Classic Poem

When you have sunk a score of holes.
And drove a hundred more,
And every blessed one has been
Worse than the one before;

And when on top of this the store
Turns off the tucker “tick,”
'Tis time for you to throw aside
The shovel, dish, and pick—

And take the tightest pinch of all
From dire misfortune's screw;
And humbly barrack for a job
The hated cockatoo.

And if you get it after all,
You'll stagger at his cheek
To offer you a ration mean,
And twelve-and-six a week.

Then will your thoughts go sweeping back
Across the dreary sea,
To where the finger-points of time
Show what can never be.

And clearly you, with mental eye,
See far across the main
The perfect home, the gentle friends,
And loves of “ne'er again.”

Ah! then you think the fiends in hell
Have consciousness serene—
Compared with one who sunk his all,
In “duffers for the Queen.”