Once the Queen of Nether China
(So benign a Messalina!)
Said: “I’ll make a Naval Hero
Without fear—O brave as Nero!
He shall dominate the ocean
By promotion, that’s my notion.
All my other sons of thunder
Then shall plunder vainly under
This Incomparable Person,
Interspersin’ lively cursin’
With their futile strife to shiver
Every river-pirate’s liver,
And to ascertain the measure
Of his treasure at their leisure.
For I’ll so arrange the looting
And the shooting and the hooting,
And the making frightful faces
(These grimaces are the bases
Of our tactics) that they never,
Howsoever brave and clever,
Shall have any kind of inning
In the skinning now beginning.
And I’ll see that in the story
Of the gory game of glory
The historian shall slight ’em
Or indict ’em—maybe bite ’em.
But the Hero of my making,
Whom I’m aching to be waking
Into visible existence,
He shall distance these Philistines.
Fame’s loud trumpet—he shall hear it.
Blown with spirit in his ear, it
Shall extol his birth and breeding,
His exceeding knack at leading
In a sanguinary sea fight,
Or a tea fight, or a flea fight,
Till he burst with admiration
Of his station in the nation!
Then while all the people mock him,
I’ll unfrock him! That will shock him.”
Thus the Queen of Nether China,
The Regina Mun-Kee-Shina,
Made to Naval Evolution
A Confucian contribution.
1898 .