Any Other Time
All of us play our very best game —
Any other time.
Golf or billiards, it's all the same —
Any other time.
Lose a match and you always say,
'Just my luck! I was 'off' to-day!
I could have beaten him quite half-way —
Any other time!'
After a fiver you ought to go —
Any other time.
Every man that you ask says 'Oh,
Any OTHER time.
Lend you a fiver! I'd lend you two,
But I'm overdrawn and my bills are due,
Wish you'd ask me — now, mind you do —
Any other time!'
Fellows will ask you out to dine —
Any other time.
'Not to-night, for we're twenty-nine —
Any other time.
Not to-morrow, for cook's on strike,
Not next day, I'll be out on the bike —
Just drop in whenever you like —
Any other time!'
Seasick passengers like the sea —
Any other time.
'Something . . I ate . . disagreed . . with me!
Any other time
Ocean-trav'lling is . . simply bliss,
Must be my . . liver . . has gone amiss . .
Why, I would . . laugh . . at a sea . . like this —
Any other time.'
. . . . .
Most of us mean to be better men —
Any other time:
Regular upright characters then —
Any other time.
Yet somehow as the years go by
Still we gamble and drink and lie,
When it comes to the last we'll want to die —
Any other time!
The Last Trump
'You led the trump,' the old man said
With fury in his eye,
'And yet you hope my girl to wed!
Young man! your hopes of love are fled,
'Twere better she should die!
'My sweet young daughter sitting there,
So innocent and plump!
You don't suppose that she would care
To wed an outlawed man who'd dare
To lead the thirteenth trump!
'If you had drawn their leading spade
It meant a certain win!
But no! By Pembroke's mighty shade
The thirteenth trump you went and played
And let their diamonds in!
'My girl! Return at my command
His presents in a lump!
Return his ring! For understand
No man is fit to hold your hand
Who leads a thirteenth trump!
'But hold! Give every man his due
And every dog his day.
Speak up and say what made you do
This dreadful thing — that is, if you
Have anything to say!'
He spoke. 'I meant at first,' said he,
'To give their spades a bump:
Or lead the hearts, but then you see
I thought against us there might be,
Perhaps, a fourteenth trump!'
. . . . .
They buried him at dawn of day
Beside a ruined stump:
And there he sleeps the hours away
And waits for Gabriel to play
The last — the fourteenth — trump.
Tar and Feathers
Oh! the circus swooped down
On the Narrabri town,
For the Narrabri populace moneyed are;
And the showman he smiled
At the folk he beguiled
To come all the distance from Gunnedah.
But a juvenile smart,
Who objected to 'part',
Went in 'on the nod', and to do it he
Crawled in through a crack
In the tent at the back,
For the boy had no slight ingenuity.
And says he with a grin,
'That's the way to get in;
But I reckon I'd better be quiet or
They'll spiflicate me,'
And he chuckled, for he
Had the loan of the circus proprietor.
But the showman astute
On that wily galoot
Soon dropped, and you'll say that he leathered him —
Not he; with a grim
Sort of humorous whim,
He took him and tarred him and feathered him.
Says he, 'You can go
Round the world with a show,
And knock every Injun and Arab wry;
With your name and your trade,
On the posters displayed,
The feathered what-is-it from Narrabri.'
Next day for his freak,
By a Narrabri beak,
He was jawed with a deal of verbosity;
For his only appeal
Was 'professional zeal' —
He wanted another monstrosity.
Said his worship, 'Begob!
You are fined forty bob,
And six shillin's costs to the clurk!' he says.
And the Narrabri joy,
Half bird and half boy,
Has a 'down' on himself and on circuses.