More Misrepresentative Men

…

O fellow Scotsman, near and far,
Renowned for health and good digestion,
For all that makes you what you are, —
(But are you really? That's the question) —
Be grateful, while the world endures,
That Burns was countryman of yours.

And hand-in-hand, in alien land,
Foregather with your fellow cronies,
To masticate the haggis (cann'd)
At Scottish Conversaziones,
Where, flushed with wine and Auld Lang Syne,
You worship at your country's shrine!

William Waldorf Astor

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.

The rich Chicago millionaire
May buy a mansion in Belgravia,
Have footmen there with powdered hair
And frigidly correct behaviour;
But marble stairs and plate of gold
Leave Astor absolutely cold.

The lofty ducal residence,
That fronts some Surrey riverside,
Would wound his socialistic sense,
And pain his patriotic pride;
He would not change for Castles Highland
His cabbage-patch on Coney Island.

A statue in some Roman street,
A palace of Venetian gilding,
Appear to him not half so sweet
As any modern Vanderbuilding;
He views, without an envious throe,
The wolf that suckled Romeo!

Roast beef, or frogs, or sauerkraut,
Their mead of praise from some may win;
Our hero cannot do without
Peanuts and clams and terrapin;
Away from home, his soul would lack
The cocktail and the canvasback.

Not his to walk the crowded Strand;
'Mid busy London's jar and hum.
On quiet Broadway he would stand,
Saying "Americanus sum!"