We bivouac here and barely get acquainted
Until the furlough ends; then we are sainted,
Whether our acts deserve rebuke or praise.
When we are _dead_ the recollection stays
Of virtues only: vices are excused,
But to the _living_ pardon is refused.
And yet, alive, I'd rather be unsung,
Than any Saint the catacombs among.
Tho critics flay me and the censors sneer,
'Twere better so, than praises on my bier.
And so we walk life's slender rope till, bing!
We slip and fall or someone cuts the string.
Ambition lures us, but the pinkest peach
Is always just beyond us, out of reach:
And when, at last, we think we are in line
To cross the threshold, lo! the Full House sign.
We never quite obtain the golden urn
Tho rainbows beckon every way we turn.
Who ever found, I ask you, all he sought?
Our best endeavors ofttimes come to naught:
And yet we trudge along, loath to confess
We're only groping in a wilderness;
Plodding the sands that burn our feet, and hurt;
Seeking the Promised Land, our just desert.
Had Cæsar reached the zenith of his life
When Brutus cut his friendship with the knife?
The ladder broke and he was headlong flung
While setting foot upon the topmost rung.
Thus picture Cæsar giving up the ghost
Just when he reached the pinnacle, almost!
Did Bonaparte receive his proper due?
He _got_ it, but too late, at Waterloo.
He played with fire, aroused the seething crater,
And now, with Nick, inhabits the Equator.
So we conclude, delving the lines between,
He might as well have clung to Josephine.
Tho Tell's renown illumes the Alpine sky
Whose target was the Apple of his eye,
As much distinction, and applause to boot,
Should be bestowed on William's steady _shoot_:
More praise to him, than the Toxopholite,
Who held the apple but eschewed a bite!
The _worst_ of us hath goodness in his breast;
The _best_ of us but fails, put to the test,--
So, in arrears, we strive to pay the price
For Fortune's frowns or Fate's disastrous dice
Until we're bankrupt or too spent to wrest
Long hoped-for treasure from Mad Mammon's chest.
Tho life hath ups and downs, the weeping willow
Our ends shapes better than the downy pillow.
It takes stern measures to incline the bantling,
In right direction, without switch or scantling.
The optimist with farthings in his pouch,
Gets more enjoyment than the wealthy Grouch;
Thus cheerfulness, a product underrated,
In every household should be cultivated.
Give me the man who, tho in direst straits,
Will thumb his sharp proboscis at the Fates;
Who'll take the flimsy fire escape, or dive
Into the net, glad to get out alive;
Who, tho the skies be unpropitious, crowds
His way along, unmindful of the clouds;
Who never quits, in life's unequal bout,
But keeps on fighting till he's counted out.