Edmund Cooke - Impertinent Poems

I never played a little game
And won a five or ten,
But, presto! I was not the same
As common makes of men.
Not Solomon and all his kind
Held half the wisdom of my mind.
And so I'd swell to twice my size,
And throw my hat across my eyes,
And chew a quill, and wear red ties,
And tip you off the stock to rise —
Until, at last, I'd have to steal
The baby's bank to buy a meal.

I speak as if these things remained
All in the perfect tense,
And yet I don't suppose I've gained
A single ounce of sense.
I scoff these tales of yesterday
In quite a supercilious way,
But by to-morrow I may bump
Into some newer game and jump!
You'll think I am the only trump
In all the deck until – kerslump!
Unless you'll do the same some time,
Of course you haven't read this rime.

O, one might be like Socrates
And lift the hemlock up,
Pledge death with philosophic ease,
And drain the untrembling cup; —
But to be barefoot and be great,
Most in desert and least in state,
Servant of truth and lord of fate!
I own I falter at the peak
Trod daily by the steadfast Greek.

O, one might nerve himself to climb
His cross and cruelly die,
Forgiving his betrayer's crime,
With pity in his eye; —
But day by day and week by week
To feel his power and yet be meek,
Endure the curse and turn the cheek,
I scarce dare trust even you to be
As was the Jew of Galilee.

O, one might reach heroic heights
By one strong burst of power.
He might endure the whitest lights
Of heaven for an hour; —
But harder is the daily drag,
To smile at trials which fret and fag,
And not to murmur – nor to lag.
The test of greatness is the way
One meets the eternal Everyday.

You may labor your fill, friend of mine, if you will;
You may worry a bit, if you must;
You may treat your affairs as a series of cares,
You may live on a scrap and a crust;
But when the day's done, put it out of your head;
Don't take your troubles to bed.

You may batter your way through the thick of the fray,
You may sweat, you may swear, you may grunt;
You may be a jack-fool if you must, but this rule
Should ever be kept at the front: —
Don't fight with your pillow, but lay down your head
And kick every worriment out of the bed.

That friend or that foe (which he is, I don't know),
Whose name we have spoken as Death,
Hovers close to your side, while you run or you ride,
And he envies the warmth of your breath;
But he turns him away, with a shake of his head,
When he finds that you don't take your troubles to bed.

What is a failure? It's only a spur
To a man who receives it right,
And it makes the spirit within him stir
To go in once more and fight.
If you never have failed, it's an even guess
You never have won a high success.

What is a miss? It's a practice shot
Which a man must make to enter
The list of those who can hit the spot
Of the bull's-eye in the centre.
If you never have sent your bullet wide,
You never have put a mark inside.

What is a knock-down? A count of ten
Which a man may take for a rest.
It will give him a chance to come up again
And do his particular best.
If you never have more than met your match,
I guess you never have toed the scratch.

You look at yourself in the glass and say:
"Really, I'm rather distingué .
To be sure my eyes
Are assorted in size,
And my mouth is a crack
Running too far back,
And I hardly suppose
An unclassified nose
Is a mark of beauty, as beauty goes;
But still there's something about the whole
Suggesting a beauty of – well, say soul."
And this is the reason that photograph-galleries
Are able to pay employees' salaries.
Now, this little mark of our brotherhood,
By which each thinks that his looks are good,
Is laudable quite in you and me,
Provided we not only look, but be.

I look at my poem and you hear me say:
"Really, it's clever in its way.
The theme is old
And the style is cold.
These words run rude;
That line is crude;
And here is a rhyme
Which fails to chime,
And the metre dances out of time.
Oh, it isn't so bright it'll blind the sun,
But it's better than that by Such-a-one."
And this is the reason I and my creditors
Curse the "unreasoning whims" of editors,
And yet, if one writes for a livelihood,
He ought to believe that his work is good,
Provided the form that his vanity takes
Not only believes, but also makes.

And there is our neighbor. We've heard him say:
"Really, I'm not the commonest clay.
Brown got his dust
By betraying a trust;
And Jones's wife
Leads a terrible life;
While I have heard
That Robinson's word
Isn't quite so good as Gas preferred.
And Smith has a soul with seamy cracks,
For he talks of people behind their backs!"
And these are the reasons the penitentiary
Holds open house for another century.
True, we want no man in our neighborhood
Who doesn't consider his character good,
But then it ought to be also true
He not only knows to consider, but do.

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)

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.)