A Regular Sort of a Guy

A Regular Sort of a Guy

Original Text
"Laconics," New London Telegraph (Nov. 4, 1912). Eugene O'Neill, Poems 1912-1944, ed. Donald Gallup (New Haven and New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1980): 28.
1He fights where the fighting is thickest
2    And keeps his high honor clean;
3From finish to start, he is sturdy of heart,
4    Shunning the petty and mean;
5With his friends in their travail and sorrow,
6    He is ever there to stand by,
7And hark to their plea, for they all know that he
8    Is a regular sort of a guy.
9He cheers up the sinner repentant
10    And sets him again on his feet;
11He is there with a slap, and a pat on the back,
12    For the lowliest bum on the street;
13He smiles when the going is hardest,
14    With a spirit no money can buy;
15And take it from me, we all love him 'cause he
16    Is a regular sort of a guy.
17I don't care for the praise of the nations,
18    Or a niche in the great hall of fame,
19Or that posterity should remember me
20    When my dust and the dust are the same;
21But my soul will be glad if my friends say
22    As they turn from my bier with a sigh
23"Though he left no great name, yet he played out the game
24    Like a regular sort of a guy."
Publication Start Year
1912
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1999.
Rhyme