Administrivia
Happy New Year! After receiving my nth complaint, this one reading:
I subscribe to your substack solely for the poetry. I (perhaps unfortunately) don't have much of an interest in political history or that side of things.
I have relented. Future verse will appear on a separate free stack, Imperial Melodies. The scourge of poetry will no longer disrupt “political history or that side of things.” If you are only here for the four-stressed lines, unsub here and subscribe over there.
A relief. Not that I don't love poetry (I don't), but it got in the way of what I came here for. Well played.
Also, as a profound reactionary, I have a real fondness for poetry that rhymes. As opposed to "free verse." After all, God invented meter and rhyme so humans could remember and recite poetry.