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Edgar Guest - The Change-Worker
Work rating: Low

A feller don`t start in to think of himself, an`
    the part that he`s playin` down here,
When there`s nobody lookin` to him fer support,
    an` he don`t give a thought to next year.
His faults don`t seem big an` his habits no worse
    than a whole lot of others he knows,
An` he don`t seem to care what his neighbors may
    say, as heedlessly forward he goes.
He don`t stop to think if it`s wrong or it`s right;
    with his speech he is careless or glib,
Till the minute the nurse lets him into the room
    to see what`s asleep in the crib.

An` then as he looks at that bundle o` red, an` the
    wee little fingers an` toes,
An` he knows it`s his flesh an` his blood that is there,
    an` will be just like him when it grows,
It comes in a flash to a feller right then, there is
    more here than pleasure or pelf,
An` the sort of a man his baby will be is the sort
    of a man he`s himself.
Then he kisses the mother an` kisses the child, an`
    goes out determined that he
Will endeavor to be just the sort of a man that
    he`s wantin` his baby to be.

A feller don`t think that it matters so much what
    he does till a baby arrives;
He sows his wild oats an` he has his gay fling an`
    headlong in pleasure he dives;
An` a drink more or less doesn`t matter much
    then, for life is a comedy gay,
But the moment a crib is put in the home, an` a
    baby has come there to stay,
He thinks of the things he has done in the past,
    an` it strikes him as hard as a blow,
That the path he has trod in the past is a path
    that he don`t want his baby to go.

I ain`t much to preach, an` I can`t just express
    in the way that your clever men can
The thoughts that I think, but it seems to me now
    that when God wants to rescue a man
From himself an` the follies that harmless appear,
    but which, under the surface, are grim,
He summons the angel of infancy sweet, an` sends
    down a baby to him.
For in that way He opens his eyes to himself, and
    He gives him the vision to see
That his duty`s to be just the sort of a man that
    he`s wantin` his baby to be.
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