More Misrepresentative Men. Graham Harry

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.