As the New Year Dawned
AD POSTUMUM
O Postumus, alas! I hear the bells go tinkle-tinkle!
Zip! goes another flitting year! here comes another wrinkle!
And though I hate to hang the crape — no skill and no endurance
Can keep your folks from putting in a claim for your insurance.
If daily you endow a school and forty-two Foundations
Would that put off a single day your last disintegrations?
No! What though you be prince or prune, a slacker or a hero,
The sum of all your wealth and woes is ultimately zero.
Some day you'll bid your wife good-bye, and — this no prognosis —
That afternoon they'll say it was arterio-sclerosis;
And in a year, or maybe less, a man of greater merit
Shall spill upon your marble floors the wine he will inherit.
O Postumus, alas! I hear the bells go tinkle-tinkle!
Zip! goes another flitting year! here comes another wrinkle!
And though I hate to hang the crape — no skill and no endurance
Can keep your folks from putting in a claim for your insurance.
If daily you endow a school and forty-two Foundations
Would that put off a single day your last disintegrations?
No! What though you be prince or prune, a slacker or a hero,
The sum of all your wealth and woes is ultimately zero.
Some day you'll bid your wife good-bye, and — this no prognosis —
That afternoon they'll say it was arterio-sclerosis;
And in a year, or maybe less, a man of greater merit
Shall spill upon your marble floors the wine he will inherit.
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