When the King comes visiting, ten million

Shall line the spruced highways;

They will be gathered from the slums

Shut off to the royal gaze.

 

Not many boons may accrue

From the Kingly visit;

Never wise to know what a King may do,

Or choose not to do, is it?

 

Enough that two kindred souls shall meet

To a thunderous audience—

A monarch and a resident satrap,

In colonial remembrance.

 

The fanfare shall be recorded

By minions and by clerks

Whose glory is in a servitude

Refused by mavericks

 

Who see beyond the wall that hides

The proliferating pests–

Men, women, children in human form,

But unwanted as locusts.

 

Posterity shall recall the day

When ten million were brought to cheer

A lowly man in high office–

A merchant adventurer.

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