Moko, the Educated Ape
is here,
The pet of vaudeville,
so the posters say,
And every night
the gaping people pay
To see him in his panoply
appear;
To see him pad his paunch
with dainty cheer,
Puff his perfecto,
swill champagne, and sway
Just like a gentleman,
yet all in play,
Then bow himself off
stage with brutish leer.
And as to-night, with
noble knowledge crammed,
I ’mid this
human compost take my place,
I, once a poet, now
so dead and damned,
The woeful tears
half freezing on my face:
“O God!”
I cry, “let me but take his shape,
Moko’s,
the Blest, the Educated Ape.”