ICKNESS and Health have been playing

a game with me,

Tossing me up, like a ball, to and fro.

Pleasure and Pain did exactly the same

with me,

Treating me merely like something to

throw.

Joy took me up to the clouds for a holiday

In a balloon that she happens to keep;

Then, as a damp upon rather a jolly day,

Grief in a diving-bell bore me down deep.

Poverty courted me early—worse luck to her!—

(Wealth would have made me a much better wife;)

Fool that I am, I was faithful and stuck to her;

She 'll cling to me for the rest of my life.

As for our children, we 'd better have drown'd them all;

They, I believe, are the worst of our ills.

Is it a wonder I often confound them all,

Seeing that most of them chance to be Bills?

Hope, who was once an occasional visitor,

Never drops in on us now for a chat.

Memory calls, though,—relentless inquisitor—

(Not that I feel very grateful for that.)

Hope was a liar—it's no use denying it—

Memory's talk is undoubtedly true:

Still, I confess that I like, after trying it,

Hope's conversation the best of the two.