A panacea I have for all
The woes and worries that befall --
'Tis ink,
Because, perchance, I have a pain,
I add not to the doctor's gain.
If grave anxieties attack
I grizzle not upon my back,
But settle down and quickly drown
My anguish, not in malted drink,
But ink.
Is it a tooth that nags me; then
I sieze the ready little pen.
In ink
I plunge, my hero gaily lead
To love along a flowery mead,
Or deftly weave a sheet of verse,
The thought to spin, the theme to nurse
In chink and chime of lilting rhyme:
And thus all weariness I sink
In ink!
If ever cure-all should be found
It will most certainly abound
In ink.
Immersed in ink I can forget
The direst grief, the deepest debt;
And if one day they have to cut
A leg or elbow from my butt,
Not chloroform my sense will storm;
My anaesthetic will, I think,
Be ink.
First published in The Bulletin, 11 April 1918
