My dear, you can do what you like,—
Forgive, or despise, or abuse me—
But frankly, I'm going on strike,
And really you'll have to excuse me.
Indeed it's my only resource,
For, sure as I stuck to my promise, I'd
Be booked in a week for a course
Of sui-cum-homicide.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
11.30 P.M., DEC. 31
Friend, when the year is on the wing,
'Tis held a fair and comely thing
To turn reflective glances
Over the days' forbidden Scroll,
See if we're better on the whole,
And average our chances.
Yet 'tis an awful thing to drag
Each separate deed from out the bag
That up till now has hidden 't,
And bring before the shuddering view
All that we swore we wouldn't do,
Or should have done, but didn't.
The broken code, the baffled laws
Our little private faults and flaws,
And every naughty habit,
Come whistling through the Waste of Life,
Until one longs to take a knife,
Feel for his heart, and stab it.
Unchanged, exultant, one and all
Rise up spontaneous to the call,
And bring their stings behind them;
But when the search is duly plied
For items on the credit side,
One has a job to find them!
I know not why they change. I know—
None better—how one's feelings grow
Distinctly kin to mutiny,
To see one's assets limping in,
All too preposterously thin
To stand a moment's scrutiny.