Classic Poem

I
We have no daily papers
To tell of Newport capers,
No proud four hundred to look down on ordinary folk;
No Scotch imported liquors,
No Stock Exchange and tickers
To lure us on with rosy hopes and some day land us broke;
We've not a single college
Where youth may get a knowledge
Of chorus girls and cigarettes, of poker and the like;
No janitors to sass us,
No bell-boys to harass us,
And we've never known the pleasure of a labor union strike.

II
We have no prize-fight sluggers,
No vaudevillian muggers,
No one of us has ever shot- the chutes or looped the loop;
No cable-cars or trolleys,
No life-insurance jollies,
No bank cashiers to take our money 'ere they fly the coop;
No bookies and no races,
No seaside summer places;
No Bertha Clays and Duchesses to make the females cry;
We have no dairy lunches,
Where they eat their food in bunches,
And we don't insult our stomachs with the thing they call mince-pie.

III
We have no short-haired ladies
Who are always raising Hades
With their finical and funny old reformatory fads;
No ten-cent publications,
Sold at all the railway stations,
With a page or two of reading and a hundred stuffed with ads;
We never chew in Sulu
Any pepsin gum or tolu —
In fact, we're not such savages as some of you might think;
And during intermission,
We always crave permission,
Before we walk on other people just to get a drink.
We have no politicians,
And under no conditions
Do we tolerate the fraud who cures by laying on of hands;
We have no elocutionists,
No social revolutionists,
No amateur dramatics, and no upright baby grands;
We don't play golf and tennis,
And we never know the menace
Of a passing fad or fancy that may turn the nation's head;
I'm proud of my dominion
When I voice the bold opinion
That we'll never know the tortures of a patent folding-bed.
And that is why, you'll understand,
I love my own, my native land,
My little isle of Sulu,
Smiling isle of Sulu!
I'm not ready to say good-by;
I'm mighty sorry that I have to die.