L'ENVOI
Autocratesses, forgive my heat,
But isn't it time to change that stuff?
Small is the benison I entreat—
Why don't they ever have spoons enough?
Ornithology
Unlearned I in ornithology—
All I know about the birds
Is a bunch of etymology,
Just a lot of high—flown words.
Is the curlew an uxorial
Bird? The Latin name for crow?
Is the bulfinch grallatorial?
I dunno.
O'er my head no golden gloriole
Ever shall be proudly set
For my knowledge of the oriole,
Eagle, ibis, or egrette.
I know less about the tanager
And its hopes and fears and aims
Than a busy Broadway manager
Does of James.
But, despite my incapacity
On the birdies of the air,
I am not without sagacity,
Be it ne'er so small a share.
This I know, though ye be scorning at
What I know not, though ye mock,
Birdies wake me every morning at
Four o'clock.
To Alice—Sit—By—The—Hour
Lady in the blue kimono, you that live across the way,
One may see you gazing, gazing, gazing all the livelong day,
Idly looking out your window from your vantage point above.
Are you convalescent, lady? Are you worse? Are you in love?
Ever gazing, as you hang there on the little window seat,
Into flats across the way or down upon the prosy street.
Can't you rent a pianola? Can't you iron, sew, or cook?
Write a letter, bake a pudding, make a bed or read a book?
Tell me of the fascination you indubitably find
In the "High Cash Cloe's!" man's holler, in the hurdy—gurdy grind.
Are your Spanish castles blue prints? Are you waiting for a knight
To descend upon your fastness and to save you from your plight?
Lady in the blue kimono, idle, mollycoddle dame,
Does your doing nothing never make you feel the blush of shame?
As you sit and stare and ditto, not a single thing to do,
Lady in the blue kimono, lady, how I envy you!
To Alice—Sit—By—The—Hour
(Being the second idyl to an idle idol.)
Lady in the blue kimono,
May we write of you again?
Do not hand us out a "No! no!"
Do not dam the flowing pen.
Once again a poem at you
Crave we leave of you to write—
Lady idle as a statue,
Lady silent as the night!
Lady in the blue kimono,
Heavy is our heart and dumb,
Though we weep no tear nor show no
Sign of sadness, we are glum;
For that wrapper, silk or cotton,
You eternally had on—
It is gone, but not forgotten.
Still the fact is, it is gone.
Lady in the blue kimono,
Although deadly hot the day,
Don't you think—(alas! we know no
Way to put what we would say!)
Er—although your smile is pleasant,
Wondrous fair, and all that stuff—
Do you really think, at present,
It is—er—ahem—enough?
Notions
Myrtie, my notion of no one to write about
Seems to be any one other than you;
Therefore, Myrtilla, I'm penning to-night about
Twelve anapestic good verses and true.
Eke my conception of no girl to gaze upon,
O my Myrtilla, includes all the rest,
Saving the one that I'm spilling this praise upon—
You, as it isn't unlikely you've guessed.
Also my notion of nowhere to be at all—
Pardon, Myrtilla, my lack of restraint—
Notion of mapless location is——d. it all—
Anywhere you simultaneous ain't.
My Ladye's Eyen
Poets ther ben in plenteous line yt take ye auncient theme
Of singing to a ladye's eyen whiche maken them to dreme,
And through ye blessed hours of slepe—thilk eyen or browne or blue
Doe soothe ye poet's slumbers deep: by goddiswoundes thaie doe!
O gentil reder, wit ye well, yt mony soche ther bee,
And whan an eyefulle damosel hath made a hitte wyth mee,
Hir eyen ben soe o'erpassing bright yt holden mee in thrall,
I tosse about ye livelong night, nor can ne slepe atte all.
To a Lady
Ah, Lady, if these verses glowed
Warmer than chill appreciation—
If they should lengthen to an "Ode
On Fascination—"
If I should cast this cold restraint,
Nor dam this pen's o'ereager flowing—
If but your portrait I should paint
In colours glowing—
Assuming I should write such dope—
If, haply, you can but conceive it—
As Fahrenheit as Laurence Hope—
You'd not believe it.
YOU'D not; but, oh, Another would!
For, by and large and altogether,
Us potes must be misunderstood.
* * *
What lovely weather!
"A Perfect Woman Nobly Planned"
(The man who wants the perfect wife should marry a "stock-size." She comes cheaper.—London Chronicle.)
Ah, Myrtilla, woe and dear me!
Lackadaydee and alas!
What is this, I greatly fear me,
That has come to pass?
Craving, as I do, perfection,
Loathing anything like flaws,
I must raise a slight objection
To your building laws.
You are five one-and-a-quarter,
And your girth is thirty-three—
Myrtie, you're a little shorter
Than you ought to be.
It is far from my intentions
Your proportions to describe,
Briefly, Myrtie, your dimensions
Do not seem to jibe.
Farewell, Myrt, for Ethelisa
Seems to be my certain fate,
Stupid? Silly? Sure, but she's a
Perfect thirty-eight.
An Ultimatum to Myrtilla
(Inspired by the shameless styles in hair.)
Ah, Myrtilla mine, you said—
And your tone was earnest, very—
You would never deck your head
With this vernal millinery.
Myrt, to mince no words, you lied;
Oh, that I should live to know it!
You that are my nearly-bride;
I that am your nearly-poet!
For I saw the awful lid
You had on at 10 this morning;
Myrt, it was a merrywid,
Spite of my decisive warning.
Still, I can forgive you that;
Though the thing look ne'er so silly;
I will overlook the hat
If you promise this, Myrtillie:
Wear your lacebelows and fluffs;
Wear the awfullest creations—
But—omit the stylish puffs
And the vogueish transformations.
Myrt, if you inflate your hair
I shall—well—excoriate you,
And, I positively swear,
Loathe, despise, detest, and hate you.
Love Gustatory
Myrtilla, I have seen you eat—
Have heard you drink, to be precise—
Your soup, and, notwithstanding, sweet,
The gurgitation wasn't nice,
I overlooked a tiny fault
Like that with just a grain of salt.
And, sweetest maid in all New York,
When all ungracefully you pierce
The toothsome oyster with your fork
I realize you're pretty fierce;
But such a feat, be't understood,
Nor Venus nor Diana could.
I've seen you hang, high in the air,
A stalk of fresh asparagus,
Guiding its succulence to where
It ought to go. I did not cuss.
You had it hot and vinaigrette,
Myrtilla, and I loved you yet.
Myrt, I have stood for a good deal,
As one will in this Cupid game,
But now I know I'll never feel
Toward you, dear Tillie, quite the same
Since I have seen you on the job
Of eating corn—corn on the cob.
She Is Not Fair
"She is not fair to outward view";
No beauty hers of form or face
She hath no witchery, 'tis true,
No grace.
Nor pretty wit, nor well-stored mind,
Nor azure eyes, nor golden hair
Hath she. She is—I am not blind—
Not fair.
What makes me love her, then? say you,
For such a maid is not my wont.
Love her! What makes you think I do?
I don't.
To Myrtilla Again
Myrtilla, when the thought of you
Obstructs my cold, unbiased view,
And keeps me from
My hard though hum-
Ble task,
I do not murmur nor complain
I do not ululate nor feign
A love for vin
Or what is in
A flask.
When, as I said in stanza first,
My mind is thoroughly immersed
With you until
My pulses thrill
And throb,
I don't, in tones more picturesque
Than journalistic, slam my desk,
And in a fit
Of frenzy quit
My job.
When, as I may have said before,
Your image I can not ignore,
I do not tear
My thinning hair
Nor cuss;
I leave such sentimental show
To bards like Shelley, Keats, and Poe
I merely spill
Some ink, Myrtil-
La, thus.
Myrtilla's Third Degree
(With deep bows to Adelaide Anne Proctor's heirs,
administrators and assigns.)
Before I trust my Fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine—
(This is an easy parody,
Without a change of line.)
Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night for me.
Is there, within thy dimmest dreams,
This dread ambition, Myrt?
Hast thou the ghost of a desire
To wear a hobble[Footnote: "Harem," or whatever is to come in the future,
may be substituted here.] skirt?
If so, at any pain or cost, oh, tell me before all is lost.
Look deeper still. Dost underline
Most words in writing letters?
Or "Local" write on envelopes?
Say, ere I bind my fetters.
Let no false pity spare the blow, but in true mercy tell me so.
Once more. Dost thou, in easy speech,
Ever let fall "those kind"?
Art thou to nutmeg in a pie
Unalterably inclined?
If aught of these, maid of my wooing, there's absolutely nothing doing.
To Myrtilla Complaining
Myrtie, you weep that the bard has neglected you,
Passed you, forgotten you, let you alone.
Bless you, Myrtilla, I never suspected you
Ever would speak to me, sweet, in that tone.
Myrtie, you say that my poems are penned to you
Only on days when I've nothing to do,
Otherwise I have no time to attend to you,
Others, you say, are more weighty than you.
Sweet, you allege I have not enough time for you,
Yes, and you say that I hold you but light,
Only when pressed do I reel off a rhyme for you
* * *
Lady Myrtilla, you've doped it out right.
Christmas Cards
I
TO THE GROCERY BOY
Before you send me up that card
With rime and diction far from subtle,
Hear what a now rebellious bard
Says in a quasi-pre-rebuttal.
"A nickel in a poor boy's hat!"
You, minion of a grubbing grocer,
You dare, indeed, to ask me that?
Bold and relentless, say I, "No, sir!"
You who bring some one else's tea
To us, while ours goes to the neighbours,
And yet you dare demand from me
Reward for inefficient labours!
You who but lately made me hit
My head upon the dum-dum waiter—
From me you get no silver bit.
Fie, out upon you, youthful traitor!
Hard is my heart and tight my purse;
Deaf is my ear to all your suing.
Except this little bit of verse,
There's absolutely nothing doing.
II
TO THE JANITOR
Sullen, surly Scandinave,
Smoking on a pipe,
Valiantly I cast the glave
At thee and thy type.
Person of the shakeless grouch
Tamperer with the cream,
Idler, lounger, sloven, slouch
Despot of the steam—
Thou who bangest garbage cans
In the hollow court,
Thou whose children spin tin pans
Deeming it is sport—
Tyrant of the tenement,
Take thy card and flee!
Not a nickel, not a cent
Dost thou get from me.
III
TO THE WAITER
O waiter, will you tell me why
You think to get at Christmas time
A five-case note, for do not I
Slip you each day a dime?
When as I crave Prime Ribs au Jus [Footnote: Well, how do you pronounce it,
then?]
And beg that you will bring them rare,
They are well done. I fume and fuss
And yet you do not care.
Haply I order apple pie,
But NOT your counsel or advice;
You rub your hands and tell me: "Why,
The mince is very nice."
You hide my hat, you hide my coat.
Let others, if they care to, give,
But as to this here gentle pote—
Be glad he lets you live.
IV
TO THE APARTMENT HOUSE TELEPHONE GIRL
Proud, imperious female person
That presideth o'er my 'phone,
Hearken while I do some verse on
Thee, and thee alone.
Puffed and pompadoured and ratted,
Reading Munsey's all the day,
Pony-coated, otter-hatted—
Listen to my lay:
When I beg in desperation,
"Eight O Seven Riverside,"
Why do I get "Information"?
Is it justified?
Why—I ask it with insistence—
Why—prepare to be appalled—
Why "$2.85 Long Distance"
That I never called?
When I call thee, "They don't answer"
Tells me Central. (Oh, the crime!)
Then thou sayest, thou Romancer,
"Been here all the time!"
Tyrant trim and telephonic,
Christmas offerings to thee?
Pardon if I seem laconic:
Not a single c.
V
TO THE BARBER
Prince of the parlour tonsorial,
Knight of the razor and shears,
Who have from time immemorial
Snipped it too short round the ears—
You with your long academical
Causes for "thinning on top,"
Selling me gallons of chemical
Tonic, a brush, and a strop;
You with your sad comicality,
You with your bum badinage—
Confound your congeniality!
Confound your "Facial Massage?"
Still, though you shave contragrainious,[Footnote: Well, there ought to be.]
Healing the cut with a lime,
Don't I, quite nice and spontaneous,
Daily contribute a dime?
Mountain of foreign servility,
Butcher of chin and of lip.
Maugre your marked inability,
Do I not fall for the tip?
Hope you at Christmas for currency,
Fiend of tonsorial tricks?
Never was greater aberrancy—
Coarsely I say to you, "Nix!"
VI
TO THE HALL-AND-ELEVATOR-BOY
Lo, the West Indian! whose untutored mind
To Christmas giving makes me disinclined,
Who tellest callers I have moved away
And mixest up the morning mail each day.
When for thine elevator car I ring
Thou telephonest or some other thing;
While, when I ask for Byrant Eighty-four,
Thou'rt busy somewhere on the seventh floor—
I wish thee from my soul all Christmas joy,
But not a cent, O Elevator Boy!
Ballade of a Hardy Annual
Many a jest that refuses to die
Bobs up again as the seasons appear;
Deathless it hits us again in the eye—
Changeless and dull as the calendar year.
Musty and mouldy and yellow and sere,
Stronger, withal, than the sturdiest oak;
Ancient and solemn and deadly and drear—
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!
Soon as the snow has forgotten to fly,
All through the day of the "leathery sphere,"
Jokelets and pictures and verses we spy
All on the theme of the grandmother dear.
Bonnets, umbrellas, and buckets of beer
Please us and tickle us quite to the choke.
But—on this matter our attitude's clear—
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!
Giggle we can at a blueberry pie;
Scream at a comedy king or ameer;
Simply guffaw when the jestermen guy
Marriage, a thing at which no one should jeer.
Things that in others elicit a tear
All of our risibles simply unyoke;
But from this stand we're unwilling to veer:
Down with the grandmother-funeral joke!