Big Smith is an Oakland School Board man,
  And he looks as good as ever he can;
  And he's such a cold and a chaste Big Smith
  That snowflakes all are his kin and kith.
  Wherever his eye he chances to throw
  The crystals of ice begin to grow;
  And the fruits and flowers he sees are lost
  By the singeing touch of a sudden frost.
  The women all shiver whenever he's near,
  And look upon us with a look austere—
  Effect of the Smithian atmosphere.
  Such, in a word, is the moral plan
  Of the Big, Big Smith, the School Board man.
  When told that Madame Ferrier had taught
  Hernani in school, his fist he brought
  Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee,
  And he roared: "Her Nanny? By gum, we'll see
  If the public's time she dares devote
  To the educatin' of any dam goat!"
  "You do not entirely comprehend—
  Hernani's a play," said his learned friend,
  "By Victor Hugo—immoral and bad.
  What's worse, it's French!" "Well, well, my lad,"
  Said Smith, "if he cuts a swath so wide
  I'll have him took re'glar up and tried!"
  And he smiled so sweetly the other chap
  Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp
  Caught in a storm of his native snows,
  With a purple ear and an azure nose.
  The Smith continued: "I never pursue
  Immoral readin'." And that is true:
  He's a saint of remarkably high degree,
  With a mind as chaste as a mind can be;
  But read!—the devil a word can he!