SEE-SAW.
ICKNESS and Health have been playing
a game with me,
Tossing me up, like a ball, to and fro.
Pleasure and Pain did exactly the same
with me,
Treating me merely like something to
throw.
Joy took me up to the clouds for a holiday
In a balloon that she happens to keep;
Then, as a damp upon rather a jolly day,
Grief in a diving-bell bore me down deep.
Poverty courted me early—worse luck to her!—
(Wealth would have made me a much better wife;)
Fool that I am, I was faithful and stuck to her;
She 'll cling to me for the rest of my life.
As for our children, we 'd better have drown'd them all;
They, I believe, are the worst of our ills.
Is it a wonder I often confound them all,
Seeing that most of them chance to be Bills?
Hope, who was once an occasional visitor,
Never drops in on us now for a chat.
Memory calls, though,—relentless inquisitor—
(Not that I feel very grateful for that.)
Hope was a liar—it's no use denying it—
Memory's talk is undoubtedly true:
Still, I confess that I like, after trying it,
Hope's conversation the best of the two.