Ode To A Politician

John Kendrick Bangs

ALL hail to thee, O son of Æolus!
All hail to thee, most high Borean lord!
The lineal descendant of the Winds art thou.
Child of the Cyclone,
Cousin to the Hurricane,
Tornado’s twin,
All hail!
The zephyrs of the balmy south
Do greet thee;
The eastern winds, great Boston’s pride,
In manner osculate caress thy massive cheek;
Freeze onto thee,
And at thy word throw off congealment
And take on a soft caloric mood;
And from afar,
From Afric’s strand,
Siroccan greetings come to thee!
The monsoon and simoom,
In the soft empurpled Orient,
At mention of thy name
Doff all the hats of Heathendom!
And all combined in one vast aggregation,
Cry out hail, hail, thrice hail to thee,
Who after years, and centuries, and cycles e’en,
Hast made the winds incarnate!
To thee
The visible expression in the flesh,
Material and tangible,
Of all that goes to make the element
That rages, blusters, blasts, and blows!
And if the poet’s mind speaks true,
If he can penetrate their purposes at all,
It is not far from their intent
To lift thee on their broad November wings
So high
That none but gods can ever hope
Again to gaze upon thy face!

Jokes Of The Night 

BLESSED jokes of my dreams! Your praises I’d sing.
No mirth can compare to the mirth that you bring.
I’ve read London _Punch_ from beginning to end,
On all comic papers much money I spend,
But naught that is in them can ever seem bright
Beside the rich jokes that I dream of at night.

How I laugh at those jests of my brain when at rest,
The gladdest and merriest, sweetest and best!
And how, when I wake in the morning and try
To call them to mind, oh how bashful, how shy
They seem, how they scatter and hide out of sight-
Those jokes of my dreamings, those jests of the night!

Take the one that came to me to-day just at dawn:
The Cable-Car turns and remarks to the Prawn,
"The Crowbar is seasick; but then what of that,
As long as the Camel won’t wear a silk hat?"
I laughed-why, I laughed till my wife had a fright
For fear I’d go wild from that joke of the night.

And they’re all much like that one-elusive enough,
Yet full of facetious, hilarious stuff-
Stuff past comprehension, stuff no man dares tell;
For nocturnal jests, e’en told ever so well-
’Tis odd it should be so-are not often bright,
Except to the dreamer who dreams them at night.