Franklin Pierce Adams Poems

Tell me not, in doctored numbers,
Life is but a name for work!
For the labour that encumbers
Me I wish that I could shirk.
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The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: "Who said you could play?
Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!"
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These are the saddest of possible words:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Trio of Bear-cubs, fleeter than birds,
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
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How narrow his vision, how cribbed and confined!
How prejudiced all of his views!
How hard is the shell of his bigoted mind!
How difficult he to excuse!
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(Harvard's prestige in football is a leading factor. The best players in the leading preparatory schools prefer to study at Cambridge, where they can earn fame on the gridiron. They do not care to be identified with Yale and Princeton.--JOE VILA in the Evening Sun.)

"Father," began the growing youth,
"Your pleading finds me deaf;
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For something like eleven summers
I've written things that aimed to teach
Our careless mealy-mouthéd mummers
To be more sedulous of speech.
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Horace: Book II, Elegy 8

"Eripitur nobis iam pridem cara puella---"
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Propertius: Elegy VIII, Part 1

"Tune igitur demens nec te mea cura moratur?---"
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How do you tackle your work each day?
Are you scared of the job you find?
Do you grapple the task that comes your way
With a confident, easy mind?
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(March 4, 1913)


Thine aid, O Muse, I consciously beseech;
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