TWAIN, Mark

King Leopold’s Soliloquy – A Czar – 1905

A pasteboard autocrat; a despot out of date;

A fading planet in the glare of day;

A flickering candle in the bright sun’s ray,

Burnt to the socket; fruit left too late,

High on a blighted bough, ripe till it’s rotten.

By God forsaken and by time forgotten,

Watching the crumbling edges of his lands,

A spineless god to whom dumb millions pray,

From Finland in the West to far Cathay,

Lord of a frost-bound continent he stands,

Her seeming ruin his dim mind appalls,

And in the frozen stupor of his sleep

He hears dull thunders, pealing as she falls,

And mighty fragments dropping in the deep.


Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd.

And did young Stephen sicken,

And did young Stephen die?

And did the sad hearts thicken,

And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of

Young Stephen Dowling Bots;

Though sad hearts round him thickened,

'Twas not from sickness' shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,

Nor measles drear, with spots;

Not these impaired the sacred name

Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe

That head of curly knots,

Nor stomach troubles laid him low,

Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,

Whilst I his fate do tell.

His soul did from this cold world fly,

By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him;

Alas it was too late;

His spirit was gone for to sport aloft

In the realms of the good and great.

Warm Summer Sun

Warm summer sun,

Shine kindly here,

Warm southern wind,

Blow softly here.

Green sod above,

Lie light, lie light.

Good night, dear heart,

Good night, good night.