Two short poems about William Lyon Mackenzie King
W.L.M.K.
by F.R. Scott
How shall we speak of Canada
Mackenzie King dead?
The Mother's boy in the lonely room
With his dog, his medium and his ruins?
He blunted us.
We had no shape
Because he never took sides,
And no sides
Because never allowed them to take shape.
He skilfully avoided what was wrong
Without saying what was right,
And never let his on the one hand
Know what his on the other hand was doing.
The height of his ambition
Was to pile a Parliamentary Committee on a Royal Commission
To have "conscription if necessary
but not necessarily conscription,"
To let Parliament decide --
Later.
Postpone, postpone, abstain.
Only one thread was certain:
After World War I
Business as usual,
After World War II
Orderly decontrol.
Always he led us back to where we were before.
He seemed to be in the centre
Because we had no centre,
No vision
To pierce the smoke-screen of his politics.
Truly he will be remembered
Wherever men honour ingenuity,
Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity.
Let us raise up a temple
To the cult of mediocrity,
Do nothing by halves
Which can be done by quarters.
William Lyon Mackenzie King
by Dennis Lee
William Lyon Mackenzie King
Sat in the middle and played with string
And he loved his mother like anything
William Lyon Mackenzie King.