A CALIFORNIAN ROMANCE
Know’st thou the burning lay of Dante’s own,
“Nix mangiare é il diavolo!
Ma peggior la donna?” that’s to say,
“ ’Tis hard to be hard up, but harder still
To get ahead of women.” Never much,
While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.
Oh, listen to me, for the tale I tell
Is of Chicago, and the latest out,
And by the noble Tribune novelist.
“Say, do you mean it, honest Injun, now?”
Said Vivian O’Riley to his sire.
“And faith I do,” the earnest sire replied:
“Marry this girl if so ye choose, me son,
But—if ye do—the divil a ha’penny
Of all me fortune will yees ever see,
While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-hids shine.”
Two hours have passed, and so have eight or ten
Slow-rolling tramway cars, until there comes
The one which Vivian wants, and soon it lands
The lover at the door of Pericles
O’Rourke, the father of bellissima,
The Lady Ethelberta. Lo, she sits
In her boudoir (the high-toned word for “room”),
Casting her soul in reverie o’er the trees,
While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.
“I have bad news for you, my utmost own,”
Said Vivian in sad tones unto his love.
“Cusses and crocuses upon my luck!
And damns and daffodils on everything!”
And as he spoke there came into his face
A grey old scaly look which seemed to say,
Don’t bluff or you’ll be called. “My dad and I
Have had a round about, and he has dis—
Sis—sis—inherited me; and I have
Been given the g.-b. on your account,
My be—b—beau—tiful. And I am now
A beg—egg—eggar for you, Bertie dear!
While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.
Her soft dusk eyes grew wide and serious.
“Yes,” he continued, “I am regular poor,
Poor as a busted Indian, and of course
It follows in the logic of our life
That I must give you up. I cannot ask
One in the golden glory of events
To come and share a fate which runs upon
A thousand annual dollars. Ne’er a case.
While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.”
She looked at him with an incarnadine,
Rich, passionate, scarlet-sanguine crimson flush
Surging into her cheeks. If it had been
A full, ’tis probable that Vivian
Would have gone under; but a flush
Could never scare him or his similar,
While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.
“Oh, Vivian!” she gurgled, like a dove,
“Oh, do you think I will let up on you?
And do you deem I would go back upon
The note I signed, and run to protest?—no—
Not while the snowy paper of my truth
Is quiréd by the young-eyed cherubim,
And in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.”
Three months or ninety days went by, and then
Upon a golden Californian
December afternoon, with azure skies
Like those of summer as they are produced
In less expensive countries, men beheld
A diamondaine wedding at the house
Of Ethelberta’s sire. As Vivian
And his fair bride sat in the car—ri—age
Which bore them to the station, ever on
She gazed upon him like a Lamia
With a strange look, which one might call, in fact,
A weirdly precious smile. He gazed at her.
“And so you would not leave me, love?” he cooed,
“Even when you thought me poor?” And she replied,
“Never, my precious one. I learned lang syne
That when a sucker once drops off the hook
It never bites again. And well you know
That you were on the point of dropping off,
And so your pa and I put up the job
So as to land you, dear—as faith we did—
A little quicker. Oh, men, men, men, men!
If ye thus round, girls will get square with you,
While in Night’s cushion stars like pin-heads shine.”