Wine, Water and Song

<h2><SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_37" title="37"> </SPAN>The Good Rich Man</h2> <div class="poetry width35"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="line"><span class="upper-case">Mr. Mandragon</span>, the Millionaire, he wouldn't have wine or wife,<br/></div> <div class="line">He couldn't endure complexity: he lived the Simple Life.<br/></div> <div class="line">He ordered his lunch by megaphone in manly, simple tones,<br/></div> <div class="line">And used all his motors for canvassing voters, and twenty telephones;<br/></div> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_38" title="38"> </SPAN><div class="line">Besides a dandy little machine,<br/></div> <div class="line">Cunning and neat as ever was seen,<br/></div> <div class="line">With a hundred pulleys and cranks between,<br/></div> <div class="line">Made of metal and kept quite clean,<br/></div> <div class="line">To hoist him out of his healthful bed on every day of his life,<br/></div> <div class="line">And wash him and dress him and shave him and brush him<br/></div> <div class="line indent6">&mdash;to live the Simple Life.<br/></div> </div><div class="stanza"> <div class="line">Mr. Mandragon was most refined and quietly, neatly dressed,<br/></div> <div class="line">Say all the American newspapers that know refinement best;<br/></div> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_39" title="39"> </SPAN><div class="line">Quiet and neat the hat and hair and the coat quiet and neat,<br/></div> <div class="line">A trouser worn upon either leg, while boots adorn the feet;<br/></div> <div class="line">And not, as any one would expect,<br/></div> <div class="line">A Tiger's Skin all striped and specked,<br/></div> <div class="line">And a Peacock Hat with the tail erect,<br/></div> <div class="line">A scarlet tunic with sunflowers decked,<br/></div> <div class="line">Which might have had a more marked effect,<br/></div> <div class="line">And pleased the pride of a weaker man that yearned for wine or wife;<br/></div> <div class="line">But Fame and the Flagon, for Mr. Mandragon<br/></div> <div class="line indent6">&mdash;obscured the Simple Life.<br/></div> </div><div class="stanza"> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_40" title="40"> </SPAN><div class="line">Mr. Mandragon, the Millionaire, I am happy to say, is dead;<br/></div> <div class="line">He enjoyed a quiet funeral in a Crematorium shed.<br/></div> <div class="line">And he lies there fluffy and soft and grey and certainly quite refined;<br/></div> <div class="line">When he might have rotted to flowers and fruit with Adam and all mankind,<br/></div> <div class="line">Or been eaten by wolves athirst for blood,<br/></div> <div class="line">Or burnt on a good tall pyre of wood,<br/></div> <div class="line">In a towering flame, as a heathen should,<br/></div> <div class="line">Or even sat with us here at food,<br/></div> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_41" title="41"> </SPAN><div class="line">Merrily taking twopenny ale and pork with a pocket-knife;<br/></div> <div class="line">But this was luxury not for one that went for the Simple Life.<br/></div> </div></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />