Yes, I own when the man is a rank also-ran
That I feel quite pish-tushy and pooh-y,
And exclaim if he ever knew saw-dust from bran,
Well—I come from just west of St. Louis!
But then, in the winning he's made, there's a hope
That I may do even as he did,
So I swallow my sneer and I study his dope
To discover just why he succeeded.
I've been up in the air, I've been down in the hole,
(But always, let's hope, on the level,)
And I've been on my uppers—so meagre my sole
'Twould scarcely have tempted the devil!
But it's nothing to you what I am, or I was,
And no whit of your sympathy's needed,
For I'm certain to win in the long run, because
I shall see how my rival succeeded.
BLOOD IS RED.
Some of us don't drink, some of us do;
Some of us use a word or two.
Most of us, maybe, are half-way ripe
For deeds that would't look well in type.
All of us have done things, no doubt,
We don't very often brag about.
We are timidly good, we are badly bold,
But there's hope for the worst of us, I hold,
If there be a few things we didn't do,
For the reason that we so wanted to.
Some of us sin on a smaller scale.
(We don't mind minnows, we shy at a whale.)
We speak of a woman with half a sneer,
We sit on our hands when we ought to cheer.
The salad we mix in the bowl of the heart
We sometimes make a little too tart
For home consumption. We growl, we nag,
But we're not quite lost if we sometimes drag
The hot words back and make them mild
At the moment they fret to be running wild.
Don't pin your faith on the man or woman
Who never is tempted. We're mostly human.
And whoever he be who never has felt
The red blood sing in the veins and melt
The ice of convention, caste and creed,
To the very last barrier, has no need
To raise his brows at the rest of us.
It bides its time in the best of us,
And well for him if he do not do
That which the strength of him wants him to.