The Good Rich Man / Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Mr. Mandragon, the Millionaire, he wouldn't have wine or wife, He couldn't endure complexity: he lived the Simple Life. He ordered his lunch by megaphone in manly, simple tones, And used all his motors for canvassing voters, and twenty telephones; Besides a dandy little machine, Cunning and neat as ever was seen, With a hundred pulleys and cranks between, Made of metal and kept quite clean, To hoist him out of his healthful bed on every day of his life, And wash him and dress him and shave him and brush him --to live the Simple Life. Mr. Mandragon was most refined and quietly, neatly dressed, Say all the American newspapers that know refinement best; Quiet and neat the hat and hair and the coat quiet and neat, A trouser worn upon either leg, while boots adorn the feet; And not, as any one would expect, A Tiger's Skin all striped and specked, And a Peacock Hat with the tail erect, A scarlet tunic with sunflowers decked, Which might have had a more marked effect, And pleased the pride of a weaker man that yearned for wine or wife; But Fame and the Flagon, for Mr. Mandragon --obscured the Simple Life. Mr. Mandragon, the Millionaire, I am happy to say, is dead; He enjoyed a quiet funeral in a Crematorium shed. And he lies there fluffy and soft and grey and certainly quite refined; When he might have rotted to flowers and fruit with Adam and all mankind, Or been eaten by wolves athirst for blood, Or burnt on a good tall pyre of wood, In a towering flame, as a heathen should, Or even sat with us here at food, Merrily taking twopenny ale and pork with a pocket-knife; But this was luxury not for one that went for the Simple Life.