Hard Luck

Edgar Albert Guest 1881 (Birmingham) – 1959 (Detroit, Michigan)



Ain't no use as I can see
   In sittin' underneath a tree
   An' growlin' that your luck is bad,
   An' that your life is extry sad;
   Your life ain't sadder than your neighbor's
   Nor any harder are your labors;
   It rains on him the same as you,
   An' he has work he hates to do;
   An' he gits tired an' he gits cross,
  An' he has trouble with the boss;
  You take his whole life, through an' through,
  Why, he's no better off than you.

  If whinin' brushed the clouds away
  I wouldn't have a word to say;
  If it made good friends out o' foes
  I'd whine a bit, too, I suppose;
  But when I look around an' see
  A lot o' men resemblin' me,
  An' see 'em sad, an' see 'em gay
  With work t' do most every day,
  Some full o' fun, some bent with care,
  Some havin' troubles hard to bear,
  I reckon, as I count my woes,
  They're 'bout what everybody knows.

  The day I find a man who'll say
  He's never known a rainy day,
  Who'll raise his right hand up an' swear
  In forty years he's had no care,
  Has never had a single blow,
  An' never known one touch o' woe,
  Has never seen a loved one die,
  Has never wept or heaved a sigh,
  Has never had a plan go wrong,
  But allas laughed his way along;
  Then I'll sit down an' start to whine
  That all the hard luck here is mine.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:19 min read
124

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCDDXXDD EEFFAAEEGGFF EEGGHHIIJJKK
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,269
Words 254
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 12, 12, 12

Edgar Albert Guest

Edgar Albert Guest was a British-born American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet. His poems often had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life. more…

All Edgar Albert Guest poems | Edgar Albert Guest Books

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