Mark Twain: A Pipe Dream

Well I recall how first I met
    Mark Twain - an infant barely three
Rolling a tiny cigarette
    While cooing on his nurse's knee.

Since then in every sort of place
    I've met with Mark and heard him joke,
Yet how can I describe his face?
    I never saw it for the smoke.

At school he won a smokership,
    At Harvard College (Cambridge, Mass.)
His name was soon on every lip,
    They made him "smoker" of his class.

Who will forget his smoking bout
    With Mount Vesuvius - our cheers -
When Mount Vesuvius went out
    And didn't smoke again for years?

The news was flashed to England's King,
    Who begged Mark Twain to come and stay,
Offered him dukedoms - anything
    To smoke the London fog away.

But Mark was firm. "I bow," said he,
    "To no imperial command,
No ducal coronet for me,
    My smoke is for my native land!"
For Mark there waits a brighter crown!
    When Peter comes his card to read -
He'll take the sign "No Smoking" down,
    Then Heaven will be Heaven indeed.

                            Oliver Herford.