<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408775" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Battling Days</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, sit you down in a straight-backed chair, with your pipe and your wife content,<br>And cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the ‘days mis-spent;’<br>Grown fat and moral apace, old man! you prate of the change ‘since then’—<br>In spite of all, I’d as lief be back in those hard old days again. <br>They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel at times—but then,<br>In spite of all, I would rather be back in those hard old days again.<br>The land was barren to sow wild oats in the days when we sowed our own—<br>(’Twas little we thought or our friends believed that ours would ever be sown) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the wild oats wave on their stormy path, and they speak of the hearts of men—<br>I would sow a crop if I had my time in those hard old days again.<br>We travel first, or we go saloon—on the planned-out trips we go,<br>With those who are neither rich nor poor, and we find that the life is slow; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It’s ‘a pleasant trip’ where they cried, ‘Good luck!’ There was fun in the steerage then—<br>In spite of all, I would fain be back in those vagabond days again.<br>On Saturday night we’ve a pound to spare—a pound for a trip down town—<br>We took more joy in those hard old days for a hardly spared half-crown; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">We took more pride in the pants we patched than the suits we have had since then—<br>In spite of all, I would rather be back in those comical days again.<br>’Twas We and the World—and the rest go hang—as the Outside tracks we trod;<br>Each thought of himself as a man and mate, and not as a martyred god; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The world goes wrong when your heart is strong—and this is the way with men—<br>The world goes right when your liver is white, and you preach of the change ‘since then.’<br>They were hard old days; they were battling days; they were cruel times—but then,<br>In spite of all, we shall live to-night in those hard old days again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408775" data-title="The Battling Days de Henry Lawson" data-description="So, sit you down in a straight-backed chair, with your pipe and your wife content, And cross your knees with your wisest air, and preach of the ‘days mis-spent;’ Grown fat and moral apace, old man! you prate of the change ‘since then’— I..."></div> </div> </div>

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