’Tis strange indeed to hear us plead For selling and for buying When yesterday we said: “Away With all good things but dying.” The world’s ago, and we’re agog To have our first brief inning; So let’s away through surge and fog However slight the winning. What deeds have sprung from plow and pick! What bank-rolls from tomatoes! No dainty crop of rhetoric Can match one of potatoes. Ye orators of point and pith, Who force the world to heed you, What skeletons you’ll journey with Ere it is forced to feed you. A little gold won’t mar our grace, A little ease our glory. This world’s a better biding place When money clinks its story.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 23, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.