Wisdom

Tranquilism


I call myself a Tranquilist;
With deep detachment I exist,

From friction free;
While others court the gilded throng
And worship Women, Wine and Song,

I scorn the three.
For I have reached the sober age
When I prefer to turn a page

Beside the fire,
And from the busy mart of men
To meditative book and pen

With grace retire.

If you are craving peace of mind,
In Tranquilism you will find

Philosophy;
Serenely fold your hands and wait
Be cloistered calm whatever fate

The Gods decree.
And though the world with rage be rent,
Hold it remote and claim content

With quiet heart;
You can't do much to better it,
But your good-will may help a bit,

Ere you depart.

So let us who are old and sere
To din of battle shut the ear,

And trumpet vain;
And though in no monastic mood
Accept the balm of solitude

And grace regain.
Let us be Tranquilists and try
In placid places to apply

Life's wisdom won;
In Nature's bounty we may bless
The Gods and wait with thankfulness

Our setting sun.

The Petit Vieux

"Sow your wild oats in your youth," so we're always told;
But I say with deeper sooth: "Sow them when you're old."
I'll be wise till I'm about seventy or so:
Then, by Gad! I'll blossom out as an ancient beau.
I'll assume a dashing air, laugh with loud Ha! ha! . . .
How my grandchildren will stare at their grandpapa!
Their perfection aureoled I will scandalize:
Won't I be a hoary old sinner in their eyes!


Watch me, how I'll learn to chaff barmaids in a bar;
Scotches daily, gayly quaff, puff a fierce cigar.
I will haunt the Tango teas, at the stage-door stand;
Wait for Dolly Dimpleknees, bouquet in my hand.


Then at seventy I'll take flutters at roulette;
While at eighty hope I'll make good at poker yet;
And in fashionable togs to the races go,
Gayest of the gay old dogs, ninety years or so.


"Sow your wild oats while you're young," that's what you are told;
Don't believe the foolish tongue -- sow 'em when you're old.
Till you're threescore years and ten, take my humble tip,
Sow your nice tame oats and then . . . Hi, boys! Let 'er rip.

The Judgement

The Judge looked down, his face was grim,
He scratched his ear;

The gangster's moll looked up at him
With eyes of fear.

She thought: 'This guy in velvet gown,
With balding pate,

Who now on me is looking down,
Can seal my fate.'

The Judge thought: 'Fifteen years or ten
I might decree.

Just let me say the word and then
Go home to tea.

But then this poor wretch might not be
So long alive . . .'

So with surprise he heard that he
Was saying 'Five'.

The Judge went home. His daughter's child
Was five that day;

And with sweet gifts around her piled
She laughed in play.

Then mused the Judge: 'Life oft bestows
Such evil odds.

May he who human mercy shows
Not count on God's?'

The God Of Common-Sense

My Daddy used to wallop me for every small offense:
"Its takes a hair-brush back," said he, "to teach kids common-sense."
And still to-day I scarce can look a hair-brush in the face.
Without I want in sympathy to pat a tender place.
For Dad declared with unction: "Spare the brush and spoil the brat."
The dear old man! What e'er his faults he never did do that;
And though a score of years have gone since he departed hence,
I still revere his deity, The God of Common-sense.


How often I have played the ass (Man's universal fate),
Yet always I have saved myself before it was too late;
How often tangled with a dame - you know how these things are,
Yet always had the gumption not to carry on too far;
Remembering that fancy skirts, however high they go,
Are not to be stacked up against a bunch of hard-earned dough;
And sentiment has little weight compared with pounds and pence,
According to the gospel of the God of Common-sense.


Oh blessing on that old hair-brush my Daddy used to whack
With such benign precision on the basement of my back.
Oh blessings on his wisdom, saying: "Son, don't play the fool,
Let prudence be your counselor and reason be your rule.
Don't get romantic notions, always act with judgment calm,
Poetical emotions ain't in practice worth a damn/
let solid comfort be your goal, self-interest your guide. . . ."
Then just as if to emphasize, whack! whack! the brush he plied.
And so I often wonder if my luck is Providence,
or just my humble tribute to the God of Common-sense.

The Centenarians

I asked of ancient gaffers three
The way of their ripe living,
And this is what they told to me
Without Misgiving.

The First: 'The why I've lived so long,
To my fond recollection
Is that for women, wine and song
I've had a predilection.
Full many a bawdy stave I've sung
With wenches of my choosing,
But of the joys that kept me young
The best was boozing.'

The Second: 'I'm a sage revered
Because I was a fool

And with the bourgeon of my beard
I kept my ardour cool.
On health I have conserved my hold


By never dissipating:
And that is why a hundred old
I'm celebrating.'

The Third: 'The explanation I
Have been so long a-olding,
Is that to wash I never try,
Despite conjugal scolding.
I hate the sight of soap and so
I seldom change my shirt:
Believe me, Brother, there is no
Preservative like dirt.'

So there you have the reasons three
Why age may you rejoice:
Booze, squalour and temerity,-Well,
you may take your choice.
Yet let me say, although it may
Your egoism hurt,
Of all the three it seems to me
The best is DIRT.

The Ape And God

Son put a poser up to me
That made me scratch my head:
"God made the whole wide world," quoth he;
"That's right, my boy," I said.
Said son: "He mad the mountains soar,
And all the plains lie flat;
But Dad, what did he do before


He did all that?

Said I: "Creation was his biz;
He set the stars to shine;
The sun and moon and all that is
Were His unique design.
The Cosmos is his concrete thought,
The Universe his chore..."
Said Son: "I understand, but what


Did He before?"

I gave it up; I could not cope
With his enquiring prod,
And must admit I've little hope
Of understanding God.
Indeed I find more to my mind
The monkey in the tree
In whose crude form Nature defined

Our human destiny.

Thought I: "Why search for Deity
In visionary shape?
'Twould better be if we could see
The angel in the ape.
Let mystic seek a God above:
Far wiser he who delves,
To find in kindliness and love


God in ourselves."

Take It Easy

When I was boxing in the ring
In 'Frisco back in ninety-seven,
I used to make five bucks a fling
To give as good as I was given.
But when I felt too fighting gay,
And tried to be a dinger-donger,
My second, Mike Muldoon. would say:
"Go easy, kid; you'll stay the longer."


When I was on the Yukon trail
The boys would warn, when things were bleakest,
The weakest link's the one to fail -
Said I: "by Gosh! I won't be weakest."
So I would strain with might and main,
Striving to prove I was the stronger,
Till Sourdough Sam would snap: "Goddam!
Go easy, son; you'' last the longer."
So all you lads of eighty odd
Take my advice - you'll never rue it:
Be quite prepared to meet your God,
But don't stampede yourselves to do it.
Just cultivate a sober gait;
Don't emulate the lively conger;
No need to race, slow down the pace,
Go easy, Pals - you'll linger longer.

Successful Failure

I wonder if successful men
Are always happy?

And do they sing with gusto when
Springtime is sappy?
Although I am of snow-white hair


And nighly mortal,
Each time I sniff the April air
I chortle.

I wonder if a millionaire

Jigs with enjoyment,
Having such heaps of time to spare
For daft employment.


For as I dance the Highland Fling
My glee is muckle,
And doping out new songs to sing
I chuckle.

I wonder why so soon forgot
Are fame and riches;
Let cottage comfort be my lot
With well-worn britches.
As in a pub a poor unknown,
Brown ale quaffing,
To think of all I'll never own,-I'm
laughing.

Stupidity


Stupidity, woe's anodyne,
Be kind and comfort me in mine;
Smooth out the furrows of my brow,
Make me as carefree as a cow,
Content to sleep and eat and drink


And never think

Stupidity, let me be blind
To all the ills of humankind;
Fill me with simple sentiment
To walk the way my father went;
School me to sweat with robot folk

Beneath the yoke.

Stupidity, keep in their place
The moiling masses of my race,
And bid the lowly multitude
Be humble as a people should;
Learn us with patient hearts, I pray,


Lords to obey.

Stupidity and Ignorance,
Be you our buffers 'mid mischance;
Endoctrine us to do your will,
And other stupid people kill;
Fool us with hope of Life to be,
Great god to whom we bow the knee,


--STUPIDITY.

Strip Teaser

My precious grand-child, aged two,
Is eager to unlace one shoe,

And then the other;
Her cotton socks she'll deftly doff
Despite the mild reproaches of

Her mother.

Around the house she loves to fare,
And with her rosy tootsies bare,

Pit-pat the floor;
And though remonstrances we make
She presently decides to take

Off something more.

Her pinafore she next unties,
And then before we realise,

Her dress drops down;
Her panties and her brassiere,
Her chemise and her underwear

Are round her strown.

And now she dances all about,
As naked as a new-caught trout,

With impish glee;
And though she's beautiful like that,
(A cherubim, but not so fat),

Quite shocked are we.

And so we dread with dim dismay
Some day she may her charms display

In skimpy wear;
Aye, even in a gee-string she
May frolic on the stage of the

Folies-Bèrgere

But e'er she does, I hope she'll read
This worldly wise and warning screed,

That to conceal,
Unto the ordinary man
Is often more alluring than

To ALL reveal.

Silence


When I was cub reporter I
Would interview the Great,
And sometimes they would make reply,
And sometimes hesitate;
But often they would sharply say,
With bushy eyebrows bent:
"Young man, your answer for to-day


Is - No Comment."

Nigh sixty years have called the tune,
And silver is my pate;
No longer do I importune
Important men of state;
But time has made me wise, and so
When button-holed I shake
My head and say: "To-day, I've no

Comment to make."

Oh, silence is a mighty shield,
Verbosity is vain;
let others wordy warfare wield,
From arguments abstain;
When faced with dialectic foes
Just shrug and turn away:
Be sure your wisest words are those


You do not say.

Yea, Silence is a gleaming sword
Whose wounds are hard to heal;
Its quiet stuns the spoken word
More than a thunder peal;
Against it there is no defense,
For like the grave-yard sod
Its hush is Heaven's eloquence,


The VOICE OF GOD.

Room 5: The Concert Singer

I'm one of these haphazard chaps
Who sit in cafes drinking;
A most improper taste, perhaps,
Yet pleasant, to my thinking.
For, oh, I hate discord and strife;
I'm sadly, weakly human;
And I do think the best of life
Is wine and song and woman.


Now, there's that youngster on my right
Who thinks himself a poet,
And so he toils from morn to night
And vainly hopes to show it;
And there's that dauber on my left,
Within his chamber shrinking --
He looks like one of hope bereft;
He lives on air, I'm thinking.


But me, I love the things that are,
My heart is always merry;
I laugh and tune my old guitar:
Sing ho! and hey-down-derry.
Oh, let them toil their lives away
To gild a tawdry era,
But I'll be gay while yet I may:
Sing tira-lira-lira.


I'm sure you know that picture well,
A monk, all else unheeding,
Within a bare and gloomy cell
A musty volume reading;
While through the window you can see
In sunny glade entrancing,
With cap and bells beneath a tree
A jester dancing, dancing.


Which is the fool and which the sage?
I cannot quite discover;
But you may look in learning's page
And I'll be laughter's lover.
For this our life is none too long,
And hearts were made for gladness;
Let virtue lie in joy and song,
The only sin be sadness.


So let me troll a jolly air,
Come what come will to-morrow;
I'll be no cabotin of care,
No souteneur of sorrow.
Let those who will indulge in strife,
To my most merry thinking,
The true philosophy of life



Is laughing, loving, drinking.

And there's that weird and ghastly hag
Who walks head bent, with lips a-mutter;
With twitching hands and feet that drag,
And tattered skirts that sweep the gutter.
An outworn harlot, lost to hope,
With staring eyes and hair that's hoary
I hear her gibber, dazed with dope:
I often wonder what's her story.

Ripeness


With peace and rest
And wisdom sage,
Ripeness is best
Of every age.
With hands that fold
In pensive prayer,
For grave-yard mold

Prepare.

From fighting free
With fear forgot,
Let ripeness be,
Before the rot.
With heart of cheer
At eighty odd,
How man grows near


To God!

With passion spent
And life nigh run
Let us repent
The ill we've done.
And as we bless
With happy heart
Life's mellowness

--Depart.

Rich Poor Man

We pitied him because
He lived alone;
His tiny cottage was
His only own.
His little garden had
A wall around;
Yet never was so glad
A bit of ground.


It seemed to fair rejoice
With flowers and fruit;
With blooms it found a voice
When ours was muts.
It smiled without a pause
In gracious glow:
I think it was because
He loved it so.


He had no news to read,
No rent to pay;
His vegetable need
He plucked each day.
His grateful garden gave
Him ample fare;
He lived without a crave,
Without a care.


His bread and milk and tea
Were all he bought;
To us he seemed to be
A sorry lot . . .
But when we're dead and gone,
With all our fuss,
I guess he'll carry on,
And laugh at us.

Reverence


I saw the Greatest Man on Earth,
Aye, saw him with my proper eyes.
A loin-cloth spanned his proper girth,
But he was naked otherwise,
Excepting for his grey sombrero;
And when his domelike head he bared,
With reverence I stared and stared,
As mummified as any Pharaoh.


He leaned upon a little cane,
A big cigar was in his mouth;
Through spectacles of yellow stain
He gazed and gazed toward the South;
And then he dived into the sea,
As if to Corsica to swim;
His side stroke was so strong and free
I could not help but envy him.


A fitter man than I, I said,
Although his age is more than mine;
And I was strangely comforted
To see him battle in the brine.
Thought I: We have no cause for sorrow;
For one so dynamic to-day
Will gird him for the future fray
And lead us lion-like to-morrow.


The Greatest Man in all the world
Lay lazing like you or me,
Within a flimsy bathrobe curled
Upon a mattress by the sea:
He reached to pat a tou-tou's nose,
And scratched his torso now and then,
And scribbled with a fountain pen
What I assumed was jewelled prose.


And then methought he looked at me,
And hailed me with a gesture grand;
His fingers made the letter "V,"
So I, too, went to raise my hand; -
When nigh to me the barman glided
With liquid gold, and then I knew
He merely called for cock-tails two,
And so abjectly I subsided.


Yet I have had my moment's glory,
A-squatting nigh that Mighty Tory,
Proud Hero of our Island Story.

Retired


I used to sing, when I was young,
The joy of idleness;
But now I'm grey I hold my tongue,
For frankly I confess
If I had not some job to do
I would be bored to death;
So I must toil until I'm through
With this asthmatic breath.


Where others slothfully would brood


beg for little chores,
To peel potatoes, chop the wood,
And even scrub the floors.
When slightly useful I can be,
I'm happy as a bboy;
Dish-washing is a boon to me,
And brushing boots a joy.


The young folks tell me: "Grandpa, please,
Don't be so manual;
You certainly have earned your ease -
Why don't you rest a spell?"
Say I: I'll have a heap of rest
On my sepulchral shelf;
So now please let me do my best


To justify myself."

For one must strive or one will die,
And work's our dearest friend;
God meant it so, and that is why
I'll toil unto the end.
I thank the Lord I'm full of beans,
So let me heft a hoe,
And I will don my garden jeans
And help the beans to grow.

Old David Smail

He dreamed away his hours in school;
He sat with such an absent air,
The master reckoned him a fool,
And gave him up in dull despair.


When other lads were making hay
You'd find him loafing by the stream;
He'd take a book and slip away,
And just pretend to fish . . . and dream.


His brothers passed him in the race;
They climbed the hill and clutched the prize.
He did not seem to heed, his face
Was tranquil as the evening skies.


He lived apart, he spoke with few;
Abstractedly through life he went;
Oh, what he dreamed of no one knew,
And yet he seemed to be content.


I see him now, so old and gray,
His eyes with inward vision dim;
And though he faltered on the way,
Somehow I almost envied him.


At last beside his bed I stood:
"And is Life done so soon?" he sighed;
"It's been so rich, so full, so good,
I've loved it all . . ." -- and so he died.

Old Codger

Of garden truck he made his fare,
As his bright eyes bore witness;
Health was his habit and his care,
His hobby human fitness.
He sang the praise of open sky,
The gladth of Nature's giving;
And when at last he came to die
It was of too long living.

He held aloof from hate and strife,
Drank peace in dreamful doses;
He never voted in his life,
Loved children, dogs and roses.
Let tyrants romp in gory glee,
And revolutions roister,
He passed his days as peacefully
As friar in a cloister.

So fellow sinners, should you choose
Of doom to be a dodger,
At eighty be a bland recluse
Like this serene old codger,
Who turned his back on fear and fret,
And died nigh eighty-seven . . .
His name was--Robert Service: let
Us hope he went to Heaven

Obesity


With belly like a poisoned pup
Said I: 'I must give bacon up:
And also, I profanely fear,
I must abandon bread and beer
That make for portliness they say;
Yet of them copiously today
I ate with an increasingly sense
Of grievous corpulence.

I like a lot of thinks I like.
Too bad that I must go on strike
Against pork sausages and mash,
Spaghetti and fried corn-beef hash.
I deem he is a lucky soul
Who has no need of girth control;
For in the old of age: 'Il faut
Souffrir pour etre bean.'

Yet let me not be unconsoled:
So many greybeards I behold,
Distinguished in affairs of state,
In culture counted with the Great,
Have tummies with a shameless bulge,
And so I think I'll still indulge
In eats I like without a qualm,
And damn my diaphragm!'

Nature's Way

To tribulations of mankind
Dame Nature is indifferent;
To human sorrow she is blind,
And deaf to human discontent.
Mid fear and fratricidal fray,
Mid woe and tyranny of toil,
She goes her unregarding way


Of sky and sun and soil.

In leaf and blade, in bud and bloom
Exultantly her gladness glows,
And careless of Man's dreary doom
Around the palm she wreathes the rose;
Creating beauty everywhere,
With happy bird in holy song . . .
Please God, let us be unaware


Like her of wrath and wrong.

Let us too be indifferent,
And in her hands our fate resign;
Aye, though the world with rage is rent
Let us be placid as the pine.
For if we turn from greed and guile
Maybe Dame Nature will relent,
And bless us with her lovely smile


Of comfort and content.

My Library

Like prim Professor of a College
I primed my shelves with books of knowledge;
And now I stand before them dumb,
Just like a child that sucks its thumb,
And stares forlorn and turns away,
With dolls or painted bricks to play.


They glour at me, my tomes of learning.
"You dolt!" they jibe; "you undiscerning
Moronic oaf, you make a fuss,
With highbrow swank selecting us;
Saying: "I'll read you all some day' -
And now you yawn and turn away.


"Unwanted wait we with our store
Of facts and philosophic lore;
The scholarship of all the ages
Snug packed within our uncut pages;
The mystery of all mankind
In part revealed - but you are blind.


"You have no time to read, you tell us;
Oh, do not think that we are jealous
Of all the trash that wins your favour,
The flimsy fiction that you savour:
We only beg that sometimes you
Will spare us just an hour or two.


"For all the minds that went to make us
Are dust if folk like you forsake us,
And they can only live again
By virtue of your kindling brain;
In magice print they packed their best:
Come - try their wisdom to digest. . . ."


Said I: "Alas! I am not able;
I lay my cards upon the table,
And with deep shame and blame avow
I am too old to read you now;
So I will lock you in glass cases
And shun your sad, reproachful faces."


* * * * * * * * *

My library is noble planned,
Yet in it desolate I stand;
And though my thousand books I prize,
Feeling a witling in their eyes,
I turn from them in weariness
To wallow in the Daily Press.


For, oh, I never, never will



The noble field of knowledge till:
I pattern words with artful tricks,
As children play with painted bricks,
And realize with futile woe,
Nothing I know - nor want to know.


My library has windowed nooks;
And so I turn from arid books
To vastitude of sea and sky,
And like a child content am I
With peak and plain and brook and tree,
Crying: "Behold! the books for me:
Nature, be thou my Library!"

My Hundred Books

A thousand books my library
Contains;

And all are primed, it seems to me
With brains.

Mine are so few I scratch in thought
My head;

For just a hundred of the lot
I've read.

A hundred books, but of the best,
I can

With wisdom savour and digest
And scan.

Yet when afar from kin and kith
In nooks

Of quietness I'm happy with
Sweet books.

So as nine hundred at me stare
In vain,

My lack I'm wistfully aware
Of brain;

Yet as my leave of living ends,
With looks

Of love I view a hundred friends,
My books.

Munition Maker

I am the Cannon King, behold!
I perish on a throne of gold.
With forest far and turret high,
Renowned and rajah-rich am I.
My father was, and his before,
With wealth we owe to war on war;
But let no potentate be proud . . .
There are no pockets in a shroud.


By nature I am mild and kind,
To gentleness and ruth inclined;
And though the pheasants over-run
My woods I will not touch a gun.
Yet while each monster that I forge
Thunders destruction form its gorge.
Death's whisper is, I vow, more loud . . .
There are no pockets in a shroud.


My time is short, my ships at sea
Already seem like ghosts to me;
My millions mock me I am poor
As any beggar at my door.
My vast dominion I resign,
Six feet of earth to claim is mine,
Brooding with shoulders bitter-bowed . . .
There are no pockets in a shroud.


Dear God, let me purge my heart,
And be of heaven's hope a part!
Flinging my fortune's foul increase
To fight for pity, love and peace.
Oh that I could with healing fare,
And pledged to poverty and prayer
Cry high above the cringing crowd:
"Ye fools! Be not Mammon cowed . . .
There are no pockets in a shroud."

Laughter


I Laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy games,
Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.
I laugh at pomp and vanity, at riches, rank and pride;
At social inanity, at swager, swank and side.
At poets, pastry-cooks and kings, at folk sublime and small,
Who fuss about a thousand things that matter not at all;
At those who dream of name and fame, at those who scheme for pelf. . . .
But best of all the laughing game - is laughing at myself.


Some poet chap had labelled man the noblest work of God:
I see myself a charlatan, a humbug and a fraud.
Yea, 'spite of show and shallow wit, an sentimental drool,
I know myself a hypocrite, a coward and a fool.
And though I kick myself with glee profoundly on the pants,
I'm little worse, it seems to me, than other human ants.
For if you probe your private mind, impervious to shame,
Oh, Gentle Reader, you may find you're much about the same.


Then let us mock with ancient mirth this comic, cosmic plan;
The stars are laughing at the earth; God's greatest joke is man.
For laughter is a buckler bright, and scorn a shining spear;
So let us laugh with all our might at folly, fraud and fear.
Yet on our sorry selves be spent our most sardonic glee.
Oh don't pay life a compliment to take is seriously.
For he who can himself despise, be surgeon to the bone,
May win to worth in others' eyes, to wisdom in his own.