← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

The President Sings his King Song.

Sing along.

If I were King of the Nation — not queen, not duke, not prince.
My regal robes of the Nation, would be satin, not cotton, not chintz.
I’d command each thing, be it fish or fowl.
With a woof and a woof and a royal growl.
As I’d click my heel, all the trees would kneel.
And the mountains bow and the bulls kowtow.
And the sparrow would take wing – If I – If I – were King!

Each network would show respect to me. Reporters genuflect to me.
Though my tongue would lash, I would show compash
For every underling!
If I – If I – were King!
Just King!
Monarch of all I survey — Mo–na-a-a–a-arch of all I survey!

Your majesty, if you were King, you wouldn’t be afraid of anything?
Not nobody! Not no how!
Not even a coronavirus?
Impossirirus!
How about a Constitutionus?
Why, I’d thrash it from top to boottomus.
Supposing you met an elephant?
I’d wrap him up in sellaphant.
What if it were a brontosaurus?
I’d show him who’s King of the forest!

How!? How!?
Courage.
What makes a king out of an ass? Courage.
What waves the flag on the mast? Courage.
What makes the elephant charge his tusks
In the misty mist
Or the dusky dusk
What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage.
What makes the Sphinx the seventh wonder?
Courage.
What makes the dawn come up like thunder?
Courage.
What makes the Hottentots so hot?
What puts the ape in apricot?
What do they got that I ain’t got?

Courage.

You can say that again.

Margaret Soltan, April 15, 2020 5:44AM
Posted in: Genius of the Carpathians

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=63708

One Response to “The President Sings his King Song.”

  1. Ravi Narasimhan Says:

    He is the very model of a modern major general.

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories