Ballads of a Bohemian Part 14

Oh, I've had interest for That worthless _louis d'or_.

But now it's over; see, I care for no one, me; Only at night sometimes In dreams I hear the chimes Of wedding-bells and see A woman without stain With children at her knee.

Ah, how you comfort me, Cocaine! . . .

BOOK THREE ~~ LATE SUMMER

I

The Omnium Bar, near the Bourse,

Late July 1914.

MacBean, before he settled down to the manufacture of mercantile fiction, had ideas of a n.o.bler sort, which bore their fruit in a slender book of poems. In subject they are either erotic, mythologic, or descriptive of nature. So polished are they that the mind seems to slide over them: so faultless in form that the critics hailed them with highest praise, and as many as a hundred copies were sold.

Saxon Dane, too, has published a book of poems, but he, on the other hand, defies tradition to an eccentric degree. Originality is his sin.

He strains after it in every line. I must confess I think much of the free verse he writes is really prose, and a good deal of it blank verse chopped up into odd lengths. He talks of a.s.sonance and color, of stress and pause and accent, and bewilders me with his theories.

He and MacBean represent two extremes, and at night, as we sit in the Cafe du Dome, they have the hottest of arguments. As for me, I listen with awe, content that my medium is verse, and that the fas.h.i.+ons of Hood, Thackeray and Bret Harte are the fas.h.i.+ons of to-day.

Of late I have been doing light stuff, "fillers" for MacBean. Here are three of my specimens:

The Philanderer

Oh, have you forgotten those afternoons With riot of roses and amber skies, When we thrilled to the joy of a million Junes, And I sought for your soul in the deeps of your eyes?

I would love you, I promised, forever and aye, And I meant it too; yet, oh, isn't it odd?

When we met in the Underground to-day I addressed you as Mary instead of as Maude.

Oh, don't you remember that moonlit sea, With us on a silver trail afloat, When I gracefully sank on my bended knee At the risk of upsetting our little boat?

Oh, I vowed that my life was blighted then, As friends.h.i.+p you proffered with mournful mien; But now as I think of your children ten, I'm glad you refused me, Evangeline.

Oh, is that moment eternal still When I breathed my love in your sh.e.l.l-like ear, And you plucked at your fan as a maiden will, And you blushed so charmingly, Guenivere?

Like a wors.h.i.+per at your feet I sat; For a year and a day you made me mad; But now, alas! you are forty, fat, And I think: What a lucky escape I had!

Oh, maidens I've set in a sacred shrine, Oh, Rosamond, Molly and Mignonette, I've deemed you in turn the most divine, In turn you've broken my heart . . . and yet It's easily mended. What's past is past.

To-day on Lucy I'm going to call; For I'm sure that I know true love at last, And _She_ is the fairest girl of all.

The _Pet.i.t Vieux_

"Sow your wild oats in your youth," so we're always told; But I say with deeper sooth: "Sow them when you're old."

I'll be wise till I'm about seventy or so: Then, by Gad! I'll blossom out as an ancient _beau_.

I'll a.s.sume a das.h.i.+ng air, laugh with loud Ha! ha! . . .

How my grandchildren will stare at their grandpapa!

Their perfection aureoled I will scandalize: Won't I be a h.o.a.ry old sinner in their eyes!

Watch me, how I'll learn to chaff barmaids in a bar; Scotches daily, gayly quaff, puff a fierce cigar.

I will haunt the Tango teas, at the stage-door stand; Wait for Dolly Dimpleknees, bouquet in my hand.

Then at seventy I'll take flutters at roulette; While at eighty hope I'll make good at poker yet; And in fas.h.i.+onable togs to the races go, Gayest of the gay old dogs, ninety years or so.

"Sow your wild oats while you're young," that's what you are told; Don't believe the foolish tongue--sow 'em when you're old.

Till you're threescore years and ten, take my humble tip, Sow your nice tame oats and then . . . Hi, boys! Let 'er rip.

My Masterpiece

It's slim and trim and bound in blue; Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold; Its words are simple, stalwart too; Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.

Its pages scintillate with wit; Its pathos clutches at my throat: Oh, how I love each line of it!

That Little Book I Never Wrote.

In dreams I see it praised and prized By all, from plowman unto peer; It's pencil-marked and memorized, It's loaned (and not returned, I fear); It's worn and torn and travel-tossed, And even dusky natives quote That cla.s.sic that the world has lost, The Little Book I Never Wrote.

Poor ghost! For homes you've failed to cheer, For grieving hearts uncomforted, Don't haunt me now. . . . Alas! I fear The fire of Inspiration's dead.

A humdrum way I go to-night, From all I hoped and dreamed remote: Too late . . . a better man must write That Little Book I Never Wrote.

Talking about writing books, there is a queer character who shuffles up and down the little streets that neighbor the Place Maubert, and who, they say, has been engaged on one for years. Sometimes I see him cowering in some cheap _bouge_, and his wild eyes gleam at me through the tangle of his hair. But I do not think he ever sees me. He mumbles to himself, and moves like a man in a dream. His pockets are full of filthy paper on which he writes from time to time. The students laugh at him and make him tipsy; the street boys pelt him with ordure; the better cafes turn him from their doors. But who knows? At least, this is how I see him:

My Book

Before I drink myself to death, G.o.d, let me finish up my Book!