When quacks with pills political would dope us, <br />When politics absorbs the livelong day, <br />I like to think about that star Canopus, <br />So far, so far away. <br /> <br />Greatest of visioned suns, they say who list 'em; <br />To weigh it science almost must despair. <br />Its shell would hold our whole dinged solar system, <br />Nor even know 'twas there. <br /> <br />When temporary chairmen utter speeches, <br />And frenzied henchmen howl their battle hymns, <br />My thoughts float out across the cosmic reaches <br />To where Canopus swims. <br /> <br />When men are calling names and making faces, <br />And all the world's ajangle and ajar, <br />I meditate on interstellar spaces <br />And smoke a mild seegar. <br /> <br />For after one has had about a week of <br />The argument of friends as well as foes, <br />A star that has no parallax to speak of <br />Conduces to repose.<br /><br />Bert Leston Taylor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/canopus/
