I worked for fifty hours a week,
And someone said to me,
"Don't be a serf! Throw off your chains,
And show the world you're free!"
So I cut down my working hours
And found, upon the whole,
The leisure time I had to spare
Good for my body's carking care,
And better for my soul.
I worked for forty hours a week,
And someone said to me,
"Release your bonds, you shackled slave!
Show all the world you're free!"
So I reduced my working hours
And found in leisured lull,
The more I sought to play, the more
Amusement had become a bore,
And life was rather dull.
I worked for twenty hours a week,
And someone said to me
"Awake, you mutt! Snap out of it,
And show the world you're free!"
So I cut out my working hours
And found that joy had flit.
Upon black melancholia's brink,
I sometimes used to sit and think
And sometimes merely sit.
I worked for not one hour a week,
And someone said to me,
"You lazy coot! Arise and shine!
You call this being free?"
So I resolved I'd better far
Rejoin the toiling mob.
But when I rose and looked around,
To my intense digust I found
Someone had pinched my job.
Notes
The present agitation for the forty-hour week following the agitation for a forty-eight hour week and to be followed inevitably by an agitation for a thrity or twenty-four hour week, must remind even the sincerest advocates of the shorter working week of the incontrovertible old truth that it is quite possible for one to have too much of a good thing.
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