From the Newark Evening Star, October 20, 1914.
To speak unkindly isn’t wit,
To say things that wound the heart
Is never clever—not a bit.
Though at the time you think it smart,
Far better is it to remain
As silent as a marble bust
Than speak and leave a track of pain
Behind a smiling, bitter thrust.
The poisoned barb within a jest
That leaves a fellow being hurt
Is not a cleverness the test,
Nor of a brain that is alert.
To gibe at age or private scars,
Or sacred griefs proclaims the cad
And he who does it sadly mars
The laughter that should leave us glad.
Unkindness isn’t wit at all,
There’s little humor in a sneer.
One cannot drench his speech in gall
And seek to laugh away the tear.
And he who poisons thus the gay
Is just as cowardly as he
Who kicks a cripple’s crutch away
And laughs his helplessness to see.
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