| |
| THE AVERAGE MAN wears the average clothes | |
| And the average hat on his head; | |
| He eats at a table and sits on a chair | |
| And (normally) sleeps on a bed; | |
| For he scorns the eccentric, and never would dare | 5 |
| To sleep on a table or eat on a chair. | |
| |
| The Average Man seeks the corner saloon | |
| Omeric refreshment to find; | |
| But, shunning the tipple, he wanders to church | |
| Where he is devoutly inclined— | 10 |
| Nor does he expect to find whiskey or dice | |
| In the place that is famed for religious advice. | |
| |
| The Average Man says the average things | |
| And sings just the average songs; | |
| He’s deucedly fond of the Average Girl, | 15 |
| For whom he unceasingly longs— | |
| And his vices and virtues, too many to tell, | |
| Are oddly at odds—but they average well. | |
| |
| Statistics declare that the Average Man | |
| Finds the Average Woman and mates; | 20 |
| That the Average Family, children all told, | |
| Is something like two and three-eighths. | |
| (Though fractional children disturb and appal, | |
| The Average Man isn’t worried at all.) | |
| |
| The Average Man reads the average books, | 25 |
| And sometimes he writes ’em, I hear; | |
| He’s neither a genius, a knave, nor a fool, | |
| In fact he despises the queer; | |
| For if he departed the Average Plan | |
| He’d cease to be known as the Average Man. | 30 |
| |
| But deep in the breast of the Average Man | |
| The passions of ages are swirled, | |
| And the loves and the hates of the Average Man | |
| Are old as the heart of the world— | |
| For the thought of the Race, as we live and we die, | 35 |
| Is in keeping the Man and the Average high. | |
| |
