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 Heidsick (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.
. . . . .
What makes Existence really nice
Is Virtue—with a dash of Vice.