The man of the year, though, is an engineer.
John Browning is his name .
He's patented something. So let us hear
about John's claim to fame.
(John Moses Browning)
"I looked at the calendar, and I saw
that there are a hundred years to go .
That made me a little nervous
for I thought of my neighbors .
I've multiplied them one hundred times :
it came to them being all over!
So I went to my study that looks out on limes
and invented this cute revolver!"
1901. A swell, modest time .
A T-bone steak is about a dime .
Queen Victoria dies; but then Australia
repeats her silhouette and,
inter alia,
joins the Commonwealth. In the humid woods
Of Tahiti, Gauguin paints his swarthy nudes.
In China, the Boxers take the rap.
Max Planck in his lab (not on his lap
yet) is studying radiation .
Verdi dies too . But our proud nation,
represented by Mrs. Disney, awards the world
with a kid by the name of Walt
who'll animate the screen . Off screen,
the British launch their first submarine .
But it's a cake-walk or a Strindberg play
or Freud's "Psychopathology of Everyday
Life" that really are not to be missed!
And McKinley's shot dead by an anarchist .
The man of the year is Signore Marconi.
He is an Italian, a Roman.
His name prophetically rhymes with "Sony":
they have a few things in common .
