A poem

As I drove across town in the lashing rain to cast a proxy vote for a friend, a line of a poem came back to me. It was a poem by Rudyard Kipling, entitled "A Dead Statesman", from a series called "Epitaphs of the War" - a series of epitaphs he conjured up as though written by those who died during the First World War.

I could not dig: I dared not rob: 

Therefore I lied to please the mob. 

Now all my lies are proved untrue 

And I must face the men I slew. 

What tale shall serve me here among 

Mine angry and defrauded young?

 Our "statesmen" (if only we had some) are not dead, and nor are millions of our young, but the sentiment feels pretty apposite to me.