Classic Poem

Owe are the people whom God forgot
In eighteen eighty-nine,
When Disaster dropped a mighty blot
On the Frenchman's grand design.

Then Fire and Fever and Famine came,
A triple Incubus,
And dealing the cards of a cut-throat game,
Sat down and played with us.

They've won in the past, they're winning still,
And we put up the stakes!
Yet play we must and play we will
Until the last heart breaks.

And the leaden bowl we call the sky,
Doth back the echoes throw
Of our exceeding bitter cry—
“God give us another show!”