C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Steam Guillotine
By Giuseppe Giusti (18091850)
A
One time set up in China-land,
Outdid the insatiate guillotine,
For in three hours, you understand,
It cut off a hundred thousand heads
In a row, like hospital beds.
And some of the bonzes even thought
Their barbarous country by degrees
To civilization might be brought,
Leaving Europeans, with their schools,
Looking like fools.
A little stiff, and dull of pate;
Like other asses, hard and slow.
He loved his subjects and the State,
And patronized all clever men
Within his ken.
Their taxes and their other dues,—
They cheated the revenue, sad to say:
So their good ruler thought he’d choose
As the best argument he’d seen,
This sweet machine.
They gained a pension for the man,—
The executioner of State,—
Who got a patent for his plan,
Besides becoming a Mandarin
Of great Pekin.
Let’s up and christen it, I say!”
“Ah, why,” cries to his counselor keen
A Nero of our present day,
“Why was not born within my State
A man so great?”