Classic Poem

"If she be not so to me.
What care I how fair she be?"
--THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION.


Here we have in this truism
Mr. James's pragmatism.
Test your troubles day by day
With it, and they fly away.
Is the weather boiling hot,
Hot enough to boil a pot--
If it be not so to me,
What care I how hot it be?

Take a pudding made of bread;
Much against it has been said;
But it does not lack defense--
Many say it is immense.
Be it damned or be it blessed,
Let us make the acid test--
If it be not so to me,
What care I how good it be?

So with every blooming thing
That has power to soothe or sting;
Ships or shoes or sealing wax,
Carrots, comets, carpet tacks.
Every philosophic need
Covered by this capsule creed:
If it be not so to me,
(good)
What care I how (bad) it be?