For Nils Wessell, Sept. 26,1957

About nine-thirty someone said,

At ten they'll start the heating-plant,

A simple ceremony, led,

We understand, by the president."

However a thing that big fires off,

By spigot, button, switch, or bomb,

In a hell of a roar, or hacking cough,

It deserves the presidential thumb.

Just before ten I saw him go.

Handy with heating-plants, he could

Do this as presidents must do

A thousand diverse things, and would.

I thought of the story of a king

Lost in the forests of Prussia once,

At night in snow, the sort of thing

That might hit anyone who hunts.

The king's whole party, skilled, equipped

To deal with boars with all dispatch,

Or stag, or bird, stood there blue-lipped,

In all their pockets one dry match.

Then not because he was their king,

But their best woodsman, also sire,

Without one breath's considering

They asked the king to light the fire.