Works in the Sun 1927
PROPORTION

Victoria's adverse trade balance for the year is over £20,000,000.

My adverse balance for the year
   Is only six pounds seventeen,
And yet, the prospect is so drear,
   My agony of mind so keen,
I simply hate to ponder o'er
My mental state if it were more.

If I had spent a hundred pounds
   More than I earned, who, goodness me!
I'd rend the air with woeful sounds
   And beat my breast in agony.
And yet, in mathematics pure,
This ratio does not endure.

For instance, if, in one short year,
   I spent some twenty million pound,
My sorrow would not be, I fear,
   Proportionately so profound,
I'd simply think I'd had a prime
And altogether gay old time.

"Den"
Sun, 4 August 1927, p7

Copyright © Perry Middlemiss 2002