MY neighbor Johnsing can afford a lot of things that I can not; yet I'm not envious or bored, beneath my collar I'm not hot. My neighbor Johnsing has a roll that's large enough to choke a steer; I contemplate him, and my soul is smiling still, from ear to ear. For one thing is supremely true—as some one said, in ringing tones—that happiness has naught to do with what a human being owns. Old Masters hung upon the wall won't bring a nickel's worth of bliss. The rich man, in his gilded hall, is always saying things like this: "The gladdest time I ever spent, was when I lived in yonder shack, and had to husband every cent, to buy suspenders for my back." I like to have enough to eat, I like to have some clothes to wear, and caskets for my shapely feet, and gasoline to feed the mare. I like to feel, in dismal times, upon the day that's wet and dank, that I have half a dozen dimes in storage in the village bank. Let neighbor Johnsing view his roll, through tears that make his vision dim; I wouldn't touch it with a pole, when seeing what it's done for him. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FRAILTY AND HURTFULNESS OF BEAUTY by HENRY HOWARD AN EGYPTIAN PULLED GLASS BOTTLE IN THE SHAPE OF A FISH by MARIANNE MOORE THE ORPHAN BOY'S TALE by AMELIA OPIE AVE ATQUE VALE; IN MEMORY OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE THE LONG AGO by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TAYLOR EUROPE; THE 72ND AND 73RD YEARS OF THESE STATES by WALT WHITMAN PSALM 39, VERSE 4 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE |