Vanity

by Robert William Service

Home And Love 

Just Home and Love! the words are small

Four little letters unto each;

And yet you will not find in all

The wide and gracious range of speech

Two more so tenderly complete:

When angels talk in Heaven above,

I'm sure they have no words more sweet

Than Home and Love.

Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess

Which of the two were best to gain;

Home without Love is bitterness;

Love without Home is often pain.

No! each alone will seldom do;

Somehow they travel hand and glove:

If you win one you must have two,

Both Home and Love.

And if you've both, well then I'm sure

You ought to sing the whole day long;

It doesn't matter if you're poor

With these to make divine your song.

And so I praisefully repeat,

When angels talk in Heaven above,

There are no words more simply sweet

Than Home and Love. 

Humility 

My virtues in Carara stone

Cut carefully you all my scan;

Beneath I lie, a fetid bone,

The marble worth more than the man.

If on my pure tomb they should grave

My vices,--how the folks would grin!

And say with sympathetic wave:

"Like us he was a man of sin."

And somehow he consoled thereby,

Knowing they may, though Hades bent,

When finally they come to die,

Enjoy a snow-white monument.

And maybe it is just as well

When we from life and lust are riven,

That though our souls should sink to hell

Our tombs point: Destination Heaven! 

Vanity 

My tangoing seemed to delight her;

With me it was love at first sight.

I mentioned That I was a writer:

She asked me: "What is it you write?"

"Oh, only best-sellers," I told her.

Their titles? . . . She shook her blonde head;

The atmosphere seemed to grow colder:

Not one of my books had she read.

Oh, she was a beauty ensnaring,

And I was an author of note;

But little I saw she'd be caring

If never a novel I wrote.

Alas for the caprice of Cupid!

Alack for the phantom of Fame!

I thought her just homely and stupid:

She didn't know even my name.

I saw her a score of years after;

She gushed as I took off my hat;

But inwardly loud was my laughter,

For she was enormously fat.

Thank heaven I'd not made that error;

I saw Love drive off in a hearse;

But I too retreated in terror . . .

She started to quote me my verse.