A PSALM OF LIFE ASSURANCE.
TELL me not in mournful numbers,
Life Assurance is a dream,
And that while the public slumbers,
Figures are not what they seem!
Really, I am quite in earnest!
So would you be. Here's a goal!
Come let's have enquiry sternest.
It's too bad, upon my soul.
Here's a set of fellows borrow
Money that they can't repay,
Then buy up, till each to-morrow
Finds them deeper than to-day.
Thus my claim they'll fail in meeting,
Though they've taken all I gave!
They, not muffled drums, want beating
Soundly till they look quite grave.
Talk of board rooms' tittle tattle!
Stuff! I have insured my life.
I'm not dumb, like driven cattle!
And I'll make a precious strife!
Trust the Future? Come, that's pleasant!
Wait until I'm buried—dead?
No, I'll make a row at present.
On official toes I'll tread!
And directors think to blind us!
Humbug us just for a time.
Till we go to leave behind us
Nothing? Why, the thing's sublime!
Nothing! Do they think another
Will insure, like me, in vain!
No! the outcry they'll not smother,
Nor catch shipwrecked dupes again!
Let us, then, be up and doing,
Never mind what be our fate,
Each director still pursuing,
Shouting out "Investigate!"
From The Tomahawk, September 11, 1869.