I go by many names, and titles grand
bedeck my brow with proud and regal grace.
All Europe’s portrait painters know my face –
the purse of lip, the jut of jawline, and
what poets call “the sneer of cold command”.
For lofty is the bearing of my race,
exalted is my charge throughout the land,
expected is that thou
shalt know thy place.
I am the House of calculating Venus –
though blood of Mars may yet replenish her,
the sword is not so mighty as the penis,
the marriage bed, and primogeniture.
And if, someday, I fail my noble kin,
I’ll take it on my massive Habsburg chin.
AB
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