Randall Jarrell
MONEY
I sit here eating milk-toast in my lap-robe-
They've got my nightshirt starchier than I told 'em ... Huh! ...
I'll tell 'em. . . .
Why, I wouldn't have given
A wooden nickel to a wooden Indian, when I began.
I never gave a soul a cent that I could help
That I remember; now I sit here hatching checks
For any mortal cause that writes in asking,
And look or don't look-I've been used to 'em too long-–
At seven Corots and the Gobelins
And my first Rembrandt I outbid Clay Frick for:
A dirty Rembrandt bought with dirty money–
But nowadays we've all been to the cleaners'.
(Harriet'd call Miss Tarbell Old Tarbaby-
It none of it will stick, she'd say when I got mad;
And she was right. She always was.)
I used to say I'd made my start in railroads
-"Stocks, that is," I'd think and never say–
And made my finish in philanthropy:
To think that all along it'uz Service!
I could have kicked myself right in the face
To think I didn't think of that myself....
"There isn't one of you that couldn't have done what I did-"
That was
my
line; and I'd think:
"if
you'd been me."
SEES U.S. LAND OF OPPORTUNITY,
A second-page two-column headline,
Was all I got, most years.
