Society and the World

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I ask, the heaven above And the road below me.

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I ask, the heaven above And the road below me.

A child should always say what’s true And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table; At least as far as he is able.

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

O Ireland, isn’t it grand you look— Like a bride in her rich adornin’? And with all the pent-up love of my heart I bid you the top o’ the mornin’!

There is weeping in my heart Like the rain falling on the city. 2

What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Felix Randal the farrier, O he is dead then? My duty all ended, Who have watched his mold of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome, Pining, pining.

Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk. Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch grass: Yet this will go onward the same Though dynasties pass. Yonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by; War’s annals will cloud into night Ere their story die.

That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment Day.

What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn cocks say Night is growing gray, Leaving all that here can win us.

Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.

I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot’s ashore.

The gratifying feeling that our duty has been done.

My object all sublime I shall achieve in time— To let the punishment fit the crime. 3

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, I’ve got a little list—I’ve got a little list. Of society offenders who might well be underground, And who never would be missed—who never would be missed.

For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich— Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage.

The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular,

I often think it’s comical How nature always does contrive That every boy and every gal, That’s born into the world alive, Is either a little Liberal, Or else a little Conservative!

When I went to the Bar as a very young man (Said I to myself, said I).

Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes! Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses.

Come, friends, who plow the sea, Let’s vary piracee With a little burglaree. 1

I am the very model of a modern Major-General. I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical.

It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.