We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe.

very clever

Those were chorus lines from Rudyard Kipling's "Natural Theology", Written sometime before or during WWi - 1913/14


"Money spent on an Army or Fleet
Is homicidal lunacy...
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat.
Why is the Lord afflicting me?"

Chorus

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe!
-x-x

I'm going to lose friends in M2 but how else to understand / explain the insane number of cases in New York City (my daughter lives there);
Kipling's lines seemed to resonate

"...As was the sowing so the reaping
Is now and ever more shall be.
Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.
Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!"
--xx

Trump's refusal to lock down airports, cities
leaving it all to under educated politicians with good demeanor
Is it because election is at hand
Or to avoid a second impeachment

And now Mayors are moving the homeless
from subways to Holiday Inns & Radissons
Already 4 million cases, 260,000 dead
And all the Dead, to refrigerated containers..

If the politicians / media had not divided the Country
The President of the United States could have easily declared an 'Emergency'
After all when the World obeyed on this same President's Sanctions on NK, Iran ...
Americans would have naturally followed the Common Good; Commonsense

Now the projections are on till September
The joke is on us (Americans)
The Chinese Checkers may be a game turned real
The virus at another time, could start with Indian Chess
But I'm beginning to believe that America
Only Thyself hath afflicted Thee!

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe!

That is a very interesting last line. That kettle must be our free will.

Yes, Kipling's style
Based on his earlier poems I've come to view the last line as a kettle carefully built up by the democratic free world and under today's situation, the system toppled so easily by a totalitarian regime

Kipling's jest is in the end, a bit fatalistic / mournful
You may recall, he was the guy who way back in early 1900's coined the invasions of Kabul by Russia and UK - as the 'Great Game'.

Anyway, the original mournful lines are here:
https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/natural_theology.html