The Man Who Told You So [poem by Styx]

[Editor: This poem by Styx was published in The Bulletin Reciter, 1901.]

The Man Who Told You So.

Of all the fiends who walk this earth,
Whose game, it seems, is mainly
To make us curse for all we ’re worth
And swear and speak profanely, —
I ’ll back the brute, in time of woe
Who comes and says, “I told you so !”

Does speculation bring you down
And ruin you completely,
Or spielers get your last half-crown
Particularly neatly,
He never fails to let you know
That all along he told you so.

With buoyant hope out West you went
To make a fortune speedy,
But came back home without a cent,
Disgusted, worn, and seedy.
He met you with — his face aglow —
“Now recollect, I told you so !”

That little bill, to save a friend,
Accepted by you blindly,
Meets with dishonour in the end.
And lets you in unkindly ;
His hope that soon you ’ll wiser grow
Is prefixed by “I told you so !”

The maiden whom you were to wed.
Who swore she loved you madly,
Gets married to a pal instead, —
Which wounds you very badly :
Again, his sympathy to show.
Out comes the same old “Told you so !”

And much I dread that, by-and-by,
When we ’re amongst the tainted,
And with the imps in Satan’s sty
Are getting fast acquainted,
He’ll point to us from Heaven’s front row,
And wag his chin — “I told them so !”

Styx.

Source:
A.G. Stephens (editor). The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from “The Bulletin” [1880-1901], The Bulletin Newspaper Company, Sydney, 1902 [first published 1901], pages 59-60