Читать книгу More Misrepresentative Men - Graham Harry - Страница 4

HOW blest a thing it is to die

For Country's sake, as bards have sung!

How sweet "pro patria mori,"

(To quote the vulgar Latin tongue);

And yet to him the palm we give

Who for his fatherland can live.

Historians have explained to us,

In terms that never can grow cold,

How well the bold Horatius

Played bridge in the brave days of old;

And we can read of hosts of others,

From Spartan boys to Roman mothers.

But nowhere has the student got,

From poet, pedagogue, or pastor,

The picture of a patriot

So truly typical as Astor;

And none has ever shown a greater

Affection for his Alma Mater.

With loyalty to Fatherland

His heart inflexible as starch is,

Whene'er he hears upon a band

The too prolific Sousa's marches;

And from his eyes a tear he wipes,

Each time he sees the Stars and Stripes.

Tho' others roam across the foam

To European health resorts,

The fact that "there's no place like home"

Is foremost in our hero's thoughts;

And all in vain have people tried

To lure him from his "ain fireside."

Let tourists travel near or far,

By wayward breezes widely blown,

He stops at the Astoria,

"A poor thing" (Shakespeare), "but his own;"

And nothing that his friends may do

Can drag him from Fifth Avenue.

The Western heiress is content

To scale, as a prospective bride,

The bare six-story tenement

Where foreign pauper peers reside;

But men like Astor all disparage

The so-called Morgan-attic marriage.