Classic Poem

When Life began, experienced persons said:
" See Lachesis her shears snip that slim thread,
A line so slender can't protracted be:
Lo, Punchinello's early tomb! and see
Yon tumulus whose cut-off hump declares
How premature an end was Vanity Fair's .
Brightness and brevity as surely mate
As pork and beans. It isn't chance; it's fate!
A few brief months of coruscation, then
Life will go out. " So said experienced men.

A decade swift since then this Earth has sped,
And every day has turned things on their head.
Croakers who moaned " short Life! " themselves have died,
Strong banks have bursted; men whose means defied
All turns of fortune have been brought to use.
The surer plan of having nought to lose.
" Assured success " has gone through bankruptcy,
Merit in partnership with Industry
Have somehow failed to justify presumption,
And draw a salary now, employed by Gumption.
New journals, solemn, fiscal, economic,
Religious, newsy, sporty, spicy, comic,
Diurnal, weekly — every kind you take —
Have mostly left depression in their wake.
Still round this world has spun, nor lost a minute,
And Life — " brief, fitful Life " — Life still is in it.

Ten times around the freckled orb of day,
Hebdomadally blazing out the way,
What a procession of its blessed self
Stalks through that score of volumes on Life's shelf!
What old, old friends perennially appear!
What new ones come and go, to chide or cheer!
Fair Chloe, both ways drawn, choosing by toss
'Twixt Strephon's ardor and old Bullion's dross;
Lucy and Jack kept single by the curse
Of large requirements and a slender purse;
The joys ornate in which the rich compete;
The simple pastimes of a Thompson Street;
Shanty-bred Romeo's high-flown speeches poured
Into the infant ears of his adored;
Cesnola's fragments joined with too much skill;
The summer-girl, by ennui driven to kill
Too sluggish hours by stirring with her fan
The smouldering passion of the casual man;
The Sabbatarian, aye obtusely prone
To estimate the Lord's day as his own;
The anxious tests the newly married make
To learn what course two lives when lumped must take;
In all his uses in recurring course
That dearest quadruped to man, the horse;
Dudes, chappies, flunkies, bishops, statesmen, sports;
Brusque millionaires; professors of all sorts;
Managing matrons, doctors, perfect dears;
Prudes, politicians, fortune-hunting peers;
Prigs, flirts, small boys chock full of devilment;
Wrong-headed folks who err with good intent;
Policemen, parsons, all the recurring train
That cross the boards of time, and come again,
While down in front in strongest light confer
The score-score stars of the McAllister.

Dear hundred thousand friends to whom Life owes
The vital force by which it lives and grows,
Your prompt support its infant steps that propped
And never since has wavered, much less stopped,
Is still its best possession — its very self —
Since when that ceases Life goes on the shelf.
For any good Life has availed to do,
The lion's share of praise belongs to you.
'Twas you that opened Gotham's museum's door
And helped make Sunday useful to the poor;
'Twas you, last summer, and your fostering care,
That gave, through Life , four thousand babes fresh air.
Your laugh has turned purse-proud Assumption pale,
Your scornful eyes have seen Imposture quail,
And driven the bigot skulking from his niche,
And checked the follies of the idle rich.
Life , truly, fits the shafts to proper strings,
But 'tis your hands that give the missiles wings.
Be still the sun that brings Life's buds to bloom!
Forgive its faults; its failings still assume
To be such griefs as come to every man
When what he would mismatches what he can:
Still speed its darts at Folly as she flies;
Still laugh down ostentation, meanness, lies;
Still share its mirth; still help its humor's point
To jab the times where'er they're out of joint.
Whate'er befalls this world of greed and strife,
While Life has you, be sure you shall have Life .
Let's keep on trying, without undue fuss,
To make the world less gloomy, having us.