Classic Poem

The style of man I’d like to be,
If I could have my way,
Would be a sort of pot-pourri
Of Poe and Thackeray;

Of Horace, Edison, and Lamb;
Of Keats and Washington,
Gérôme and blest Omar Khayyám,
And R. L. Stevenson;

Of Kipling and the Bard of Thrums,
And Bonaparte the great—
If I were these, I’d snap my thumbs
Derisively at Fate.