For fifty years good Barnum bought God’s wondrous creatures every one; And last, impossible! he sought To buy the “sun spots” of the sun-- The Sacred Elephant! as soon Could silver buy the silver moon. ’Twas daring much to gain the prize Where kings had failed, and more than bold, And doubtful Europe rubbed her eyes To see him scatter heaps of gold! But Barnum gold, and Barnum grit, And Barnum wit accomplished it. Salaam! And welcome from Siam, O sun-crowned of the Orient! The people cry, from pine to palm, Thrice welcome to the Occident! Cry, mottled Monarch of Siam-- Salaam! Salaam! Salaam! Salaam! They see the storied East in thee, See vast processions, kneeling priests, Proud tents beneath the banyan-tree, Swift chariot wheels, great kingly beasts-- Triumphant Alexanders drawn! Against the golden door of dawn; But see! thy temples wrapt in mold, For all their glorious, ancient years! Thy people prone, thy priests in gold-- A land of tyranny and tears. And this the lesson, royal beast, God recks not pagod: beast or priest. We both have much to learn, no doubt, Beneath the bright path of the sun Where all the nights are blotted out, And all thy days are blent as one, You little dreamed the world was best And wisest as you rounded west. But welcome to the Christian’s West, From land of dreams to land of deed. You teach us much. Yet it were best You pack this in your trunk to read To tyrants on returning East: _We worship neither man nor beast_. Another contribution, which did not win a prize, but which delighted Barnum by its “originality and naïveté,” is worth reprinting: THE WHITE ELEPHANT By HELEN CONWAY Columbia sat in most royal state, Beside the Atlantic’s open gate. Columbia fair! Columbia great! But wealth and power hold secret stings; Tho’ proud of her state and envied by kings She humanly longed for impossible things. Lovers a many had fair Miss C., But none so dauntless as Pee Tee Bee, Who brought many treasures from land and sea. She summoned him near and she said with a sigh: “Is it true there’s a token which gold may not buy-- And has love no device with which to reply? “Since Helen eloped with the son of Priam Never was woman unhappy as I am. Unless you can bring from the far land of Siam. “The ‘Rose of the East,’ an elephant white, Great ‘Toung Taloung,’ so rare a sight! Oh! deny me not, mine own true knight. “To this sacred beast they bow the knee With as great devotion, far over the sea, As we worship the dollars in our country.”