Stranger,
uncover; here you have in view
The monument of Chauncey M. Depew,
Eater and orator, the whole
world round
For
feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned.
Dining his way to eminence, he
rowed
With knife and
fork up water-ways that flowed
From lakes of favor — pulled with all his
force
And found each
river sweeter than the source.
Like rats,
obscure beneath a kitchen floor,
Gnawing and rising till obscure no
more,
He ate his way
to eminence, and Fame
Inscribes in gravy his immortal
name.
A
trencher-knight, he, mounte’d on his belly,
So spurred his charger that its
sides were jelly.
Grown desperate at last, it reared and threw him,
And Indigestion, overtaking,
slew him.