Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A DIRGE CONCERNING THE LATE ... KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS, by WILLIAM AUGUSTUS CROFFUT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DIRGE CONCERNING THE LATE ... KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS, by                    
First Line: And so our royal relative is dead?
Last Line: To write of one who loved his fellow men!
Alternate Author Name(s): Croffut, W. A.
Subject(s): Cannibals; Courts & Courtiers; Death; Fame; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens; Dead, The; Reputation


AND so our royal relative is dead!
And so he rests from gustatory labors!
The white man was his choice, but when he fed
He'd sometimes entertain his tawny neighbors.
He worshipped, as he said, his "Fe-fo-fum,"
The goddess of the epigastrium.

And missionaries graced his festive board,
Solemn and succulent, in twos and dozens,
And smoked before their hospitable lord,
Welcome as if they'd been his second cousins.
When cold, he warmed them as he would his kin --
They came as strangers, and he took them in.

And generous! -- oh, wasn't he? I have known him
Exhibit a celestial amiability: --
He'd eat an enemy, and then would own him
Of flavor excellent, despite hostility.
The cruelest captain of the Turkish navy
He buried in an honorable grave -- y.

He had a hundred wives. To make things pleasant
They found it quite judicious to adore him; --
And when he dined, the nymphs were always present --
Sometimes beside him and sometimes -- before him.
When he was tired of one, he called her "sweet,"
And told her she was "good enough to eat."

He was a man of taste -- and justice, too;
He opened his mouth for e'en the humblest sinner,
And three weeks stall-fed an emaciate Jew
Before they brought him to the royal dinner.
With preacher-men he shared his board and wallet
And let them nightly occupy his palate!

We grow like what we eat. Bad food depresses;
Good food exalts us like an inspiration,
And missionary on the menu blesses
And elevates the Feejee population.
A people who for years, saints, bairns, and women ate
Must soon their vilest qualities eliminate.

But the deceased could never hold a candle
To those prim, pale-faced people of propriety
Who gloat o'er gossip and get fat on scandal --
The cannibals of civilized society;
They drink the blood of brothers with their rations,
And crunch the bones of living reputations.

They kill the soul; he only claimed the dwelling.
They take the sharpened scalpel of surmises
And cleave the sinews when the heart is swelling,
And slaughter Fame and Honor for their prizes.
They make the spirit in the body quiver;
They quench the Light! He only took the -- Liver!

I've known some hardened customers, I wot,
A few tough fellows -- pagans beyond question --
I wish had got into his dinner-pot;
Although I'm certain they'd defy digestion,
And break his jaw, and ruin his esophagus,
Were he the chief of beings anthropophagous!

How fond he was of children! To his breast
The tenderest nurslings gained a free admission.
Rank he despised, nor, if they came well dressed,
Cared if they were plebeian or patrician.
Shade of Leigh Hunt! Oh, guide this laggard pen
To write of one who loved his fellow men!





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