Classic Poem

Oh my fine, my honey-colored Duke of Marmalade!
Where are your crocodiles in the far-off village on the Pongo,
and the round blue shadow of your African baobabs,
and your fifteen wives smelling of mud and the jungle?

No longer will you eat the succulent roast child,
nor will the family monkey kill your lice at siesta,
nor your fond eye trail the effeminate giraffe
across the hot flat silence of the plains.

Gone are your nights with their flowing hair of bonfire
and their drowsy, steady dripping of drums,
into whose depths you'd sink slowly as into warm mud
to the farthest shores of your great great-grandfather.

Now, in the loud design of your French dress-coat,
you walk by, sugared by greetings like any courtier,
despite your feet that from their ducal boots
cry out to you: " Babilongo, climb up the cornices of the palace. "

How genteel goes my Duke with Madame de Cafaulait,
all velvet and refinement on the violins' blue wave,
holding back his hands that, gloved like an aristocrat's,
cry out to him: " Babilongo, knock her down on the rose settee "

From the farthest shores of your great great-grandfather,
across the hot flat silence of the plains,
why do your crocodiles weep in the far-off village on the Pongo,
Oh my fine, my honey-colored Duke of Marmalade!?