POKER by ANONYMOUS

To draw, or not to draw, that is the question.
Whether it is safer in the player to take
The awful risk of skinning for a straight,
Or, standing pat, to raise 'em all the limit.
And thus, by bluffing, get it. To draw -- to skin;
No more -- and by that skin to get a full,
Or two pairs, or the fattest bouncing kings
That luck is heir to -- 't is a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To draw -- to skin;
To skin! perchance to burst -- ay, there's the rub!
For in the draw of three what cards may come,
When we have shuffled off the uncertain pack,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of a bobtail flush;
For who would bear the overwhelming blind,
The reckless straddle, the wait on the edge,
The insolence of pat hands, and the lifts
That patient merit of the bluffer takes,
When he himself might be much better off
By simply passing? Who would trays uphold,
And go out on a small progressive raise,
But that the dread of something after call,
The undiscovered ace-full, to whose strength
Such hands must bow, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather keep the chips we have
Than be curious about the hands we know not of.
Thus bluffing does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of a four-heart flush
Is sicklied with some dark and cussed club,
And speculators in a jack-pot's wealth
With this regard their interest turn awry
And lose the right to open.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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