Chapter IV: Book III: , Ode 3 (1)

_"Carminis interea nostri redaemus in orbem----"_

Let us return, then, for a time, To our accustomed round of rhyme; And let my songs' familiar art Not fail to move my lady's heart.

They say that Orpheus with his lute Had power to tame the wildest brute; That "Variations on a Theme" Of his would stay the swiftest stream.

They say that by the minstrel's song Cithaeron's rocks were moved along To Thebes, where, as you may recall, They formed themselves to frame a wall.

And Galatea, lovely maid, Beneath wild Etna's fastness stayed Her horses, dripping with the mere, Those Polypheman songs to hear.

What marvel, then, since Bacchus and Apollo grasp me by the hand, That all the maidens you have heard Should hang upon my slightest word?

Taenerian columns in my home Are not; nor any golden dome; No parks have I, nor Marcian spring, Nor orchards--nay, nor anything.

The Muses, though, are friends of mine; Some readers love my lyric line; And never is Calliope Awearied by my poetry.

O happy she whose meed of praise Hath fallen upon my sheaf of lays! And every song of mine is sent To be thy beauty's monument.

The Pyramids that point the sky, The House of Jove that soars so high, Mausolus' tomb--they are not free From Death his final penalty.

For fire or rain shall steal away The crumbling glory of their day; But fame for wit can never die, And gosh! I was a gay old guy!

A Lament

Propertius: Book II, Elegy 8

_"Eripitur nobis iam pridem cara puella----"_

While she I loved is being torn
From arms that held her many years,
Dost thou regard me, friend, with scorn,
Or seek to check my tears?

Bitter the hatred for a jilt,
And hot the hates of Eros are;
My hatred, slay me an thou wilt,
For thee'd be gentler far.

Can I endure that she recline
Upon another's arm? Shall they
No longer call that lady "mine"
Who "mine" was yesterday?

For Love is fleeting as the hours.
The town of Thebes is draped with moss,
And Ilium's well-known topless towers
Are now a total loss.

Fell Thebes and Troy; and in the grave
Have fallen lords of high degree.
What songs I sang! What gifts I gave!
... _She_ never fell for me.

Bon Voyage--and Vice Versa

Propertius: Elegy VIII, Part 1

_"Tune igitur demens, nec te mea cura moratur?"_

O Cynthia, hast thou lost thy mind? Have I no claim on thine affection? Dost love the chill Illyrian wind With something passing predilection? And is thy friend--whoe'er he be-- The kind to take the place of _me_?

Ah, canst thou bear the surging deep? Canst thou endure the hard ship's-mattress? For scant will be thy hours of sleep From Staten Island to Cape Hatt'ras; And won't thy fairy feet be froze With treading on the foreign snows?

I hope that doubly blows the gale, With billows twice as high as ever, So that the captain, fain to sail, May not achieve his mad endeavour! The winds, when that they cease to roar, Shall find me wailing on the shore.

Yet merit thou my love or wrath, O False, I pray that Galatea May smile upon thy watery path! A pleasant trip,--that's the idea. Light of my life, there never shall For me be any other gal.

And sailors, as they hasten past, Will always have to hear my query: "Where have you seen my Cynthia last? Has anybody seen my dearie?" I'll shout: "In Malden or Marquette Where'er she be, I'll have her yet!"

Fragment

_"Militis in galea nidum fecere columbae."_--PETRONIUS

Within the soldier's helmet see
The nesting dove;
Venus and Mars, it seems to me,
In love.

On the Uses of Adversity

_"Nam nihil est, quod non mortalibus afferat usum."_--PETRONIUS

Nothing there is that mortal man may utterly despise; What in our wealth we treasured, in our poverty we prize.

The gold upon a sinking ship has often wrecked the boat, While on a simple oar a shipwrecked man may keep afloat.

The burglar seeks the plutocrat, attracted by his dress-- The poor man finds his poverty the true preparedness.

After Hearing "Robin Hood"

The songs of Sherwood Forest
Are lilac-sweet and clear;
The virile rhymes of merrier times
Sound fair upon mine ear.

Sweet is their sylvan cadence
And sweet their simple art.
The balladry of the greenwood tree
Stirs memories in my heart.

O braver days and elder
With mickle valour dight,
How ye bring back the time, alack!
When Harry Smith could write!

Maud Muller Mutatur

In 1909 toilet goods were not considered a serious matter and
no special department of the catalogs was devoted to it. A
few perfumes and creams were scattered here and there among
bargain goods.

In 1919 an assortment of perfumes that would rival any city
department store is shown, along with six pages of other
toilet articles, including rouge and eyebrow pencils.

_--From "How the Farmer Has Changed in a Decade: Toilet
Goods," in Farm and Fireside's advertisement._

Maud Muller, on a summer's day, Powdered her nose with _Bon Sachet_.

Beneath her lingerie hat appeared Eyebrows and cheeks that were well veneered.

Singing she rocked on the front piazz, To the tune of "The Land of the Sky Blue Jazz."

But the song expired on the summer air, And she said "This won't get me anywhere."

The judge in his car looked up at her And signalled "Stop!" to his brave chauffeur.

He smiled a smile that is known as broad, And he said to Miss Muller, "Hello, how's Maud?"

"What sultry weather this is? Gee whiz!" Said Maud. Said the judge, "I'll say it is."

"Your coat is heavy. Why don't you shed it? Have a drink?" said Maud. Said the judge, "You said it."

And Maud, with the joy of bucolic youth, Blended some gin and some French vermouth.

Maud Muller sighed, as she poured the gin, "I've got something on Whittier's heroine."

"Thanks," said the judge, "a peppier brew From a fairer hand was never knew."

And when the judge had had number 7, Maud seemed an angel direct from Heaven.

And the judge declared, "You're a lovely girl, An' I'm for you, Maudie, I'll tell the worl'."

And the judge said, "Marry me, Maudie dearie?" And Maud said yes to the well known query.

And she often thinks, in her rustic way, As she powders her nose with _Bon Sachet_,

"I never'n the world would 'a got that guy, If I'd waited till after the First o' July."

And of all glad words of prose or rhyme, The gladdest are, "Act while there yet is time."

The Carlyles

[I was talking with a newspaper man the other day who seemed
to think that the fact that Mrs. Carlyle threw a teacup at
Mr. Carlyle should be given to the public merely as a fact.

But a fact presented to people without the proper--or even,
if necessary, without the improper--human being to go with it
does not mean anything and does not really become alive or
caper about in people's minds.

But what I want and what I believe most people want when a
fact is being presented is one or two touches that will make
natural and human questions rise in and play about like this:

"Did a servant see Mrs. Carlyle throw the teacup? Was the
servant an English servant with an English imagination or an
Irish servant with an Irish imagination? What would the fact
have been like if Mr. Browning had been listening at the
keyhole? Or Oscar Wilde, or Punch, or the Missionary Herald,
or The New York Sun, or the Christian Science Monitor?"
--GERALD STANLEY LEE in the Satevepost.]

BY OUR OWN ROBERT BROWNING

As a poet heart- and fancy-free--whole, I listened at the Carlyles' keyhole; And I saw, I, Robert Browning, saw, Tom hurl a teacup at Jane's jaw. She silent sat, nor tried to speak up When came the wallop with the teacup-- A cup not filled with Beaune or Clicquot, But one that brimmed with Orange Pekoe. "Jane Welsh Carlyle," said Thomas, bold, "The tea you brewed for m' breakfast's cold! I'm feeling low i' my mind; a thing You know b' this time. Have at you!"... Bing! And hurled, threw he at her the teacup; And I wrote it, deeming it unique, up.

* * * * *

BY OUR OWN OSCAR WILDE

LADY LEFFINGWELL (_coldly_).--A full teacup! What a waste! So many good women and so little good tea.

[_Exit Lady Leffingwell_]

* * * * *

FROM OUR OWN "PUNCH"

A MANCHESTER autograph collector, we are informed, has just offered L50 for the signature of Tea Carlyle.

* * * * *

FROM OUR OWN "MISSIONARY HERALD"

From what clouds cannot sunshine be distilled! When, in a fit of godless rage, Mr. Carlyle threw a teacup at the good woman he had vowed at the altar to love, honour, and obey, she smiled and the thought of China entered her head.

Yesterday Mrs. Carlyle enrolled as a missionary, and will sail for the benighted land of the heathen to-morrow.

* * * * *

FROM OUR OWN "NEW YORK SUN"

Fortunate is MRS. JANE WELSH CARLYLE to have escaped with her life, though if she had not, no American worthy of the traditions of Washington could simulate acute sorrow. MR. CARLYLE, wearied of the dilatory methods of the BAKERIAN War Department, properly took the law into his own strong hands.

The argument that resulted in the teacup's leaving MR. CARLYLE'S hands was common in most households. It transpires that MRS. CARLYLE, with a Bolshevistic tendency that makes patriots wonder what the Department of Justice--to borrow a phrase from a newspaper cartoonist--thinks about, had been championing the British-Wilson League of Nations, that league which will make ironically true our "E Pluribus Unum"--one of many. Repeated efforts by MR. CARLYLE, in appeals to the Department of Justice, the Military Intelligence Division, and the City Government, were of no avail. And so MR. CARLYLE, like the red-blooded American he is, did what the authorities should have saved him the embarrassing trouble of doing.

* * * * *

FROM OUR OWN "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR"

It is reported that Mr. Thomas Carlyle has thrown a teacup at Mrs. Carlyle, and much exaggerated and acrid comment has been made on this incident.

If it had been a whiskey glass, or a cocktail glass, the results might have been fatal. In Oregon, which went dry in 1916, the number of women hit by crockery has decreased 4.2 per cent in three years. Of 1,844 women in Oregon hit by crockery in 1915, 1,802 were hit by glasses containing, or destined to contain, alcoholic stimulants. More than 94 per cent of these accidents resulted fatally. The remaining 22 women, hit by tea or coffee cups, are now happy, useful members of society.

If Amy Lowell Had Been James Whitcomb Riley

A DECADE

When you came you were like red wine and honey, And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness. Now you are like morning bread-- Smooth and pleasant, I hardly taste you at all, for I know your savour, But I am completely nourished. --AMY LOWELL, in _The Chimaera_.

When I wuz courtin' Annie, she wuz honey an' red wine, She made me feel all jumpy, did that ol' sweetheart o' mine; Wunst w'en I went to Crawfordsville, on one o' them there trips, I kissed her--an' the burnin' taste wuz sizzlin' on my lips. An' now I've married Annie, an' I see her all the time, I do not feel the daily need o' bustin' into rhyme. An' now the wine-y taste is gone, fer Annie's always there, An' I take her fer granted now, the same ez sun an' air. But though the honey taste wuz sweet, an' though the wine wuz strong, Yet ef I lost the sun an' air, I couldn't git along.

If the Advertising Man Had Been Gilbert

Never mind that slippery wet street-- The tire with a thousand claws will hold you. Stop as quickly as you will-- Those thousand claws grip the road like a vise. Turn as sharply as you will-- Those thousand claws take a steel-prong grip on the road to prevent a side skid. You're safe--safer than anything else will make you-- Safe as you would be on a perfectly dry street. And those thousand claws are mileage insurance, too.

--_From the Lancaster Tire and Rubber Company's advertisement in the Satevepost._

Never mind it if you find it wet upon the street and slippery;
Never bother if the street is full of ooze;
Do not fret that you'll upset, that you will spoil your summer frippery,
You may turn about as sharply as you choose.
For those myriad claws will grip the road and keep the car from skidding,
And your steering gear will hold it fast and true;
Every atom of the car will be responsive to your bidding,
AND those thousand claws are mileage insurance, too--
Oh, indubitably,
Those thousand claws are mileage insurance, too.

If the Advertising Man Had Been Praed, or Locker

"C'est distingue," says Madame La Mode, 'Tis a fabric of subtle distinction. For street wear it is superb. The chic of the Rue de la Paix-- The style of Fifth Avenue-- The character of Regent Street-- All are expressed in this new fabric creation. Leather-like but feather-light-- It drapes and folds and distends to perfection. And it may be had in dull or glazed, Plain or grained, basket weave or moired surfaces!

--Advertisement of Pontine, in _Vanity Fair_.

"C'est distingue," says Madame La Mode.
Subtly distinctive as a fabric fair;
Nor Keats nor Shelley in his loftiest ode
Could thrum the line to tell how it will wear.

The flair, the chic that is Rue de la Paix,
The style that is Fifth Avenue, New York.
The character of Regent Street in May--
As leather strong, yet light as any cork.

All these for her in this fair fabric clad.
(Light of my life, O thou my Genevieve!)
In surface dull or glazed it may be had--
In plain or grained, moired or basket weave.

Georgie Porgie

BY MOTHER GOOSE AND OUR OWN SARA TEASDALE

Bennie's kisses left me cold,
Eddie's made me yearn to die,
Jimmie's made me laugh aloud,--
But Georgie's made me cry.

Bennie sees me every night,
Eddie sees me every day,
Jimmie sees me all the time,--
But Georgie stays away.

On First Looking into Bee Palmer's Shoulders

WITH BOWS TO KEATS AND KEITH'S

["The World's Most Famous Shoulders"]

_"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent upon a peak in Darien."_

"Bee" Palmer has taken the raw, human--all too human--stuff
of the underworld, with its sighs of sadness and regret, its
mad merriment, its swift blaze of passion, its turbulent
dances, its outlaw music, its songs of the social bandit, and
made a new art product of the theatre. She is to the sources
of jazz and the blues what Francois Villon was to the wild
life of Paris. Both have found exquisite blossoms of art in
the sector of life most removed from the concert room and the
boudoir, and their harvest has the vigour, the resolute life,
the stimulating quality, the indelible impress of daredevil,
care-free, do-as-you-please lives of the picturesque men and
women who defy convention.--From Keith's Press Agent.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of jazz, And many goodly arms and shoulders seen Quiver and quake--if you know what I mean; I've seen a lot, as everybody has. Some plaudits got, while others got the razz. But when I saw Bee Palmer, shimmy queen, I shook--in sympathy--my troubled bean, And said, "This is the utter razmataz."

Then felt I like some patient with a pain When a new surgeon swims into his ken, Or like stout Brodie, when, with reeling brain, He jumped into the river. There and then I subwayed up and took the morning train To Norwalk, Naugatuck, and Darien.

To a Vers Librist

"Oh bard," I said, "your verse is free; The shackles that encumber me, The fetters that are my obsession, Are never gyves to your expression.

"The fear of falsities in rhyme, In metre, quantity, or time, Is never yours; you sing along Your unpremeditated song."

"Correct," the young vers librist said. "Whatever pops into my head I write, and have but one small fetter: I start each line with a capital letter.

"But rhyme and metre--Ishkebibble!-- Are actually neglig_ib_le. I go ahead, like all my school, Without a single silly rule."

Of rhyme I am so reverential He made me feel inconsequential. I shed some strongly saline tears For bards I loved in younger years.

"If Keats had fallen for your fluff," I said, "he might have done good stuff. If Burns had thrown his rhymes away, His songs might still be sung to-day."

O bards of rhyme and metre free, My gratitude goes out to ye For all your deathless lines--ahem! Let's see, now.... What _is_ one of them?

How Do You Tackle Your Work?

How do you tackle your work each day?
Are you scared of the job you find?
Do you grapple the task that comes your way
With a confident, easy mind?
Do you stand right up to the work ahead
Or fearfully pause to view it?
Do you start to toil with a sense of dread?
Or feel that you're going to do it?

You can do as much as you think you can,
But you'll never accomplish more;
If you're afraid of yourself, young man,
There's little for you in store.
For failure comes from the inside first,
It's there if we only knew it,
And you can win, though you face the worst,
If you feel that you're going to do it.

Success! It's found in the soul of you,
And not in the realm of luck!
The world will furnish the work to do,
But you must provide the pluck.
You can do whatever you think you can,
It's all in the way you view it.
It's all in the start that you make, young man:
You must feel that you're going to do it.

How do you tackle your work each day?
With confidence clear, or dread?
What to yourself do you stop and say
When a new task lies ahead?
What is the thought that is in your mind?
Is fear ever running through it?
If so, just tackle the next you find
By thinking you're going to do it.

--From "A Heap o' Livin'," by Edgar A. Guest

I tackle my terrible job each day
With a fear that is well defined;
And I grapple the task that comes my way
With no confidence in my mind.
I try to evade the work ahead,
As I fearfully pause to view it,
And I start to toil with a sense of dread,
And doubt that I'm going to do it.

I can't do as much as I think I can,
And I never accomplish more.
I am scared to death of myself, old man,
As I may have observed before.
I've read the proverbs of Charley Schwab,
Carnegie, and Marvin Hughitt;
But whenever I tackle a difficult job,
O gosh! how I hate to do it!

I try to believe in my vaunted power
With that confident kind of bluff,
But somebody tells me The Conning Tower
Is nothing but awful stuff.
And I take up my impotent pen that night,
And idly and sadly chew it,
As I try to write something merry and bright,
And I know that I shall not do it.

And that's how I tackle my work each day--
With terror and fear and dread--
And all I can see is a long array
Of empty columns ahead.
And those are the thoughts that are in my mind,
And that's about all there's to it.
As long as it's work, of whatever kind,
I'm certain I cannot do it.

Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry-- We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable-- But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry-- We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry; And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear, From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere; And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold, And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry, We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head, And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read; And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears, And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

--EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, _in Poetry_.

I was very sad, I was very solemn-- I had worked all day grinding out a column. I came back from dinner at half-past seven, And I couldn't think of anything till quarter to eleven; And then I read "Recuerdo," by Miss Millay, And I said, "I'll bet a nickel I can write that way."

I was very sad, I was very solemn-- I had worked all day whittling out a column. I said, "I'll bet a nickel I can chirp such a chant," And Mr. Geoffrey Parsons said, "I'll bet you can't." I bit a chunk of chocolate and found it sweet, And I listened to the trucking on Frankfort Street.

I was very sad, I was very solemn-- I had worked all day fooling with a column. I got as far as this and took my verses in To Mr. Geoffrey Parsons, who said, "Kid, you win." And--not that I imagine that any one'll care-- I blew that jitney on a subway fare.

On Tradition

LINES PROVOKED BY HEARING A YOUNG MAN WHISTLING

No carmine radical in Art,
I worship at the shrine of Form;
Yet open are my mind and heart
To each departure from the norm.
When Post-Impressionism emerged,
I hesitated but a minute
Before I saw, though it diverged,
That there was something healthy in it.

And eke when Music, heavenly maid,
Undid the chains that chafed her feet,
I grew to like discordant shade--
Unharmony I thought was sweet.
When verse divorced herself from sound,
I wept at first. Now I say: "Oh, well,
I see some sense in Ezra Pound,
And nearly some in Amy Lowell."

Yet, though I storm at every change,
And each mutation makes me wince,
I am not shut to all things strange--
I'm rather easy to convince.
But hereunto I set my seal,
My nerves awry, askew, abristling:
_I'll never change the way I feel_
_Upon the question of Free Whistling._

Unshackled Thoughts on Chivalry, Romance, Adventure, Etc.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was walking on Worth Street, A gust of wind blew my hat off. I swore, petulantly, but somewhat noisily. A young woman had been near, walking behind me; She must have heard me, I thought. And I was ashamed, and embarrassedly sorry. So I said to her: "If you heard me, I beg your pardon." But she gave me a frightened look And ran across the street, Seeking a policeman. So I thought, Why waste five hours trying to versify the incident? Vers libre would serve her right.

Results Ridiculous

("Humourists have amused themselves by translating famous
sonnets into free verse. A result no less ridiculous would
have been obtained if somebody had rewritten a passage from
'Paradise Lost' as a rondeau."--GEORGE SOULE in the _New
Republic_.)

"PARADISE LOST"

Sing, Heavenly Muse, in lines that flow
More smoothly than the wandering Po,
Of man's descending from the height
Of Heaven itself, the blue, the bright,
To Hell's unutterable throe.

Of sin original and the woe
That fell upon us here below
From man's pomonic primal bite--
Sing, Heavenly Muse!

Of summer sun, of winter snow,
Of future days, of long ago,
Of morning and "the shades of night,"
Of woman, "my ever new delight,"
Go to it, Muse, and put us joe--
Sing, Heavenly Muse!

* * * * *

"THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER"

The wedding guest sat on a stone, He could not choose but hear The mariner. They were there alone. The wedding guest sat on a stone. "I'll read you something of my own," Declared that mariner. The wedding guest sat on a stone-- He could not choose but hear.

Regarding (1) the U. S. and (2) New York

Before I was a travelled bird,
I scoffed, in my provincial way,
At other lands; I deemed absurd
All nations but these U. S. A.

And--although Middle-Western born--
Before I was a travelled guy,
I laughed at, with unhidden scorn,
All cities but New York, N. Y.

But now I've been about a bit--
How travel broadens! How it does!
And I have found out this, to wit:
How right I was! How right I was!

Broadmindedness

How narrow his vision, how cribbed and confined!
How prejudiced all of his views!
How hard is the shell of his bigoted mind!
How difficult he to excuse!

His face should be slapped and his head should be banged;
A person like that ought to die!
I want to be fair, but a man should be hanged
Who's any less liberal than I.

The Jazzy Bard

Labor is a thing I do not like; Workin's makes me want to go on strike; Sittin' in an office on a sunny afternoon, Thinkin' o' nothin' but a ragtime tune.

'Cause I got the blues, I said I got the blues, I got the paragraphic blues. Been a-sittin' here since ha' pas' ten, Bitin' a hole in my fountain pen; Brain's all stiff in the creakin' joints, Can't make up no wheezes on the Fourteen Points; Can't think o' nothin' 'bout the end o' booze, 'Cause I got the para--, I said the paragraphic, I mean the column conductin' blues.

Lines on and from "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations"

("Sir: For the first time in twenty-three years 'Bartlett's
Familiar Quotations' has been revised and enlarged, and under
separate cover we are sending you a copy of the new edition.
We would appreciate an expression of opinion from you of the
value of this work after you have had an ample opportunity of
examining it."--THE PUBLISHERS.)

Of making many books there is no end--
So Sancho Panza said, and so say I.
Thou wert my guide, philosopher and friend
When only one is shining in the sky.

Books cannot always please, however good;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
To be great is to be misunderstood,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans.

The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
I never write as funny as I can.
Remote, unfriended, studious let me sit
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

Go, lovely Rose that lives its little hour!
Go, little booke! and let who will be clever!
Roll on! From yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moon and I could keep this up forever.

Thoughts in a Far Country

I rise and applaud, in the patriot manner,
Whenever (as often) I hear
The palpitant strains of "The Star Spangled Banner,"--
I shout and cheer.

And also, to show my unbounded devotion,
I jump to me feet with a "Whee!"
Whenever "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean"
Is played near me.

My fervour's so hot and my ardour so searing--
I'm hoarse for a couple of days--
You've heard me, I'm positive, joyously cheering
"The Marseillaise."

I holler for "Dixie." I go off my noodle,
I whistle, I pound, and I stamp
Whenever an orchestra plays "Yankee Doodle,"
Or "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp."

But if you would enter my confidence, Reader,
Know that I'd go clean off my dome,
And madly embrace any orchestra leader
For "Home, Sweet Home."

When You Meet a Man from Your Own Home Town

Sing, O Muse, in the treble clef, A little song of the A. E. F., And pardon me, please, if I give vent To something akin to sentiment. But we have our moments Over Here When we want to cry and we want to cheer; And the hurrah feeling will not down When you meet a man from your own home town.

It's many a lonesome, longsome day Since you embarked from the U. S. A., And you met some men--it's a great big war-- From towns that you never had known before; And you landed here, and your rest camp mate Was a man from some strange and distant state. Liked him? Yes; but you wanted to see A man from the town where you used to be.

And then you went, by design or chance, All over the well-known map of France; And you yearned with a yearn that grew and grew To talk with a man from the burg you knew. And some lugubrious morning when Your morale is batting about .110, "Where are you from?" and you make reply, And the O. D. warrior says, "So am I."

The universe wears a smiling face As you spill your talk of the old home place; You talk of the streets, and the home town jokes, And you find that you know each other's folks; And you haven't any more woes at all As you both decide that the world _is_ small-- A statement adding to its renown When you meet a man from your own home town.

You may be among the enlisted men, You may be a Lieut. or a Major-Gen.; Your home may be up in the Chilkoot Pass, In Denver, Col., or in Pittsfield, Mass.; You may have come from Chicago, Ill., Buffalo, Portland, or Louisville-- But there's nothing, I'm gambling, can keep you down, When you meet a man from your own home town.

* * * * *

If you want to know why I wrote this pome, Well ... I've just had a talk with a guy from home.

The Shepherd's Resolution

_If she be not so to me, What care I how fair she be?_

--WITHER.

BY OUR OWN JEROME D. KERN, AUTHOR OF "YOU'RE HERE AND I'M HERE"

I don't care if a girl is fair If she doesn't seem beautiful to me, I won't waste away if she's fair as day, Or prettier than meadows in the month of May; As long as you are there for me to see, I don't care and you don't care How many others are beyond compare-- You're the only one I like to have around.

I won't mind if she's everything combined, If she doesn't seem wonderful to me, I won't fret if she's everybody's pet, Or considered by all as the one best bet; As long as you and I are only we, I don't care and you don't care How many others are beyond compare, You're the only one I like to have around.

"It Was a Famous Victory"

(1944)

It was a summer evening; Old Kaspar was at home, Sitting before his cottage door-- Like in the Southey pome-- And near him, with a magazine, Idled his grandchild, Geraldine.

"Why don't you ask me," Kaspar said To the child upon the floor, "Why don't you ask me what I did When I was in the war? They told me that each little kid Would surely ask me what I did.

"I've had my story ready For thirty years or more." "Don't bother, Grandpa," said the child; "I find such things a bore. Pray leave me to my magazine," Asserted little Geraldine.

Then entered little Peterkin, To whom his gaffer said: "You'd like to hear about the war? How I was left for dead?" "No. And, besides," declared the youth, "How do I know you speak the truth?"

Arose that wan, embittered man, The hero of this pome, And walked, with not unsprightly step, Down to the Soldiers' Home, Where he, with seven other men, Sat swapping lies till half-past ten.

On Profiteering

Although I hate
A profiteer
With unabat-
Ed loathing;
Though I detest
The price they smear
On pants and vest
And clothing;

Yet I admit
My meed of crime,
Nor do one whit
Regret it;
I'd triple my
Price for a rhyme,
If I thought I
Could get it.

Despite

The terrible things that the Governor
Of Kansas says alarm me;
And yet somehow we won the war
In spite of the Regular Army.

The things they say of the old N. G.
Are bitter and cruel and hard;
And yet we walloped the enemy
In spite of the National Guard.

Too late, too late, was our work begun;
Too late were our forces sent;
And yet we smeared the horrible Hun
In spite of the President.

"What a frightful flivver this Baker is!"
Cried many a Senator;
And yet we handed the Kaiser his
In spite of the Sec. of War.

A sadly incompetent, sinful crew
Is that of the recent fight;
And yet we put it across, we do,
In spite of a lot of spite.

The Return of the Soldier

Lady, when I left you
Ere I sailed the sea,
Bitterly bereft you
Told me you would be.

Frequently and often
When I fought the foe,
How my heart would soften,
Pitying your woe!

Still, throughout my yearning,
It was my belief
That my mere returning
Would annul your grief.

Arguing _ex parte_,
Maybe you can tell
Why I find your heart A.
W. O. L.

"I Remember, I Remember"

I remember, I remember The house where I was born; The rent was thirty-two a month, Which made my father mourn. He said he could remember when _His_ father paid the rent; And when a man's expenses did Not take his every cent.

I remember, I remember-- My mother telling my cousin That eggs had gone to twenty-six Or seven cents a dozen; And how she told my father that She didn't like to speak Of things like that, but Bridget now Demanded four a week.

I remember, I remember-- And with a mirthless laugh-- My weekly board at college took A jump to three and a half. I bought an eighteen-dollar suit, And father told me, "Sonny, I'll pay the bill this time, but, Oh, I am not made of money!"

I remember, I remember, When I was young and brave And I declared, "Well, Birdie, we Shall now begin to save." It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from wealth Than when I was a boy.

The Higher Education

(Harvard's prestige in football is a leading factor. The best
players in the big preparatory schools prefer to study at
Cambridge, where they can earn fame on the gridiron. They do
not care to be identified with Yale and Princeton.--JOE VILA
in the _Evening Sun_.)

"Father," began the growing youth,
"Your pleading finds me deaf;
Although I know you speak the truth
About the course at Shef.
But think you that I have no pride,
To follow such a trail?
I cannot be identified
With Princeton or with Yale."

"Father," began another lad,
Emerging from his prep;
"I know you are a Princeton grad,
But the coaches have no pep.
But though the Princeton profs provide
Fine courses to inhale;
I cannot be identified
With Princeton or with Yale."

"I know," he said, "that Learning helps
A lot of growing chaps;
That Yale has William Lyon Phelps,
And Princeton Edward Capps.
But while, within the Football Guide,
The Haughton hosts prevail,
I cannot be identified
With Princeton or with Yale."

War and Peace

"This war is a terrible thing," he said, "With its countless numbers of needless dead; A futile warfare it seems to me, Fought for no principle I can see. Alas, that thousands of hearts should bleed For naught but a tyrant's boundless greed!"

* * * * *

Said the wholesale grocer, in righteous mood, As he went to adulterate salable food.

Spake as follows the merchant king: "Isn't this war a disgraceful thing? Heartless, cruel, and useless, too; It doesn't seem that it _can_ be true. Think of the misery, want, and fear! We ought to be grateful we've no war here.

* * * * *

"Six a week"--to a girl--"That's flat! I can get a thousand to work for that."

Fifty-Fifty

For something like eleven summers
I've written things that aimed to teach
Our careless mealy-mouthed mummers
To be more sedulous of speech.

So sloppy of articulation
So limping and so careless they
About distinct enunciation,
Often I don't know what they say.

The other night an able actor,
Declaiming of some lines I heard,
I hailed a public benefactor,
As I distinguished every word.

But, oh! the subtle disappointment!
Thorn on the celebrated rose
And fly within the well-known ointment!
(Allusions everybody knows.)

Came forth the words exact and snappy.
And as I sat there, that P.M.,
I mused, "Was I not just as happy
When I could not distinguish them?"

"So Shines a Good Deed in a Naughty World"

There was a man in our town, and he was wondrous rich; He gave away his millions to the colleges and sich; And people cried: "The hypocrite! He ought to understand The ones who really need him are the children of this land."

When Andrew Croesus built a home for children who were sick, The people said they rather thought he did it as a trick, And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping girls and boys, But what about conditions with the men whom he employs?"

There was a man in our town who said that he would share His profits with his laborers, for that was only fair, And people said: "Oh, isn't he the shrewd and foxy gent? It cost him next to nothing for that free advertisement."

There was a man in our town who had the perfect plan To do away with poverty and other ills of man, But he feared the public jeering, and the folks who would defame him, So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly blame him.

Vain Words

Humble, surely, mine ambition;
It is merely to construct
Some occasion or condition
When I may say "usufruct."

Earnest am I and assiduous;
Yet I'm certain that I shan't amount
To a lot till I use "viduous,"
"Indiscerptible," and "tantamount."

On the Importance of Being Earnest

"Gentle Jane was as good as gold," To borrow a line from Mr. Gilbert; She hated War with a hate untold, She was a pacifistic filbert. If you said "Perhaps"--she'd leave the hall. You couldn't argue with her at all.

"Teasing Tom was a very bad boy,"
(Pardon my love for a good quotation).
To talk of war was his only joy,
And his single purpose was Preparation.

* * * * *

And what both of these children had to say I never knew, for I ran away.

It Happens in the B. R. Families

WITH THE CUSTOMARY OBEISANCES

'Twas on the shores that round our coast
From Deal to Newport lie
That I roused from sleep in a huddled heap
An elderly wealthy guy.

His hair was graying, his hair was long,
And graying and long was he;
And I heard this grouch on the shore avouch,
In a singular jazzless key:

"Oh, I am a cook and a waitress trim
And the maid of the second floor,
And a strong chauffeur and a housekeep_er_.
And the man who tends the door!"

And he shook his fists and he tore his hair,
And he started to frisk and play,
Till I couldn't help thinking the man had been drinking,
So I said (in the Gilbert way):

"Oh, elderly man, I don't know much
Of the ways of societee,
But I'll eat my friend if I comprehend
However you can be

"At once a cook and a waitress trim
And the maid of the second floor,
And a strong chauffeur and a housekeep_er_,
And the man who tends the door."

Then he smooths his hair with a nervous air,
And a gulp in his throat he swallows,
And that elderly guy he then lets fly
Substantially as follows:

"We had a house down Newport way,
And we led a simple life;
There was only I," said the elderly guy,
"And my daughter and my wife.

"And of course the cook and the waitress trim
And the maid of the second floor,
And a strong chauffeur and a housekeep_er_,
And the man who tends the door.

"One day the cook she up and left,
She up and left us flat.
She was getting a hundred and ten a mon-
Th, but she couldn't work for that.

"And the waitress trim was her bosom friend,
And she wouldn't stay no more;
And our strong chauffeur eloped with her
Who was maid of the second floor.

"And we couldn't get no other help,
So I had to cook and wait.
It was quite absurd," wept the elderly bird.
"I deserve a better fate.

"And I drove the car and I made the beds
Till the housekeeper up and quit;
And the man at the door found that a bore,
Which is why I am, to wit:

"At once a cook and a waitress trim
And the maid of the second floor,
And a strong chauffeur and a housekeep_er_,
And the man who tends the door."

Abelard and Heloise

["There are so many things I want to talk to you about."
Abelard probably said to Heloise, "but how can I when I can
only think about kissing you?"--KATHARINE LANE in the
_Evening Mail_.]

Said Abelard to Heloise: "Your tresses blowing in the breeze Enchant my soul; your cheek allures; I never knew such lips as yours."

Said Heloise to Abelard: "I know that it is cruel, hard, To make you fold your yearning arms And think of things besides my charms."

Said Abelard to Heloise: "Pray let's discuss the Portuguese; Their status in the League of Nations. ... Come, slip me seven osculations."

"The Fourteen Points," said Heloise, "Are pure Woodrovian fallacies." Said Abelard: "Ten times fourteen The points you have, O beaucoup queen!"

"Lay off," said Heloise, "all that stuff. I've heard the same old thing enough." "But," answered Abelard, "your lips Put all my thoughts into eclipse."

"O Abelard," said Heloise, "Don't take so many liberties." "O Heloise," said Abelard, "I do it but to show regard."

And Heloise told her chum that night That Abelard was Awful Bright; And--thus is drawn the cosmic plan-- She _loved_ an Intellectual Man.

Lines Written on the Sunny Side of Frankfort Street

Sporting with Amaryllis in the shade,
(I credit Milton in parenthesis),
Among the speculations that she made
Was this:

"When"--these her very words--"when you return,
A slave to duty's harsh commanding call,
Will you, I wonder, ever sigh and yearn
At all?"

Doubt, honest doubt, sat then upon my brow.
(Emotion is a thing I do not plan.)
I could not fairly answer then, but now
I can.

Yes, Amaryllis, I can tell you this,
Can answer publicly and unafraid:
You haven't any notion how I miss
The shade.

Fifty-Fifty

[We think about the feminine faces we meet in the streets,
and experience a passing melancholy because we are
unacquainted with some of the girls we see.--From "The Erotic
Motive in Literature," by ALBERT MORDELL.]

Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many girls I see
Whose form and features I applaud
With well-concealed glee!

I'd speak to many a sonsie maid,
Or willowy or obese,
Were I not fearful, and afraid
She'd yell for the police.

And Melancholy, bittersweet,
Marks me then as her own,
Because I lack the nerve to greet
The girls I might have known.

Yet though with sadness I am fraught,
(As I remarked before),
There is one sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er:

For every shadow cloud of woe
Hath argentine alloy;
I see some girls I do not know,
And feel a passing joy.

To Myrtilla

Twelve fleeting years ago, my Myrt,
(_Eheu fugaces!_ maybe more)
I wrote of the directoire skirt
You wore.

Ten years ago, Myrtilla mine,
The hobble skirt engaged my pen.
That was, I calculate, in Nine-
Teen Ten.

The polo coat, the feathered lid,
The phony furs of yesterfall,
The current shoe--I tried to kid
Them all.

Vain every vitriolic bit,
Silly all my sulphuric song.
Rube Goldberg said a bookful; it
'S all wrong.

Bitter the words I used to fling,
But you, despite my angriest Note,
Were never swayed by anything
I wrote.

So I surrender. I am beat.
And, though the admission rather girds,
In any garb you're just too sweet
For words.

A Psalm of Labouring Life

Tell me not, in doctored numbers,
Life is but a name for work!
For the labour that encumbers
Me I wish that I could shirk.

Life is phony! Life is rotten!
And the wealthy have no soul;
Why should you be picking cotton?
Why should I be mining coal?

Not employment and not sorrow
Is my destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow
Finds me idler than to-day.

Work is long, and plutes are lunching;
Money is the thing I crave;
But my heart continues punching
Funeral time-clocks to the grave.

In the world's uneven battle,
In the swindle known as life,
Be not like the stockyards cattle--
Stick your partner with a knife!

Trust no Boss, however pleasant!
Capital is but a curse!
Strike,--strike in the living present!
Fill, oh fill, the bulging purse!

Lives of strikers all remind us
We can make our lives a crime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Bills for double overtime.

Charges that, perhaps another,
Working for a stingy ten
Bucks a day, some mining brother
Seeing, shall walk out again.

Let us, then, be up and striking,
Discontent with all of it;
Still undoing, still disliking,
Learn to labour--and to quit.

Ballade of Ancient Acts

AFTER HENLEY

Where are the wheezes they essayed And where the smiles they made to flow? Where's Caron's seltzer siphon laid, A squirt from which laid Herbert low? Where's Charlie Case's comic woe And Georgie Cohan's nasal drawl? The afterpiece? The olio? Into the night go one and all.

Where are the japeries, fresh or frayed, That Fields and Lewis used to throw? Where is the horn that Shepherd played? The slide trombone that Wood would blow? Amelia Glover's l. f. toe? The Rays and their domestic brawl? Bert Williams with "Oh, _I_ Don't Know?" Into the night go one and all.

Where's Lizzie Raymond, peppy jade? The braggart Lew, the simple Joe? And where the Irish servant maid That Jimmie Russell used to show? Charles Sweet, who tore the paper snow? Ben Harney's where? And Artie Hall? Nash Walker, Darktown's grandest beau? Into the night go one and all.

L'ENVOI

Prince, though our children laugh "Ho! Ho!" At us who gleefully would fall For acts that played the Long Ago, Into the night go one and all.

To a Prospective Cook

Curly Locks, Curly Locks, wilt thou be ours? Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet weed the flowers, But stand in the kitchen and cook a fine meal, And ride every night in an automobile.

Curly Locks, Curly Locks, come to us soon! Thou needst not to rise until mid-afternoon; Thou mayst be Croatian, Armenian, or Greek; Thy guerdon shall be what thou askest per week.

Curly Locks, Curly Locks, give us a chance! Thou shalt not wash windows, nor iron my pants. Oh, come to the cosiest of seven-room bowers, Curly Locks, Curly Locks, wilt thou be ours?

Variation on a Theme

June 30, 1919.

Notably fond of music, I dote on a clearer tone Than ever was blared by a bugle or zoomed by a saxophone; And the sound that opens the gates for me of a Paradise revealed Is something akin to the note revered by the blessed Eugene Field, Who sang in pellucid phrasing that I perfectly well recall Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher that the boy brings up the hall. But sweeter to me than the sparrow's song or the goose's autumn honks Is the sound of the ice in the shaker as the barkeeper mixes a Bronx.

Between the dark and the daylight, when I'm worried about The Tower, Comes a pause in the day's tribulations that is known as the cocktail hour; And my soul is sad and jaded, and my heart is a thing forlorn, And I view the things I have written with a sickening, scathing scorn. Oh, it's then I fare with some other slave who is hired for the things he writes To a Den of Sin where they mingle gin--such as Lipton's, Mouquin's, or Whyte's, And my spirit thrills to a music sweeter than Sullivan or Puccini-- The swash of the ice in the shaker as he mixes a Dry Martini.

The drys will assert that metallic sound is the selfsame canon made By the ice in the shaker that holds a drink like orange or lemonade; But on the word of a travelled man and a bard who has been around, The sound of tin on ice and gin is a snappier, happier sound. And I mean to hymn, as soon as I have a moment of leisure time, The chill susurrus of cocktail ice in an adequate piece of rhyme. But I've just had an invitation to hark, at a beckoning bar, To the sound of the ice in the shaker as the barkeeper mixes a Star.

"Such Stuff as Dreams"

Jenny kiss'd me in a dream;
So did Elsie, Lucy, Cora,
Bessie, Gwendolyn, Eupheme,
Alice, Adelaide, and Dora.
Say of honour I'm devoid,
Say monogamy has miss'd me,
But don't say to Dr. Freud
Jenny kiss'd me.

The Ballad of Justifiable Homicide

They brought to me his mangled corpse
And I feared lest I should swing.
"O tell me, tell me,--and make it brief--
Why hast thou done this thing?

"Had this man robbed the starving poor
Or lived a gunman's life,
Had he set fire to cottages,
Or run off with thy wife?"

"He hath not robbed the starving poor,
Nor lived a gunman's life;
He hath set fire to no cottage,
Nor run off with my wife.

"Ye ask me such a question that
It now my lips unlocks:
I learned he was the man who planned
The second balcony box."

The jury pondered never an hour,
They thought not even a little,
But handed in unanimously
A verdict of acquittal.

The Ballad of the Murdered Merchant

All stark and cold the merchant lay,
All cold and stark lay he.
And who hath killed this fair mer_chant_?
Now tell the truth to me.

Oh, I have killed this fair mer_chant_
Will never again draw breath;
Oh, I have made this fair mer_chant_
To come unto his death.

Oh, why hast thou killed this fair mer_chant_
Whose corse I now behold?
And why hast caused this man to lie
In death all stark and cold?

Oh, I have killed this fair mer_chant_
Whose kith and kin make moan,
For that he hath stolen my precious time
When he useth the telephone.

The telephone bell rang full and clear;
The receiver did I seize.
"Hello!" quoth I, and quoth a girl,
"Hello!... One moment, please."

I waited moments ane and twa,
And moments three and four,
And then I sought that fair mer_chant_
And spilled his selfish gore.

That business man who scorneth to waste
His moments sae rich and fine
In calling a man to the telephone
Shall never again waste mine!

And every time a henchwom_an_
Shall cause me a moment's loss,
I'll forthwith fare to that of_fice_
And stab to death her boss.

Rise up! Rise up! thou blessed knight!
And off thy bended knees!
Go forth and slay all folk who make
Us wait "One moment, please."

A Gotham Garden of Verses

I

In summer when the days are hot The subway is delayed a lot; In winter, quite the selfsame thing; In autumn also, and in spring.

And does it not seem strange to you That transportation is askew In this--I pray, restrain your mirth!-- In this, the Greatest Town on Earth?

II

All night long and every night The neighbours dance for my delight; I hear the people dance and sing Like practically anything.

Women and men and girls and boys, All making curious kinds of noise And dancing in so weird a way, I never saw the like by day.

So loud a show was never heard As that which yesternight occurred: They danced and sang, as I have said, As I lay wakeful on my bed.

They shout and cry and yell and laugh And play upon the phonograph; And endlessly I count the sheep, Endeavouring to fall asleep.

III

It is very nice to think This town is full of meat and drink; That is, I'd think it very nice If my papa but had the price.

IV

This town is so full of a number of folks, I'm sure there will always be matter for jokes.