Something to Think About

Something to Think About

“Ah!” sighed the World, as he
             turned in bed
With a pillow of cloud for
             his poor old head
And lowered the roller
             shade of Night
And blew out a star that
             shone too bright–
“The year is gone with his
             toil and strife,
The storm and surge of the
             tide of life.
The crazy brawl of the
             human breed,
And I’ll rest at last – for
             it’s rest I need!”

Down came an elf through the
             moonlight pale
From the Milky Way
             on a comet’s tail;1

He turned up the lamps
             that were burning low
And prodded the World
             with a small pink toe.
“Get up!” he cried, “That’s
             enough for you!
There’s a heap of things for
             a World to do!

“There are wounds to bind,
             there’s a map to fix,
There’s a beautiful tangle
              of politics,
There are towns to build
             there are wheels to start
There’s a load of crowns
             for the junkman’s cart
There’s an ancient fraud in
              a brand new dress,
There are lovely riddles for
              men to guess,
There are dreams to dream
There are heights to climb,
And you can’t lie there and
               waste your2 time!” 

So the World rose up
               with a plaintive groan,
Stubbing his toe on a
               tumbled throne,
To round the Sun on his
               wonted track -

The deep-grooved trail of the
                Zodiac,
That way of sorrows and
                joys and aches,
Of noble efforts and fool
                mistakes.
But it’s good for the poor
                old World, at that;
For a drowsy Planet gets
                much too fat.

                  - Arthur Guiterman:
A Ballad-Maker’s Pack

New Year, 1919
by Arthur Guiterman
from A Ballad-Maker’s Pack

1 Gramma left out this stanza between “comet’s tail” and “He turned up”:
                                    His traveling-bag, in letters clean
                                    Was marked, “A.D. Nineteen-nineteen.”

² Guiterman used “my”.