A NOBLE AMBITION.
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life's one long unending bill—
Debts unpaid disturb your slumbers—
Tin will fly, do what you will.
Meat is high in real good earnest,
Far above the hungry soul;
Dust thou art, to dust returns, is
Very typical of coal.
In the weekly market battle,
For the cheapest things and best,
Be not like dumb-driven cattle,
Stand out bravely, all the rest.
Not enjoyment, hardly sorrow,
Feel we, when small debts we pay;
Still, we know that each to-morrow
Finds them larger than to-day.
Duns are hard, and time is fleeting,
Bills are sadly in arrears,
And our hearts, tho' brave, stop beating
At the aspect of affairs.
Bailiffs are not very pleasant,
Lock your door and keep the key;
Act, act in the living present—
Leave your country, cross the sea.
Lives of great men, too, remind us,
Big debts sometimes clogged their feet;
And, like them, we leave behind us
Some few bills we cannot meet—
Bills that make you try to smother,
As you cross the stormy main,
Thoughts of love, and home, and mother,
Listening for your step in vain.
Let us then be up and doing
With an eye to making tin,
Any likely trade pursuing,
Learn to gain your end and win.
From The Figaro, December 3, 1873.