Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/99

Rh

Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich; But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch! When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare, And I had but a single coat, and not a single care; When I would feast right royally on bacon, bread and beer, And dig into a stack of hay and doze like any peer; When I would wash beside a brook my solitary shirt, And though it dried upon my back I never took a hurt; When I went romping down the road contemptuous of care, And slapped Adventure on the back–by Gad! we were a pair; When, though my pockets lacked a coin, and though my coat was old, The largess of the stars was mine, and all the sunset gold; When time was only made for fools, and free as air was I, And hard I hit and hard I lived beneath the open sky;