Thought and Work

I’m not what people say I am, I’m not a lazy man;

I simply do my work upon a scientific plan.

I let my head save hand and foot, I bring my brain in play;

And yet I am a lazy chap, so all my neighbors say.

But I don’t care, I let ‘em talk, and keep about my work;

That is, I keep my brain hitched up and never let it shirk.

Each morn when I get out of bed I sit right down and think;

I think how this and that should go before I eat or drink.

I think up some good easy way to do this job and that,

And after thinking hard a spell I have it right down pat.

Instead of delving into it and working hard all day,

I’ve simplified it fifty fold by thinking out a way.

And best of all sometimes I find thinking long and deep,

There’s many jobs, that once I thought were pretty middling steep,

I do not need to do at all, which I’d have gone and done

Had I not sit and thought ‘em out before they were begun.

And that’s the way I find it now, the more I sit and think

The less hard work I have to do to get my food and drink.

So if you see me sitting here beneath this tree each day,

And my good wife is washing clothes not very far away,

Pray don’t misjudge for I shall be lost deep in thought to see

How she can get those washings out with less of drudgery.

I’m not what people say I am, I’m not a lazy man;

I simply do my work upon a scientific plan.

Aug. 6, 1906

Pub. in N.Y. “Sun”

       Aug. 12, 1906