What’s Trumps!

WHAT’S TRUMPS!
“There are so many cards to play,
So many ways to choose,
In Love and Politics and War,
In forwarding our views,
With ladies fair, and statesmen wise,
Or men of lesser bumps,
Before we lead our stronger suit
‘Tis well to know what’s trumps.

One, worshiping at Beauty’s shrine
I knelt in bondage sweet,
Ad breathed my vows with eagerness
And offered at her feet
My soul, well stored with Cupid’s wealth
A love cemented lump;
A king of diamonds won the tick,
My heart was not a trump.

Raving to see my rival win
Upon a single Rub,
As he played the Duce with me,
I followed with a Club.
Two days within a station house
Reflecting on my sin,
I found, as others may have done,
Clubs very seldom win.

Grown wise by sad experience,
I ceased to deal with maids,
I shuffled youthful follies off,
And turned up the Jack of Spades;
Yet still I find as dust is scarce
And smaller grow the lumps,
That though the Spade’s an honest card,
It is not always trumps.

But in the world of outside show,
Where Mammon rules the throng,
To ease the little jolts of life
And smoothly pass along —
To find an antidote for care,
And stern misfortunes thumps,
One card is very sure to win —
Diamonds are always trumps!”

Fort Wayne Sentinel – Fort Wayne, Indiana – 6 Feb 1858