New Zealand’s faux poet laureate composes an ode for the defender of Western civilisation and paintings of Winston Churchill, National’s Simeon Brown
The Dream of the Boy Prince Simeon
I walked proud and young o’er the plains
and forests of this far-flung Dominion:
far from Home, yet plucky and loyal.
O Zealandia! O scion of Brittania!
Our Anglo-Saxon Christian heritage
remaineth pure and unmuddied.
Despite the natives refusing to die off,
despite the rude lower orders
and their annoying minimum wage serfdom,
despite these outrageous slings and arrows,
I wieldeth a Bible and shining sword of Truth.
I called my noble blooded Lords of yore
to stand steadfast and guard over
our grand estates, our late model 36 wheeler carts,
and our general dominance of commerce and law.
My heavy heart witnessed tragic scenes.
I weepeth for my loyal liege men;
I weepeth for Squire Bowker of the House of Troy,
tarred and peppered by the woke mob.
Orcs emerged and assailed me:
I cutteth them down with press releases.
Like the Roman, I see the Mataura River
foaming with nitrates, or something.
The Great Values of Our Western Culture
I rallied in defence of: free speech,
liberty, merchant banking and Empire,
all embodied in the Parliamentary portrait
of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA.
His stolid visage and principles inspireth me:
his keen advocacy of gassing tribespeople
and the Bengal famine notwithstanding.
The freedom hating Greenistanis marched
with fanatical fervour to replace his proud presence
with some weird indigenous art installation:
some things will not stand.
A fearsome battle was joined:
my thin blue line held in heat of combat
against the massed Dervish warriors.
Like General Gordon of Khartoum,
or the lost battalion at Rorkes Drift,
I faced my doom;
and took my place beside
those mighty heroes of antiquity.
But then did I awake in grey morning light
with my slight and hairless legs extruding
from my Hallensteins boxers,
facing another long day in muddy trek
on the outskirts of drear Pakuranga
behind the Mad Lady Judith;
And I realised I had only been dreaming.
Victor Billot has previously been moved to write odes for such New Zealand luminaries as Jacinda Ardern, Todd Muller, Phil Twyford, The Son of Key, Mike Hosking, and Garrick Tremain.
