J. Pierpont Morgan

    In Rome, when Morgan came to town,
    They nailed the Colosseum down.
    A great Collector! Once his Fad
    Was Coins, but when in time he had
    Collected all the coin in sight,
    To Europe's Art his thoughts took flight.
    But let not Europe palpitate
For fear of an Art Syndicate.
    There are more Rembrandts, strange to say,
    Than ever were in Rembrandt's day;
    And statues "planted" in the sand
    Will always equal the demand.

Oliver Herford

Oliver Herford was born in England on December 2, 1860. He was a British-born American writer, artist, and illustrator, often referred to as 'The American Oscar Wilde' for his sharp wit and humorous works. Herford authored and illustrated many books for children and adults, contributing to magazines such as "The Criterion", "Life", and "Punch". He died on July 5, 1935, in France.

Oliver Herford

Theodore Roosevelt

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

The Sphinx

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

To Temptation

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

The Harpy

Oliver Herford, Simple Poetry

English

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To Mr. Pierpont Morgan

    Dear Mr. Pierpont Morgan, -
    I hasten to give you a hearty British welcome.
    Come to my arms;
    I am in the Trust line myself -
    That is to say, I used to be
    Before people started putting up announcements
    To the effect that
    "Poor Trust is dead,
    Bad pay killed him."
    Some day, an I mistake not, Mr. Morgan,
    Your Trust will die:
    All Trusts are grass.
    Ponder it!
    I am a political economist, and I know.
    Meanwhile I am very pleased to think
    That we have amongst us a man of your financial prowess
    And purchasing power.
    There is a certain class of British person
    Who apparently goes in bodily fear of you.
    That class of person has groaned loudly over your steel exploit,
    And h...

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Moral Essays. Epistle V. To Mr Addison.

OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON MEDALS.^[54]

See the wild waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very tombs now vanish'd, like their dead!
Imperial wonders raised on nations spoil'd
Where mix'd with slaves the groaning martyr toil'd:
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her floods:
Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey,
Statues of men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage,
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.
Perhaps, by its own ruins saved from flame,
Some buried marble half-preserves a name;
That na...

Alexander Pope

The Roman Gravemounds

By Rome's dim relics there walks a man,
Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;
I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;
Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.

"Vast was Rome," he must muse, "in the world's regard,
Vast it looms there still, vast it ever will be;"
And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shard
Left by those who are held in such memory.

But no; in his basket, see, he has brought
A little white furred thing, stiff of limb,
Whose life never won from the world a thought;
It is this, and not Rome, that is moving him.

And to make it a grave he has come to the spot,
And he delves in the ancient dead's long home;
Their fames, their achievements, the man knows not;
The furred thing is all to him nothing Rome!

"Here...

Thomas Hardy

Mona Lisa

        Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa!
Have you gone? Great Julius Caesar!
Who's the Chap so bold and pinchey
Thus to swipe the great da Vinci,
Taking France's first Chef d'oeuvre
Squarely from old Mr. Louvre,
Easy as some pocket-picker
Would remove our handkerchicker
As we ride in careless folly
On some gaily bounding trolley?

        Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,
Who's your Captor? Doubtless he's a
Crafty sort of treasure-seeker,
Ne'er a Turpin e'er was sleeker,
But, alas, if he can win you
Easily as I could chin you,
What is safe in all the nations
From his dreadful depredations?
He's the style of Chap, I'm thinkin',
Who will drive us all to drinkin'!

        Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,
Next he'll swipe the Tower of Pisa,
Pulling it from ...

John Kendrick Bangs

In The Old Theatre, Fiesole

(April, 1887)


I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline
Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin,
Till came a child who showed an ancient coin
That bore the image of a Constantine.

She lightly passed; nor did she once opine
How, better than all books, she had raised for me
In swift perspective Europe's history
Through the vast years of Caesar's sceptred line.

For in my distant plot of English loam
'Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find
Coins of like impress. As with one half blind
Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home
In that mute moment to my opened mind
The power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome.

Thomas Hardy

The Millionaire.

In the upper circles
    Moves a famous man
Who has had no equal
    Since the world began.
He was once a broker
    Down by the exchange;
He is now a nabob--
    Don't you think it strange?

In his low back office,
    Near the Bowling Green,
With his brother brokers
    He was often seen;--
Shaving and discounting,
    Dabbling in the stocks,
He achieved a fortune
    Of a million ROCKS!'

Next he formed a marriage
    With a lady fair,
And his splendid carriage
    Bowled about THE square,
Where his spacious mansion
    Like a palace stood,
Envied and admired
    By the multitude.

Then he took the tour
    Of the continent,
Bearer of dispatches
    From the President:
A legation but...

George Pope Morris