Classic Poem

The king of the Cannibal Islands
Decided to conquer some drylands;
So he marched over valleys and highlands
With twenty-four cannibal braves;
With two dozen man-eating knaves,
All hungry as so many graves,
He skirmished through earthlands and skylands,
Defiant of weather and waves.

He came to Atlantis the Holy
Whose burghers were lamblike and lowly,
Though growing a touch roly-poly
And languid in fasting and prayers
They fasted while sleeping, like bears,
And prayed without leaving their chairs,
And walked in the narrow way slowly,
Much cumbered with Beelzebub's wares.

Then followed a wonderful battle;
Good lack, how the cannons did rattle!
The women, the children, the cattle
Took part in the desperate strife.
They carried the war to the knife;
With slaughter Atlantis was rife;
About it the muses will prattle
While Jupiter granteth them life

The Cannibals came out the winners,
They made twenty-five hearty dinners,
They gobbled the saints and the sinners,
And put all Atlantis to sack
They spared neither yellow nor black,
The hungriest, greediest pack
Of robbers and pickers and skinners
That ever sent region to rack

Henceforth they were chiefs of the nation
And lived by relief legislation;
They served up a bill for collation
And fattened a law like a beast.
Their appetites daily increased;
A lunch was a patent, at least,
While railroads and steam-navigation
Scarce furnished the joints for a feast.