Ballads of a Bohemian Part 5

She will come and come each day, Fascinated by the sight.

Then somehow he'll get to know (Maybe by some kindly friend) Who she is, and so . . . and so Bring my story to an end.

How his heart will burst with hate!

He will curse and he will cry.

He will wait and wait and wait, Till again she pa.s.ses by.

Then like tiger from its lair He will leap from out his place, Down her, clutch her by the hair, Smear the vitriol on her face.

(Ah! Imagination rare) See . . . he takes his hat to go; Now he's level with her chair; Now she rises up to throw. . . .

_G.o.d! and she has done it too_ . . .

Oh, those screams; those hideous screams!

I imagined and . . . it's true: How his face will haunt my dreams!

What a sight! It makes me sick.

Seems I am to blame somehow.

_Garcon_, fetch a brandy quick . . .

There! I'm feeling better now.

Let's collaborate, we two, You the Mummer, I the Bard; Oh, what ripping stuff we'll do, Sitting on the Boulevard!

It is strange how one works easily at times. I wrote this so quickly that I might almost say I had reached the end before I had come to the beginning. In such a mood I wonder why everybody does not write poetry.

Get a Roget's _Thesaurus_, a rhyming dictionary: sit before your typewriter with a strong gla.s.s of coffee at your elbow, and just click the stuff off.

Facility

So easy 'tis to make a rhyme, That did the world but know it, Your coachman might Parna.s.sus climb, Your butler be a poet.

Then, oh, how charming it would be If, when in haste hysteric You called the page, you learned that he Was grappling with a lyric.

Or else what rapture it would yield, When cook sent up the salad, To find within its depths concealed A touching little ballad.

Or if for tea and toast you yearned, What joy to find upon it The chambermaid had coyly laid A palpitating sonnet.

Your baker could the fas.h.i.+on set; Your butcher might respond well; With every tart a triolet, With every chop a rondel.

Your tailor's bill . . . well, I'll be blowed!

Dear chap! I never knowed him . . .

He's gone and written me an ode, Instead of what I _owed_ him.

So easy 'tis to rhyme . . . yet stay!

Oh, terrible misgiving!

Please do not give the game away . . .

I've got to make my living.

V

My Garret

May 1914.

Golden Days

Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day.

Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that Book, How often would I blench and burn!

How often loathe to look!

What pages would be meanly scrolled; What smeared as if with mud; A few, maybe, might gleam like gold, Some scarlet seem as blood.

O Record grave, G.o.d guide my hand And make me worthy be, Since what I write to-day shall stand To all eternity; Aye, teach me, Lord of Life, I pray, As I salute the sun, To bear myself that every day May be a Golden One.

I awoke this morning to see the bright suns.h.i.+ne flooding my garret. No chamber in the palace of a king could have been more fair. How I sang as I dressed! How I lingered over my coffee, savoring every drop! How carefully I packed my pipe, gazing serenely over the roofs of Paris.

Never is the city so lovely as in this month of May, when all the trees are in the fullness of their foliage. As I look, I feel a freshness of vision in my eyes. Wonder wakes in me. The simplest things move me to delight.

The Joy of Little Things

It's good the great green earth to roam, Where sights of awe the soul inspire; But oh, it's best, the coming home, The crackle of one's own hearth-fire!

You've hob-n.o.bbed with the solemn Past; You've seen the pageantry of kings; Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last The peace and rest of Little Things!

Perhaps you're counted with the Great; You strain and strive with mighty men; Your hand is on the helm of State; Colossus-like you stride . . . and then There comes a pause, a s.h.i.+ning hour, A dog that leaps, a hand that clings: O t.i.tan, turn from pomp and power; Give all your heart to Little Things.

Go couch you childwise in the gra.s.s, Believing it's some jungle strange, Where mighty monsters peer and pa.s.s, Where beetles roam and spiders range.

'Mid gloom and gleam of leaf and blade, What dragons rasp their painted wings!

O magic world of s.h.i.+ne and shade!

O beauty land of Little Things!

I sometimes wonder, after all, Amid this tangled web of fate, If what is great may not be small, And what is small may not be great.

So wondering I go my way, Yet in my heart contentment sings . . .