Classic Poem

In all the day the happiest time
Is when old blazing Red Eye sets,
And frogs in distant pools of slime
Begin their raucous pumps to prime;
When crickets practice their duets
And fireflies puff their cigarettes.

The deadly night-air not at all
Doth frighten me, for I'm immune;
And I've become so tropical,
So bilious and malarial,
Mosquitoes sing as sweet a tune
As ever did the birds of June.

So, on the balcony at ease,
I watch the stars wink merrily,
And palms play in the evening breeze
At see-saw with the almond trees —
And now it is that, verily,
I look at things quite cheerily.

This is the hour I'm glad to live,
And know I'd just as gladly die;
The hour that doth one courage give
To sift his sins in Candor's sieve,
And when in graded heaps they lie
To count them o'er without a sigh.

It is the hour that brings relief
From daylight's all-exposing glare;
That deadens doubt and dims belief,
And even dulls one's dearest grief;
When one's most hateful fault looks fair —
For 'tis the hour when one don't care!

And so to me the happiest time
Is when old blazing Red Eye sets,
And frogs in distant pools of slime
Begin their raucous pumps to prime —
When crickets practice their duets
And fireflies puff their cigarettes.