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Title: Unemployed
Author: Abner Cosens [
More Titles by Cosens]
April, 1915
"I haven't any way, sir, to earn my daily bread;
Give me a job, I pray, sir, my children must be fed."
"To keep your kids from harm, sir," the city man replied,
"There's no place like the farm, sir, the peaceful country side."
"I have no work to do, sir," said I to Farmer Sprout;
"So I have come to you, sir, to try to help me out."
He answered: "Can you plow, sir, or build a load of hay?
If you can't milk a cow, sir, you'd better fade away."
"Have you a job to-day, sir, to give a working man?
My stomach's full of hay, sir, my children live on bran."
"I really can't delay, sir," the busy man replied,
"Please call some other day, sir, my car is just outside."
"I want to find a place, sir," said I to Groucher Black;
"I couldn't go the pace, sir, and now I'm off the track."
Old Groucher growled in answer, "This town of blasted hopes
Has no place for a man, sir, who does not know the ropes."
"I'm anxious to enlist, sir, I am a Briton true,
To fight the mailed fist, sir, the Kaiser and his crew."
Thus answered Dr. Brown,--"Sir, in one main point you lack;
I'll have to turn you down, sir, because your teeth don't track."
"I'd like to find some work, sir," to Smith, M.P., I spoke;
"I really am no shirk, sir, although I'm stony broke."
Said he, "You poor old lobster, you have a lot to learn,
To get a steady job, sir, you really must intern."
[The end]
Abner Cosens's poem: Unemployed
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