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Title: The Whet
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
The day that I loaf when I ought to employ it
Has, somehow, the flavor which makes me enjoy it.
So the man with no work
He may joyously shirk
I envy no more than I do the Grand Turk.
He most is in need of a holiday, who,
In this workaday world, has no duty to do.
The dollar you waste when you ought not to spend it
Buys something no plutocrat's millions could lend it,
For if once you exhaust
All your care of the cost,
Full half of the pleasure of purchase is lost,
So I trust you are one who is wise in discerning
The value of spending is most in the earning.
My little success which was nearest complete
Was that which I tore from the teeth of defeat,
And the man who can hit
With his wisdom and wit
Without any effort, I envy no whit.
The genius whose laurels grow always the greenest
Finds pleasure in plenty, but misses the keenest.
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: Whet
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