There are Scores of fools among us –
Bring your scales and plumb and square.
Let them weigh and try each other –
For yourself judge which they are.
Minnie thinks her Jack is noble
Tho’ he takes a “whiskey slug!”
Minnie’s nose Jack thinks is piquant,
When in truth its only pug.
There’s your pickle-faced curmudgeon
With reproach each woman stings,
And the disappointed spinster
Says all men are ugly things.
Sympathetic fools are useful,
But get cursed for their pains,
The misanthrope fool and villain
Has got neither heart nor brains..
Mr. Bulldog’s ever ready
With his hand, or dagger thrust.
Mr. Doughface walks in slippers –
In life’s road kicks up the dust.
There’s young Soft Soap, always petted,
“He’s a noble, harmless youth.”
Young Spread Eagle he is hated,
He’s a fool and tells the truth.
Your religious “fools” are plenty,
Mormon, Pagan, Quaker, Jew –
Each is going right straight to heaven
And wants you to go there too.
There’s the sluven fool, he swaggers –
Wears an ancient, battered “–le.”
And his brazen self-assurance
Makes the knowing dandy smile.
The precise fool, who’s not seen him
Going through the world by rule?
He performs in life’s pavilion
Like an educated mule.
There are fools in every station,
Richer and poor and old and young.
But the wisest fool that’s living
Knows he’s one, and holds his tongue.
(Joseph Warren Watson)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Life Poems, World Poems, Youth Poems, Smiling Poems, Truth Poems, Education Poems, Fool Poems, Brain Poems, Hatred Poems, Paganism PoemsBased on Keywords: villain, bulldog, pug, swaggers, misanthrope, piquant, mormon, curmudgeon, doughface, self-assurance