Impertinent Poems. Cooke Edmund Vance

      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