Franklin P. Adams

SHALL I, lying in a grot,

Die because the day is hot?

Or declare I can’t endure

Such a torrid temperature?

Be it hotter than the flames

South Gehenna Junction claims,

If it be not so to me,

What care I how hot it be?

Shall I say I love the town

Praised by Robinson and Browne?

Shall I say, “In Summer heat

Old Manhattan can’t be beat”?

Be it luring as a bar,

Or my neighbor’s motor-car,

If I think it is pazziz

What care I how fine it is?

Shall I prate of rural joys

Far from civic smoke and noise?

Shall I, like the others, drool

“But the nights are always cool”?

If I hate to rise at six

Shall I praise the suburbs? Nix!

If the country’s not for me,

What care I how good it be?

Town or country, cool or hot,

Differs nothing, matters not;

For to quote that Roman cuss,

Why dispute “de gustibus”?

If to this or that one should

Take a fancy, it is good.

If these rhymes look good to me,

What care I how bad they be?