I HAVEN'T always acted good:
I've taken things not meant for me;
Not other people's drink and food,
But things they never seemed to see.
I haven't done the way I ought
If all they say in church is true,
But all I've had I've fairly bought,
And paid for pretty heavy too.

For days and weeks are very long
If you get nothing new and bright,
And if you never do no wrong
Somehow you never do no right.
The chap that daresent go a yard
For fear the path should lead astray
May be a saint--though that seems hard,
But he's no traveller, any way.

Some things I can't be sorry for,
The things that silly people hate:
But some I did I do deplore,
I knew, inside, they wasn't straight.
And when my last account is filed,
And stuck-up angels stop their song,
I'll ask God's pardon like a child
For what I really knew was wrong.

If you've a child, you'd rather see
A bit of temper, off and on,
A greedy grab, a silly spree--
And then a brave thing said or done
Than hear your boy whine all day long
About the things he musn't do:
Just doing nothing, right or wrong:
And God may feel the same as you.

For God's our Father, so they say,
He made His laws and He made me;
He'll understand about the way
Me and His laws could not agree.
He might say, 'You're worth more, My son,
Than all My laws since law began.
Take good with bad--here's something done--
And I'm your God, and you're My man.'