Catherine the Great

People are always asking me if I've written any poems about Catherine the Great. Well, it just so happens I have. The following effort first appeared in the Scottish literary magazine Cencrastus:

How Catherine The Great Relaxed

(At an exhibition of the treasures of Catherine the Great,

probably the richest and most powerful woman of her time,

a notice stated that her favourite pastime was making

imitation jewels out of papier-mâché.)

    The Prussian princess, Sophie Auguste,

    moved up in the world and changed her name:
    Yekaterina (that’s Catherine to us)
    seemed seemly so that’s who she became.
    And after she'd collared the clergy's cash
    and replenished old Russia's coffers,
    and after she'd seen off Peter the Third - 
    her husband, then critics and scoffers,
    and after she'd romped with twenty lovers
    (despite being decidedly plain),
    and after she'd multiplied numbers of serfs
    and made slaves of half the Ukraine,
    and after inviting Voltaire for tea,
    buying thousands of art works and gowns,
    and after splitting Poland apart
    and constructing a hundred new towns,
    and after fighting and beating the Turks
    and expanding both southwards and west,
    she added 200,000 square miles
    to what she already possessed,
    and after revising the system of law                    
    she dashed off a book or two;
    but sometimes she wearied, had to unwind,
    she'd enough of do, do, do;
    but she didn't knit or play balalaika,
    make arrangements of petals and stems;
    Cath fashioned papier-mâché
    into artificial gems.

*