| I sometimes tire of daily news as dry exchanges
I peruse; I long to quit this sordid grind and seek a tonic for the mind___to single out some classic, old, wherein a wondrous tale is told of knights and wars and mountain steeps and castles with their donjon keeps. Last night while ruminating round, upon the mantelpiece ! found some mental fodder, cut and dried, which told how Julius Caesar died. This Caesar was a Roman bold, who from his wars brought slaves and gold. Now certain knockers in the land united in a secret band and plotted how to take his life, but fair Calphurnia, Caesar's wife, in some way seemed to get a nudge that someone owes her man a grudge, that Brutus, Cassius, and the rest would stab him through his fancy vest. And Caesar, musing on the way, thus to Marc Antony did say: "Now, mark you, Marc, yon Cassius, mien; he is too long and lank and lean. Give me big men who sleep o' night, whose waistbands are extremely tight." Thus portliness he did defend and proved himself the Fat Man's friend. The wary crew soon laid their plan and waited long to get their man. "He is ambitious," Brutus said; though thrice had Caesar shook his head, and thrice the crown he did refuse. They murmured: "Don't it beat the deuce? Did'st ever hear of such a thing? He does not want the job of King. Perhaps he seeks a higher place and thinks ere long to be the Ace." And so they shouted Caesar's name and ran their daggers through his frame, till at their feet he fell and died and they at last, were satisfied. Marc Antony was Caesar's friend and got sweet vengeance in the end and all of those who wrought his doom, ere long had scooted up the flume. |
Verdigris Valley Verse
Albert Stroud
(Coffeyville, Kansas: The Journal Press. 1917)
Pages 82-83
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