MARK TWAIN: A PIPE DREAM

Well I recall how first I met
Mark Twain—an infant barely three
Rolling a tiny cigarette
While cooing on his nurse's knee.
Since then in every sort of place
I've met with Mark and heard him joke,
Yet how can I describe his face?
I never saw it for the smoke.
At school he won a smokership,
At Harvard College (Cambridge, Mass.)
His name was soon on every lip,
They made him "smoker" of his class.
Who will forget his smoking bout
With Mount Vesuvius—our cheers—
When Mount Vesuvius went out
And didn't smoke again for years?
The news was flashed to England's King,
Who begged Mark Twain to come and stay,
Offered him dukedoms—anything
To smoke the London fog away.
But Mark was firm. "I bow," said he,
"To no imperial command,
No ducal coronet for me,
My smoke is for my native land!"

For Mark there waits a brighter crown!
When Peter comes his card to read—
He'll take the sign "No Smoking" down,
Then Heaven will be Heaven indeed.
Oliver Herford.

FROM A FULL HEART

In days of peace my fellow-men
Rightly regarded me as more like
A Bishop than a Major-Gen.,
And nothing since has made me warlike;
But when this age-long struggle ends
And I have seen the Allies dish up
The goose of Hindenburg—oh, friends!
I shall out-bish the mildest Bishop.
When the War is over and the Kaiser's out of print
I'm going to buy some tortoises and watch the beggars sprint;
When the War is over and the sword at last we sheathe
I'm going to keep a jelly-fish and listen to it breathe.
I never really longed for gore,
And any taste for red corpuscles
That lingered with me left before
The German troops had entered Brussels.
In early days the Colonel's "'Shun!"
Froze me; and as the war grew older
The noise of some one else's gun
Left me considerably colder.
When the War is over and the battle has been won
I'm going to buy a barnacle and take it for a run;
When the War is over and the German fleet we sink
I'm going to keep a silkworm's egg and listen to it think.
The Captains and the Kings depart—
It may be so, but not lieutenants;
Dawn after weary dawn I start
The never ending round of penance;
One rock amid the welter stands
On which my gaze is fixed intently:
An after-life in quiet lands
Lived very lazily and gently.
When the War is over and we've done the Belgians proud
I'm going to keep a chrysalis and read to it aloud;
When the War is over and we've finished up the show
I'm going to plant a lemon pip and listen to it grow.
Oh, I'm tired of the noise and turmoil of battle,
And I'm even upset by the lowing of cattle,
And the clang of the bluebells is death to my liver,
And the roar of the dandelion gives me a shiver,
And a glacier, in movement, is much too exciting,
And I'm nervous, when standing on one, of alighting—
Give me Peace; that is all, that is all that I seek....
Say, starting on Saturday week.
A. A. Milne.

THE ULTIMATE JOY

I have felt the thrill of passion in the poet's mystic book
And I've lingered in delight to catch the rhythm of the brook;
I've felt the ecstasy that comes when prima donnas reach
For upper C and hold it in a long, melodious screech.
And yet the charm of all these blissful memories fades away
As I think upon the fortune that befell the other day,
As I bring to recollection, with a joyous, wistful sigh,
That I woke and felt the need of extra covers in July.
Oh, eerie hour of drowsiness—'twas like a fairy spell,
That respite from the terrors we have known, alas, so well,
The malevolent mosquito, with a limp and idle bill,
Hung supinely from the ceiling, all exhausted by his chill.
And the early morning sunbeam lost his customary leer
And brought a gracious greeting and a prophecy of cheer;
A generous affability reached up from earth to sky,
When I woke and felt the need of extra covers in July.

In every life there comes a time of happiness supreme,
When joy becomes reality and not a glittering dream.
'Tis less appreciated, but it's worth a great deal more
Than tides which taken at their flood lead on to fortune's shore.
How vain is Art's illusion, and how potent Nature's sway
When once in kindly mood she deigns to waft our woes away!
And the memory will cheer me, though all other pleasures fly,
Of how I woke and needed extra covers in July.
Unknown.