<h2><SPAN name="page76"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>THE PRICE HE PAID</h2>
<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">said</span> I would have
my fling,<br/>
And do what a young man may;<br/>
And I didn’t believe a thing<br/>
That the parsons have to say.<br/>
I didn’t believe in a God<br/>
That gives us blood like fire,<br/>
Then flings us into hell because<br/>
We answer the call of desire.</p>
<p class="poetry">And I said: ‘Religion is rot,<br/>
And the laws of the world are nil;<br/>
For the bad man is he who is caught<br/>
And cannot foot his bill.<br/>
And there is no place called hell;<br/>
And heaven is only a truth<br/>
When a man has his way with a maid,<br/>
In the fresh keen hour of youth.</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page77"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
77</span>‘And money can buy us grace,<br/>
If it rings on the plate of the church:<br/>
And money can neatly erase<br/>
Each sign of a sinful smirch.’<br/>
For I saw men everywhere,<br/>
Hotfooting the road of vice;<br/>
And women and preachers smiled on them<br/>
As long as they paid the price.</p>
<p class="poetry">So I had my joy of life:<br/>
I went the pace of the town;<br/>
And then I took me a wife,<br/>
And started to settle down.<br/>
I had gold enough and to spare<br/>
For all of the simple joys<br/>
That belong with a house and a home<br/>
And a brood of girls and boys.</p>
<p class="poetry">I married a girl with health<br/>
And virtue and spotless fame.<br/>
I gave in exchange my wealth<br/>
And a proud old family name.<br/>
And I gave her the love of a heart<br/>
Grown sated and sick of sin!<br/>
My deal with the devil was all cleaned up,<br/>
And the last bill handed in.</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page78"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
78</span>She was going to bring me a child,<br/>
And when in labour she cried<br/>
With love and fear I was wild—<br/>
But now I wish she had died.<br/>
For the son she bore me was blind<br/>
And crippled and weak and sore!<br/>
And his mother was left a wreck.<br/>
It was so she settled my score.</p>
<p class="poetry">I said I must have my fling,<br/>
And they knew the path I would go;<br/>
Yet no one told me a thing<br/>
Of what I needed to know.<br/>
Folks talk too much of a soul<br/>
From heavenly joys debarred—<br/>
And not enough of the babes unborn,<br/>
By the sins of their fathers scarred.</p>
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