An', after all—well, I don't know—it sums up much the same:
No matter how a man has lived, no matter what his aim—
If it's savin', if it's spendin'—all his life is just a blendin'
Of the gay days an' the grey days: an' he's got to play the game.
So where's the use of grumblin' if the game don't suit your bent?
I tells myself all this at night—an' yet I ain't content.
There's days that sometimes come to me when toilin's simple bliss,
An' every little job becomes a joy I wouldn't miss:
When the labour seems like playin', an' I catch myself a-sayin',
"Why, it's grand to think a man gets paid for doin' things like this!"
But, after, came the lonely night, when I've looked back an' said,
"To think I have to slave like that to earn a bit of bread!"
When I'm out among the fellows, oh, the world's a place to prize;
But here, beside my lonely fire, the glamour of it dies.
Sittin' here I take to gettin' gloomy views of things, an' frettin'
Till my dog looks up, and wonders, with a question in his eyes.
He's been my mate for years an' years, an' things that folk don't see
Both good an' bad has been thrashed out by my old dog an' me.
