Fugue on Money

Workers earn it,                                          

Spendthrifts burn it, 

Bankers lend it,                                                     

Women spend it,                                            

Forgers fake it,                                         

Taxes take it,                                                      

Dying leave it,                                                     

Heirs receive it,                                            

Thrifty save it,                                                             

Misers crave it,                                             

Robbers seize it,                                             

Rich increase it,                                                    

Gamblers lose it,                                                   

I could use it.

                                                                  

Richard Armour

Southbound on the Freeway

A tourist came in from Orbitsville,

parked in the air, and said:

The creatures of this star

are made of metal and glass.

Through the transparent parts

you can see their guts.

Their feet are round and roll on diagrams or long

measuring tapes, dark with white lines.

They have four eyes.

The two in back are red.

Sometimes you can see a five-eyed

one, with a red eye turning

on the top of his head.

He must be special—

the others respect him

and go slow

when he passes, winding

among them from behind.

They all hiss as they glide,

like inches down the marked

tapes.  Those soft shapes,

shadowy inside

the hard bodies—are they

their guts or their brains?

by May Swenson

classification:  social commentary

Excerpts from "Ulysses"

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, 
...........
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! 
...................
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
..........................
you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. .....
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1842