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.