Classic Poem

When the writer has written with all of his might
Of Blaine and of Cleveland a column or more,
And the editor happens along in the night
(As he generally does betwixt midnight and four)
And kills all the stuff that that writer has writ,
And calls for more copy at once, on the spot—
There is none for the writer to turn on and hit
But that distant old party, the Ahkoond of Swat.

Now the Ahkoond of Swat is a vague sort of man
Who lives in a country far over the sea;
Pray tell me, good reader, if tell me you can,
What's the Ahkoond of Swat to you folks or to me?
Yet when one must be careful, conservative, too,
Since the canvass is getting unpleasantly hot,
If we must abuse some—let us haste to imbrue
With that foreign old bloomer, the Ahkoond of Swat!

Yet why should we poke this insipid old king,
Who lives in the land of the tiger and cane,
Since the talk we might make on the dotard can't bring
The sweet satisfaction of a Cleveland or Blaine?
A plague on these politics, statesmen, and all
Who conspire to embarrass the editor's lot;
And a plague on the man, we implore, who will call
On a fellow to write of the Ahkoond of Swat!

But vain is this fuming, this frenzy, this storm—
The printers care naught for this protest or that;
A long, dreadful hollow appears in the “form”—
And it's copy they want, with a pref'rence for “fat.”
So here's to our friend who's so handy in need,
Whose useful acquaintance too soon is forgot—
That distant old party and senile old seed,
The loathsome and pestilent Ahkoond of Swat!