Canopus

WHEN quacks with pills political would dope us,

When politics absorbs the livelong day,

I like to think about that star Canopus,

So far, so far away.

Greatest of visioned suns, they say who list ’em;

To weigh it science almost must despair.

Its shell would hold our whole dinged solar system,

Nor even know ’twas there.

When temporary chairmen utter speeches,

And frenzied henchmen howl their battle hymns,

My thoughts float out across the cosmic reaches

To where Canopus swims.

When men are calling names and making faces,

And all the world’s ajangle and ajar,

I meditate on interstellar spaces

And smoke a mild seegar.

For after one has had about a week of

The argument of friends as well as foes,

A star that has no parallax to speak of

Conduces to repose.