Vale Diabole

Well! Well! so you’ve been fired,
You’ve lost your job at last.
It’s high time you retired,
Old Boy, you’re failing fast.

You’re getting old, you know it,
You are not in the race.
Admit you cannot go it,
The killing, modern pace.

Your methods are too dull for
The modern school of Hate,
Your lake of burning sulphur
Is sadly out of date.

The Hohenzollern’s Kultur
Mocks at your fiery pits,
His double-headed vulture
Has put yours on the fritz.

Beside the fierce, blaspheming,
Mail-fisted Kaiser Bill,
You are a seraph beaming,
An angel of good-will.

But tho’ we can’t deny, sir,
You’re hopelessly outclassed,
You’ve one thing on the Kaiser,
Which is, tho’ first and last

A failure as a devil,
Yet boast of this you can:
You were always on the level—
And—you are a gentleman!