On Benefits
The
magistrates of Speenhamland decreed
No one
should be too poor to eat, instead
A working
wage too deficient for bread
Must be
subsidised to meet that need.
Since then,
two centuries and more have passed,
Yet pay and
prices still remain mismatched,
Requiring
governments to have hatched
All manner
of benefits, such a vast
Complex web
of doles, those magistrates
At the
Pelican Inn would look askance
To see how
little has been the advance
Of society,
how progress abates
For however
long workers delay
Rejecting
reforms and seizing the day.
D. A.
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