Wait for Age.

Life is largely a matter of waits and measures, and the waiter who waits generally gets full weight and measure of treasure and pleasure. In effect, as an effervescent effort:—

When things appear as black as soot,
And look as if they'd come unput
For good and all, the optimist
Pulls up his socks, and takes a twist
Abaft the belt, for well he wots
That luck is only bad in spots.
The world seems often false and flat
To even those with all the fat.
The bacon makes the hunger keen,
That's streaked with fat as well as lean;
And “good” is only good, me lad.
As recognizable from “bad”—
For otherwise we never could
Appreciate the good in “good.”
Thus never give Ma Hope the gate,
But simply hoist the hose and WAIT.

The Human Race is a wait-for-age. Age is the bigger bit of “sage,” and, like left-handed feet at a boot-legger's remnant sale, it has its advantages. Age is true proportional representation, when little things that used to count have forgotten their arithmetic, and only the big things matter but don't mutter. Ripe old age is the ideal fruit of the tree of life. Sung to apple peals, the core of the argument is:—

The ribstone pippin on the tree
Is similar to you and me.
When young and green all things are rippin'.
So sings the youthful ribstone pippin.
But later, what with codlin moth
And blights, it finds life's not all froth
And things appear not quite so rippin'.

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So thinks the ageing ribstone pippin.
Eventually, ripe and red,
The ribstone pippin nods his head,
And though perhaps his stalk is slippin',
He's glad to be a ribstone pippin.
With pesky pests he's had to grapple,
Which only add to Adam's apple,
Until he's wise enough to see
The other apples on the tree,
And also other apple trees,
All battered by the selfsame breeze,
All more or less by beetles tortured.
In fact the pippin sees the orchard,
And knows, though life is not so rippin',
The pip is mightier than the pippin.