Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 2 (1869).djvu/199

A thing we e'er had cared to keep;
With heart and soul to hold it cheap,
And then to go and try it again;
O false, unwise, absurd, and vain!
O, 'tis not joy, and 'tis not bliss,
Only it is precisely this
That keeps us still alive.

 

IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS.

Each for himself is still the rule:
We learn it when we go to school—
The devil take the hindmost, O!

And when the schoolboys grow to men,
In life they learn it o'er again—
The devil take the hindmost, O!

For in the church, and at the bar,
On 'Change, at court, where'er they are,
The devil takes the hindmost, O!

Husband for husband, wife for wife,
Are careful that in married life
The devil takes the hindmost, O!

From youth to age, whate'er the game,
The unvarying practice is the same—
The devil take the hindmost, O!

And after death, we do not know,
But scarce can doubt, where'er we go,
The devil takes the hindmost, O!

Ti rol de rol, ti rol de ro,
The devil take the hindmost, O!