The Junior God

The Junior God looked from his place         In the conning towers of heaven,         And he saw the world through the span of space         Like a giant golf-ball driven.         And because he was bored, as some gods are,         With high celestial mirth,         He clutched the reins of a shooting star,         And he steered it down to earth.         The Junior God, 'mid leaf and bud,         Passed on with a weary air,         Till lo! he came to a pool of mud,         And some hogs were rolling there.         Then in he plunged with gleeful cries,         And down he lay supine;         For they had no mud in paradise,         And they likewise had no swine.         The Junior God forgot himself;         He squelched mud through his toes;         With the careless joy of a wanton boy         His reckless laughter rose.         Till, tired at last, in a brook close by,         He washed off every stain;         Then softly up to the radiant sky         He rose, a god again.         The Junior God now heads the roll         In the list of heaven's peers;         He sits in the House of High Control,         And he regulates the spheres.         Yet does he wonder, do you suppose,         If, even in gods divine,         The best and wisest may not be those         Who have wallowed awhile with the swine?