Hard Luck
Hard Luck
Original Text
Edgar A. Guest, Just Folks (Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1917), p. 26-27. PS 3513 U45J77 1917 c. 1 ROBA
1Ain't no use as I can see
2In sittin' underneath a tree
3An' growlin' that your luck is bad,
5Your life ain't sadder than your neighbor's
6Nor any harder are your labors;
7It rains on him the same as you,
8An' he has work he hates to do;
10An' he has trouble with the boss;
11You take his whole life, through an' through,
12Why, he's no better off than you.
13If whinin' brushed the clouds away
14I wouldn't have a word to say;
15If it made good friends out o' foes
16I'd whine a bit, too, I suppose;
17But when I look around an' see
18A lot o' men resemblin' me,
19An' see 'em sad, an' see 'em gay
20With work t' do most every day,
21Some full o' fun, some bent with care,
22Some havin' troubles hard to bear,
23I reckon, as I count my woes,
24They're 'bout what everybody knows.
25The day I find a man who'll say
26He's never known a rainy day,
27Who'll raise his right hand up an' swear
28In forty years he's had no care,
29Has never had a single blow,
30An' never known one touch o' woe,
31Has never seen a loved one die,
32Has never wept or heaved a sigh,
33Has never had a plan go wrong,
35Then I'll sit down an' start to whine
36That all the hard luck here is mine.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Form