Classic Poem

Now, Albert Irving Williamson was innocent and young;
Nor evil thought was in his mind, nor word upon his tongue.
He drank no alcoholic brews, he smoked no nicotine;
He was about as good a youth as I have ever seen.

But alcohol and nicotine, injurious though they be,
Are utterly irrelevant to Albert's historee.
Still, if I choose to mention things that are irrelevant,
Pray, who are you to censure me or tell me that I can't?

He was, I say, a blameless youth who shunned the sinful deeps;
He never played at marbles with the other boys for keeps;
He never played a gambling game of any kind or sort —
Young Albert Irving Williamson was not at all a sport.

Now Albert chanced to ride upon a Pullman palace smoker
Whose occupants, a rough and vulgar crowd, were playing poker.
" Ah, ha! " then whispered one of them as Albert came in sight,
" Leave us go after this here boob and trim the sucker right. "

(I do not hold with talk like that, but it is not this bard's.
It is the verbiage used by such as like to play at cards.)
" Oh, please to play a bit with us, " up spake those gambling men,
" Sit in with us till Utica — we're due at seven-ten. "

So Albert Irving Williamson, who knew no single rule
Of poker, played with men who thought that Albert was a fool —
Our Albert Irving williamson, to whose untutored mind
The nine of straights was just as good as seven of a kind.

Oh, pride it is a parlous thing, and comes before a fall!
The gamblers went for Albert's roll until they got it all.
In spite of Albert's ignorance, of which there was a lot,
Our hero did not win a single solitary pot.