Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IF I WERE KING, by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY


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First Line: If I were king, my pipe should be premier
Last Line: If I were king.
Alternate Author Name(s): Henley, W. E.
Subject(s): Smoking; Tobacco; Pipes; Cigars; Cigarettes


IF I were King, my pipe should be premier.
The skies of time and chance are seldom clear;
We would inform them all with azure weather.
Delight alone would need to shed a tear,
For dream and deed should war no more together.
Art should aspire, yet ugliness be dear;
Beauty, the shaft, should speed with wit for feather;
And love, sweet love, should never fall to sere,
If I were King.

But politics should find no harbour near;
The Philistine should dread to slip his tether;
Tobacco should be duty free, and beer;
In fact, in room of this, the age of leather,
An age of gold all radiant should appear,
If I were King.





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