I have a friend, a gloomy soul,
Who daily wails about the war,
Taking the line that, on the whole,
Our luck is rotten to the core,
And into each success
Reads some disaster, rather more than less.
Another friend I have, whose heart
Beats with "abashless" confidence,
Who sees the Kaiser in the cart
And hung in chains "a fortnight hence";
He saw this months ago,
And some day hopes to say, "I told you so."
When Heraclitus brings a cloud,
Democritus provides the sun;
Or should the Hopeful crow too loud,
I listen to the Mournful One;
And thus, between the two,
I find a fairly rational point of view.