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 housekeeper.
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 housekeeper,
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 housekeeper,
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 housekeeper,
And the man who tends the door."

Abelard and Heloïse

["There are so many things I want to talk to you about." Abelard probably said to Heloïse, "but how can I when I can only think about kissing you?"—Katharine Lane in the Evening Mail.]

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

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

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

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

And Heloïse 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-concealéd 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.