If you are lucky, hush your tone !
If you are grieved, breathe soft your breath !
Seek others' counsel ; keep your own !
No human toil can vanquish death !

Whether your pass your days in woe
Or drown it deep in brandy warm
Where stains of flutes and cymbals flow
That in a tavern bar perform ;

Whether in drunken sleep you've been
Beneath a hedge, or homewards crawl
And beat your wife with a rolling-pin,
Or thrash yourself to vent your gall ;

Whether you plough and plant your fields
And all the good things that you save
A greedy heir will soon enfoy ;
You, for your pains, will get a grave !

Your father may as reeve be found
Or work the fields, a common serf, —
Death levels all below the ground,
Her rage brings all beneath the turf !

She plays a game of ' Heads or tails ? '
You cry out ' Heads ! ' — ' You're wrong ! ' The hag
From her dark corner never fails
You from your ingle-nook to drag !