in the economic mire,
Go debasing common wealth without end;
These duplicitous hands we thrust
To pull the heart-strings of our bankrupt friends.
"The ill-timed truth we might have kept--
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say--
Who knows how grandly it had rung!
"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
The chastening jail stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our fiat blunders -- oh, in shame
Before the eyes of market heaven we shall fall.
"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!"
The room was hushed; in silence rose
The Chairman, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a Keynesian fool!"