For Mark Twain’s Jubilee
TO brave Mark Twain, across the sea,The years have brought his jubilee;One hears it half with pain,That fifty years have passed and goneSince danced the merry star that shoneAbove the babe, Mark Twain!
How many and many a weary day,When sad enough were we, ‘Mark’s way’(Unlike the Laureate’s Mark’s)Has made us laugh until we cried,And, sinking back exhausted, sighed,Like Gargery, Wot larx!
We turn his pages, and we seeThe Mississippi flowing free;We turn again, and grinO’er all Tom Sawyer did and planned,With him of the Ensanguined Hand,With Huckleberry Finn!
Spirit of mirth, whose chime of bellsShakes on his cap, and sweetly swellsAcross the Atlantic main,Grant that Mark’s laughter never die,That men, through many a century,May chuckle o’er Mark Twain!