THE RHYME OF THE HERCULES CLUB.
BEING A BALLAD OF TO-DAY, DESIGNED TO ILLUSTRATE THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION, AND TO SET FORTH HOW THERE MAY BE TOO MUCH OF AN EXCELLENT THING.
There was once a young man of the medium size,
Who, by keeping a ledger, himself kept likewise.
In the matter of lunch he’d a leaning to pies,
And his chronic dyspepsia will hence not surprise;
And his friends often told him, with tears in their eyes,
Which they did not disguise, that a person who tries
To live without exercise generally dies,
And declared, for the sake of his family ties,
He should enter the Hercules Club.
Tom Box and Dick Dumbell would suasively say,
If they met him by chance in the roar of Broadway,
“It’s bad for a fellow, all work and no play;
Come, let us propose you! You’ll find it will pay
To belong to the Hercules Club!”
And he yielded at last, and they put up his name,
Which was found without blame; and they put down the same
In a roll-book tremendous; and straight he became
A Samson, regarding his tame past with shame;
Called for “Beef, lean and rare!” and cut off all his hair,
Had his shoulders constructed abnormally square,
And walked out with an air that made people declare,
“He belongs to the Hercules Club!”
And he often remarked, in original way:
“It’s bad for a fellow, all work and no play;
Without recreation, sir, life doesn’t pay!
And I for my part am most happy to say
I belong to the Hercules Club.”
And frequently during a very hot “spell,”
In thick woolen garments clad closely and well,
“Reducing,”—for he was resolved to excel,—
rowed in the sun at full speed, in a shell
That belonged to the Hercules Club.
And for weeks, while the dew on the racing-track lay,
He ran before breakfast a half mile a day,
Improving his style and increasing his “stay”;
And was first at the finish, and fainted away,
At the games of the Hercules Club.
Six nights in succession he sat up to pore
“The Laws of Athletics” devotedly o’er
(Which number ten thousand and seventy-four),
With a view to proposing a very few more
In a speech to the Hercules Club.
And his coat upon festal occasions was gay
With medals on medals, marked “H. A. A. A.,”[1]
With a motto in Greek (which, my lore to display,
Means “Pleasure is business”), a splendid array
Of the spoils of the Hercules Club.
But acquaintances not of the muscular kind
Began to observe that his brow was deep-lined,
Too brilliant his eye, and to wander inclined;
He appeared, in a word (early English), “fore-pined”;
And one morning his ledger and desk he resigned,
Explaining, “I can’t have my health undermined
By this ‘demnition grind’; and I’m getting behind
In my duties as Captain” (an office defined,
Page hundred and two, in the by-laws that bind
With red tape the great Hercules Club).
And he further remarked, in most serious way:
“Give it up, did you say? ’Twill be frigid, that day![2]
Why, without relaxation, sir, life wouldn’t pay!
And I, for my part, will remain till I’m gray
On the roll of the Hercules Club!”
You perceive, gentle reader, the rub.
Is it nobler to suffer those arrows and slings
Lack of exercise brings—or take clubs, and let things
Unconnected with matters athletic take wings;
Till all interests beside, like the Arabs, shall glide
From the landscape of life, once a plain free and wide,
But now fenced for the “Games” which we lightly began,
Grown our serious aims and the chief end of Man?
There’s an aureate mean these two courses between,
But I humbly submit that it seldom is seen,
With all proper respect for that organization,
Of benevolent purpose and high reputation,
The excellent Hercules Club!
FOOTNOTES
[1] “H. A. A. A.”: Hercules Amateur Athletic Association.
[2] Frigid day, or day of low temperature: A singular idiom of the American language, expressing grave improbability.