Impertinent Poems Part 2

LET'S BE GLAD WE'RE LIVING.

I.

Oh, let's be glad that we're living yet; you bet!

The sun runs round and the rain is wet And the bird flip-flops its wing; Tennis and toil bring an equal sweat; It's so much trouble to frown and fret, So easy to laugh and sing, Ting ling!

So easy to laugh and sing!

(And yet, sometimes, when I sing my song, I'm almost afraid my method is wrong.)

II.

Many have money which I have not, G.o.d wot!

But victual and keep are all they've got, And the stars still dot the sky.

Heaven be praised that they s.h.i.+ne so bright, Heaven be praised for an appet.i.te, So who is richer than I?

Hi yi!

Say, who is richer than I?

(And yet I'm hoping to sell this screed For several dollars I hardly need.)

III.

Ducats and dividends, stocks and shares, who cares?

Worry and property travel in pairs, While the green grows on the tree.

A banquet's nothing more than a meal; A trolley's much like an automobile, With a transfer sometimes free, Tra lee!

With a transfer sometimes free!

(And yet you're unwilling, I plainly see, To leave the automobile to me.)

IV.

A note you give and a note you get; don't fret, For they both may go to protest yet, And the roses blow perfume.

Fortune is only a Dun report; The Homestead Law and the Bankrupt Court Have fostered many a boom, Boom, boom!

Have fostered many a boom.

(But I see you smile in a rapturous way On the man who is rated double A.)

V.

Life is a show for you and me; it's free!

And what you look for is what you see; A hill is a humped-up hollow.

Riches are yours with a dollar bill; A million's the same little digit still, With nothing but naughts to follow, So hollo!

There's nothing but naughts to follow.

(But you and I, as I've said before, Could get along with a trifle more.)

SUCCESS.

It's little the difference where you arrive; The serious question is how you strive.

Are you up to your eyes in a wild romance?

Does your lady lead you a dallying dance?

Do you question if love be fate, or chance?

Oh, the world will ask: "Did he get the girl?"

Though gentleman, c.o.xcomb, clown or churl, Master or menial of pa.s.sion's whirl.

But it _isn't_ that. The world will run Though you never bequeath it daughter or son, But what, O lover, will come to you If you be not chivalrous, honest, true?

As far ahead as a man may think, You can see your little soul shrivel and shrink.

It's not, "Do you win?"

It is, "What have you been?"

Are you stripped for the world-old, world-wide race For the metal which s.h.i.+nes like the sun's own face Till it dazzles us blind to the mean and base?

Do you say to yourself, "When I have my h.o.a.rd, I will give of the plenty which I have stored, If the Lord bless me, I will bless the Lord"?

And do you forget, as you pile your pelf, What is the gift you are giving yourself?

Though your mountain of gold may dazzle the day, Can you climb its height with your feet of clay?

Oh, it isn't the stamp on the metal you win; It's the stamp on the metal you coin within.

It's not what you give; It is "What do you live?"

Are you going to sail the polar seas To the point of ninety-and-north degrees, Where the very words in your larynx freeze?

Well, the mob may ask "Did he reach the pole?

Though fair, or foul, did he touch the goal?"

But if that be the spirit which stirs your soul, Off, off from the land below the zeroes; For you are not of the stuff of heroes.

Ho! many a man can lead men forth To the fearsome end of the Farthest North, But can you be faithful for woe or weal In a land where nothing but self is leal?

Oh, it isn't "How far?"

It is what you are.

And it isn't your lookout where you arrive, But it's up to you as to how you strive.

THE GRILL.

Why do you?

What's it to you?

I know you do, for I've seen the gruesome feeling simmer through you.

I've seen it rise behind your eyes And take your features by surprise.

I've seen it in your half-hid grin And the tilting-upness of your chin.

Good-natured though you are and fair, as you have often boasted, Still you like to hear the other man artistically roasted.

Whenever the star secures the stage with the spotlight in the centre, Why should the anvil chorus think it has the cue to enter?

Whenever the prima donna trills the E above the clef, Why should the bra.s.ses orchestrate the ba.s.s in double f?

It's funny, But it's even money, You like to spy the buzzing fly in the other fellow's honey.

Though you have said that honest bread Demands no honey on it spread,