The giant rose above the Texas plain,
Colossus of ambition, destiny
Ordained his nervy quest, his adolescent
Yearning for power, to climb above rock hard
Hill Country soil and help the poor to hold
A measure of their rightful dignity.
Could you have soared over the hardpan earth,
Self-propped from impecunious stock - though they
Had seen aggrandizement, flush times, respect,
Only to watch it crumble - ? Lyndon took
His only chance to flee humiliation:
The Teachers' College. And somehow enough.
But how from there to Washington? And how
To power? The Senate when he came: a swamp,
A backward parliament of poobahs, grand
And not, irregular at best, blocked, jammed,
Stodgy or sedentary, costive group,
A hundred hidebound men. Yet Lyndon had
No Yale or Harvard, no distinguished brass
From West Point or Annapolis. So how
Did Johnson change the nature of the Senate?
And how become a bright and lonely star
To that plutonic clan on Capitol Hill?
He smiled, he lied, he groveled, purred, praised, fawned,
He threatened, buttonholed and jawboned, winked,
He passed out envelopes stuffed full of cash.
Thus he ascended north.
