Back to the basics

Ok, I've decided to pull all my own stuff in case I manage to blackmail someone into publishing anything. Publishers like it they are the first ones to publish a piece, so it'll make things easier for me. I suppose if I'd had a loyal following - I'd even settle for ANY following - I'd probably leave everything up, provided they were interested in my work and not the works of the masters that I mostly reprint here. So, as the title of this post goes, its back to the basics - I'll only be reprinting those pieces from literature that I really enjoy and want to hold on to. Hopefully, I won't be infringing on any copyrights - the deader and older the better anyway, I say. And with that said, here's something to help strike the old tone anew:

Unnamed poem written to please the audience
during a scene change in a stage performance
of Animal Crackers,
by
Julius Henry Marx (aka, Groucho)

Did you ever sit and ponder as you walk along the strand,
That life's a bitter battle at the best,
And if you only knew it and would lend a helping hand,
That every man can meet the final test.
The world is but a stage, my friend,
And life is but a game;
And how you play is all that matters in the end.
For whether a man is right or wrong a woman gets the blame;
And your mother is your dog's best friend.
Then up come mighty Casey and strode up to the bat,
And Sheridan was fifty miles away.
For it takes a heap of loving to make a home like that,
On the road where the flying fishes play.
So be a real-life Pagliacc' and laugh, clown, laugh.