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e.
- One may drop off before one dreams of it.
- And then there were the thousand pitfalls
- laid by the philanthropic camp;
- besides, of course, the hostile cruisers,
- and all the wind-and-weather risks.
- All this together won the day.
- I thought: Now, Peter, reef your sails;
- see to it you amend your faults!
- So in the South I bought some land,
- and kept the last meat-importation,
- which chanced to be a superfine one.
- They throve so, grew so fat and sleek,
- that 'twas a joy to me, and them too.
- Yes, without boasting, I may say
- I acted as a father to them,-
- and found my profit in so doing.
- I built them schools, too, so that virtue
- might uniformly be maintained at
- a certain general niveau,
- and kept strict watch that never its
- thermometer should sink below it.
- Now, furthermore, from all this business
- I've beat a definite retreat;-
- I've sold the whole plantation, and
- its tale of live-stock, hide and hair.
- At parting, too, I served around,
- to big and little, gratis grog,
- so men and women all got drunk,
- and widows got their snuff as well.
- So that is why I trust,-provided
- the saying is not idle breath:
- Whoso does not do ill, does good,-
- my former errors are forgotten,
- and I, much more than most, can hold
- my misdeeds balanced by my virtues.
VON EBERKOPF [clinking
