The Worried Captain
by gahorn (with apologies to Wallace Irwin)
"I hate to think of dyin', " said the Captain to his Mate;
"Hypertension, plane-wrecks, heart disease, I loathe to contemplate.
I hate to think of vanity and all the crimes it leads to,"
Then says his Mate,
With looks sedate,
"Ya doesn't really need to."
"It fills my breast with sorrow," says the Captain with a sigh,
"To conjure up the happy days that careless has slipped by;
I hate to contemplate the day I up and left my Mary..."
Then says the mate,
"Why contemplate,
If it ain't necessary?"
"Suppose that this here arrplane," says the Captain with a moan
"Should lose 'er lift, dive away, and crash against a stone?
"Suppose by windshear she'd go down, when save ourselves we couldn't?"
The mate replies,
"Oh, close my eyes!
Suppose, ag'in she shouldn't?"
"The chances are against us," says the Captain in dismay.
"If Fate don't Hunt us out and out, it gits us all some day.
So many perish of old age, the death-rate must be fearful."
"Well," says the mate,
"At any rate,
We might as well die cheerful."
"I read in them statistic books," the nervous Captain cries,
"That every minute by the clock some fellow up and dies;
I wonder what disease they get that kills in such a hurry?"
The mate he winks,
and says, "Methinks
They mostly die of worry."
"Of certain things," the Captain sighs, "my conscience won't be rid.
And all the wicked things I done I sure should not have did.
The wrinkles on my inmost soul compel me oft' to shiver."
"Your soul's First Rate!",
observed his Mate.
"The trouble's with your Liver."
-
George, you were so slow getting your poem out, Miles beat you by days, I'll just stick with his. 
