But having had your boom in oil, And made your millions out of it, Would you propose to cease from toil? Great Vanderfeller! Not a bit! You've got to labour, day and night, Until you die—and serve you right!
Then, when you stop this frenzied race, And others in your office sit, You'll leave the world a better place, —The better for your leaving it! For there's a chance perhaps your heir May spend what you've collected there.
Myself, how lucky I must be, That need not fear so gross an end; Since Fortune has not favoured me With many million pounds to spend. (Still, did that fickle Dame relent, I'd show you how they should be spent!)
I am not saint enough to feel My shoulder ripen to a wing, Nor have I wits enough to steal His title from the Copper King; And there's a vasty gulf between The Man I Am and Might Have Been;
But tho' at dinner I may take Too much of Heidsieck (extra dry), And underneath the table make My simple couch just where I lie, My mode of roosting on the floor Is just a trick and nothing more.
And when, not Wisely but too Well, My thirst I have contrived to quench, The stories I am apt to tell May be, perhaps, a trifle French; (For 'tis in anecdote, no doubt, That what's Bred in the Beaune comes out.)
It does not render me unfit To give advice, both wise and right, Because I do not follow it Myself as closely as I might; There's nothing that I wouldn't do To point the proper road to you.
And this I'm sure of, more or less, And trust that you will all agree, The Elements of Happiness Consist in being—just like Me; No sinner, nor a saint perhaps, But—well, the very best of chaps.
Share the Experience I have had, Consider all I've known and seen, And Don't be Good, and Don't be Bad, But cultivate a Golden Mean.
* * * * * * *