Because I’ve eighty years and odd… And darkling is my day, I now prepare to meet my God, And for forgiveness pray. Not for salvation is my plea,

Dusting my books I spent a busy d… Not ancient toes, time—hallowed an… but modern volumes, classics in th… whose makers now are numbered with… Men of a generation more than mine…

I will not fight: though proud of… I hold no one worth striving with; And should resentment burn my brea… I deem that silence serves me best… So having not a word to say,

I don’t know how the fishes feel,… That a gay young flapper of a fema… Yet —that’s exactly what she did a… That’ what evr you do you can’t pu… Now that young tom—cod was a dread…

What have we done, Oh Lord, that… Are evil starred? How have we erred and sinned to be So scourged and scarred? Lash us, Oh Lord, with scorpion w…

My days are haunted by the thought Of men in coils of Justice caught With stone and steel, in chain and… Of men condemned to living hell,— Yet blame them not.

Nurse, won’t you let him in? He’s barkin’ an’ scratchen’ the do… Makin’ so dreffel a din I jest can’t sleep any more; Out there in the dark an’ the cold…

Because my overcoat’s in pawn, I choose to take my glass Within a little bistro on The rue du Montparnasse; The dusty bins with bottles shine,

My daughter Susie, aged two, Apes me in every way, For as my household chores I do With brooms she loves to play. A scrubbing brush to her is dear;

Oh you who have daring deeds to te… And you who have felt Ambition’s… Have you heard of the louse who lo… In the golden hair of a queen? He sighed all day and he sighed al…

I know a mountain thrilling to the… Peerless and pure, and pinnacled w… Glimpsing the golden dawn o’er cor… Flaunting the vanisht sunset’s gar… Proudly patrician, passionless, se…

A hundred people I employed, But when they struck for higher pa… I was so damnably annoyed I told them they could stay away. I simply shut my business down;

I’ve sung of Violet de Vere, that… Of Gertie of the Diamond Tooth,… And Maye Lamore,—at eighty—four… That in my wild and wooly youth I… And Klondike Kit, and Gumboot Su…

Alas! I am only a rhymer, I don’t know the meaning of Art; But I learned in my little school… To love Eugene Field and Bret Ha… I hailed Hoosier Ryley with pleas…

The General now lives in town; He’s eighty odd, they say; You’ll see him strolling up and do… The Prada any day. He goes to every football game,