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Title: Let's Be Glad We're Living
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
I.
Oh, let's be glad that we're living yet; you bet!
The sun runs round and the rain is wet
And the bird flip-flops its wing;
Tennis and toil bring an equal sweat;
It's so much trouble to frown and fret,
So easy to laugh and sing,
Ting ling!
So easy to laugh and sing!
(And yet, sometimes, when I sing my song,
I'm almost afraid my method is wrong.)
II.
Many have money which I have not, God wot!
But victual and keep are all they've got,
And the stars still dot the sky.
Heaven be praised that they shine so bright,
Heaven be praised for an appetite,
So who is richer than I?
Hi yi!
Say, who is richer than I?
(And yet I'm hoping to sell this screed
For several dollars I hardly need.)
III.
Ducats and dividends, stocks and shares, who cares?
Worry and property travel in pairs,
While the green grows on the tree.
A banquet's nothing more than a meal;
A trolley's much like an automobile,
With a transfer sometimes free,
Tra lee!
With a transfer sometimes free!
(And yet you're unwilling, I plainly see,
To leave the automobile to me.)
IV.
A note you give and a note you get; don't fret,
For they both may go to protest yet,
And the roses blow perfume.
Fortune is only a Dun report;
The Homestead Law and the Bankrupt Court
Have fostered many a boom,
Boom, boom!
Have fostered many a boom.
(But I see you smile in a rapturous way
On the man who is rated double A.)
V.
Life is a show for you and me; it's free!
And what you look for is what you see;
A hill is a humped-up hollow.
Riches are yours with a dollar bill;
A million's the same little digit still,
With nothing but naughts to follow,
So hollo!
There's nothing but naughts to follow.
(But you and I, as I've said before,
Could get along with a trifle more.)
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: Let's Be Glad We're Living
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