Cook and Peary

by George Albert Leddy

“The Pole is cold and dreary,”
Says Cook and Peary, too.
“I reached it weak and weary,”
Say both, so it must be true.

“There’s nothing there but wind,
And cold, and sleet, and snow.”
Both of them have said the same;
So both of them must know.

Peary says that, “Cook’s a fake,”
But Cook says, “That’s not so,”
That he can prove he reached the Pole
By his faithful Eskimo.

Cook says that, “Peary is a bluff,”
That he never reached the goal.
And still insists, that he alone
Has reached the longed-for Pole.

If on this subject, Doctor Cook
And Peary can’t agree;
We’ll have to ask the sailor,
For the sailor’s been to sea.

***