Unprepared speech on a narrow escape from trouble ​

Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,    better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.    laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.    laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man. (laugh and be merry/john masefield/public domain) which of these is the main idea of the poem?

American history (is, are) studying the american colonies.

The attitude the speaker in this poem holds toward himself can best be described as