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Five stages of repentance
Are needed for a crime;
It never is enough to say:
‘It seemed right at the time.’
The feeling and its statement
Are first and second stage;
The next is to forego all gain,
However hard to gauge.
The fourth stage of repentance
Is counting what we’ve earned,
With all the profits we have gained
To their first source returned.
If that can only partly be,
We must the fifth stage try,
Work every hour to make amends
Until the day we die.
Paul Griffin
Sorry is a feeble word
That grants no absolution,
The best way to apologise
Is making restitution.
Too late of course for me to change
The damage I have done,
But I will give the country back
The millions I have won.
My house, my land, my fleet of cars
I cede them all to you;
The pension they have given me
This I surrender too.
But even so, I realise,
That’s paltry compensation
For those who put their trust in me
And now face desolation.
Frank McDonald
Regret? Of course. I contemplate the cost
Of nations panicked and the death of trust,
Of houses repossessed and savings lost,
And workers idle while the workshops rust.
Our England’s burdened with a toxic debt
More vast than merely mortal minds can figure,
And I feel deeply a sincere regret
I did not make my pension pot much bigger.
The bank in which I’ve laboured many years
Is only saved by handouts from the state.
The branches close; the staff shed hopeless tears
Now money’s sparse but woes accumulate.
I too have suffered, and must now make do
On just an annual six hundred K.
But do not fear — I shall, I promise you
Return to snaffle more one happy day!
George Simmers
Regretting how we’ve been exposed
to public odium, supposed
in charge while really we just dozed,
we crave your pardon;
appalled our pensions are displayed
in tabloid press of every shade,
and rubbished (like the deals we made),
please don’t be hard on
mere men who, cushioned, spent our time
nursing our pension pots to climb
to heights unknown — it was no crime;
feathered and tarred on
TV by ministers who tossed
kneejerk complaints about the cost.
Oh, and we’re sorry, too, you lost
your house, your garden.
D.A. Prince
I’m so very, very sorry I’m going underneath a
lorry
Or a bus, whichever one should turn up first,
For I know it isn’t funny, you entrusted all your
money
To a fund I said was best that turned out worst.
It was not that we were needy, just that all of us
were greedy
And the opulence we lived in seemed our right,
So our profit was reliant on our each and every
client
All believing their investments watertight.
Though the cause of all the trouble was an ever-
growing bubble,
One that burst and left us holding mammoth debts
Still the money that you loan us should not go to
pay our bonus:
This is just about as hopeless as life gets!
Now I’m seeing things more clearly, I apologise
sincerely
And confess to you — I never qualified
As a proper city banker. I deserve the public’s
rancour
So I’m lying here, committing suicide.
Alanna Blake
No. 2589: Time travel
You are invited to submit an extract from the school essay of a well-known figure past or present, aged eight, on the subject of ‘What I Did On My Holidays’ (150 words maximum). Entries to ‘Competition 2589’ by 26 March or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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