DREAMLAND

They fly from me that sometime did me seek
   With naked smarm, creaming up the tea-room,
Where I have seen their sycophancy reek
   Who now avoid me like the stench of doom,
   Forgetting we once shared my new rose bloom
And picked power as I planned; yet now these fly
Basely seeking new leaders to supply.

Thanked be fortune, it had been otherwise
   Twenty times better; but one in special,
In cowboy gear after a Western guise,
   When his loose thoughts in looser words did fall,
   Catching me in his project overall,
Upon his ranch showed me the total spread
Of righteous gain; "How 'bout we share?", he said.

It was no dream, I cherished from that night.
   But all betrayed are higher greed's compacts -
By seeking wars I'd not agreed to fight
   And warding me from all the main contracts,
   My friend too high a price from me exacts.
And now that I so cruelly am served,
I fear to find what fate we've both deserved.

                    (Apologies to Sir Thomas Wyatt)