Here we have in this truism
Mr. James's pragmatism.
Test your troubles day by day
With it, and they fly away.
Is the weather boiling hot,
Hot enough to boil a pot —
If it be not so to me,
What care I how hot it be?
Take a pudding made of bread;
Much against it has been said;
But it does not lack defense —
Many say it is immense.
Be it damned or be it blessed,
Let us make the acid test —
If it be not so to me,
What care I how good it be?
So with every blooming thing
That has power to soothe or sting;
Ships or shoes or sealing wax,
Carrots, comets, carpet tacks.
Every philosophic need
Covered by this capsule creed:
If it be not so to me,
What care I how it be?