[One day last week, said a Chicago Evening Post of some time ago, a bridge tender and two stalwart police officers fished from the murky water of the river, the body of a well-dressed, middle-aged man. The remains were conveyed to the morgue, were never identified, and went finally to the potter's field or to the dissecting room of some medical college. In the pocket of the coat found on the corpse, was a stained and crumpled paper, upon which the following was scrawled in lead pencil. What a lesson it is of the purposeless life! What a picture of the soul that lived for self! What an object-lesson of the heart without Christ!] I am standing on the threshold of eternity at last.
As reckless of the future as I have been of the past,
I am void of all ambition, I am dead to every hope,
The coil of life is ended and I'm letting go the rope.
I have drifted down the stream of time, till weary, sore, oppressed,
And I'm tired of the motion, and I simply want to rest.
I have tasted all the pleasures that life can hold for man;
I've scanned the whole world over till there's nothing left to scan.
I have heard the finest music, I have read the rarest books;
I have drunk the purest vintage, and tested all the cooks.
I have run the scale of living and sounded every tone,
So there's nothing left to live for, and I long to be alone.
Alone and unmolested, where the vultures do not rave,
And the only refuge left me is the placid, quiet grave.
I am judge and jury mingled, and the verdict that I give
Is, that minus friends and money, it is foolishness to live.
In a day or two, my body will be found out in the lake;
The coroner will get a fee, the printer get a "take."
The casual verdict, "Suicide from causes yet unknown,"
And Golgotha draws another blank, a mound without a stone.
To change the usual verdict, I will give the reason now,
Before the rigid seal of death is stamped upon my brow;
'Tis the old familiar story of passion, love, and crime,
Repeated through the ages since Cleopatra's time—
A woman's lips, a woman's eyes, a siren all in all;
A modern Circe fit to cause the strongest man to fall;
A wedded life, some blissful years, and poverty drops in
With care and doubt and liquor, from whisky down to gin.
The story told by Tolstoi, in comparison with mine
Is moonlight unto sunlight, as water unto wine.
The jealous pangs I suffered, the hideous nights of wo,
I pray no other mortal may ever undergo.11
But I've said enough, I fancy, to make the reasons plain—
Enough to show the causes of a shattered heart and brain.
What wonder, then, that life holds not a single thread to bind,
A wish or hope to live for, or an interest in mankind.
Already dead but breathing—a fact that I regret—
A man without desire, excepting to forget;
And, since there is denied me one, why should I linger here,
A dead leaf from the forest of a long-forgotten year.
So au revoir, old cronies, if there's a meeting place beyond,
I'll let you know in spirit, and I know you will respond.
I am going now old comrades, to heaven or to hell;
I'll let you know which shortly—farewell, a long farewell.