Publication delayed by the author's determined but futile attempt to find the rhyme
If Browning only were here,
This yule-ish time o' the year—
This mule-ish time o' the year,—
Stubbornly still refusing
To add to the rhymes we've been using
Since the first Christmas-glee
(One might say) chantingly
Rendered by rudest hinds
Of the pelt-clad shepherding kinds
Who didn't know Song from b-
U-double-l's-foot!—Pah!—
(Haply the old Egyptian ptah—
Though I'd hardly wager a baw-
Bee—or a bumble, for that—
And that's flat!)....
But the thing that I want to get at
Is a rhyme for Christmas—
Nay! nay! nay! nay! not isthmus—
The t- and the h- sounds covertly are
Gnawing the nice auracular
Senses until one may hear them gnar—
And the terminal, too, for mas, is mus,
So that will not do for us.
Try for it—sigh for it—cry for it—die for it!
O but if Browning were here to apply for it,
He'd rhyme you Christmas—
He'd make a mist pass
Over—something o' ruther—
Or find you the rhyme's very brother
In lovers that kissed fast
To baffle the moon,—as he'd lose the t-final
In fas-t as it blended with to (mark the spinal
Elision—tip-clipt as exquisitely nicely
And hyper-exactingly sliced to precisely
The extremest technical need): Or he'd twist glass,
Or he'd have a kissed lass,
Or shake neath our noses some great giant fist-mass—
No matter! If Robert were here, he could do it,
Though it took us till Christmas next year to see through it.
MY CIGARETTE[1]
BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS
My cigarette! The amulet
That charms afar unrest and sorrow;
The magic wand that far beyond
To-day can conjure up to-morrow.
Like love's desire, thy crown of fire
So softly with the twilight blending,
And ah! meseems, a poet's dreams
Are in thy wreaths of smoke ascending.
My cigarette! Can I forget
How Kate and I, in sunny weather,
Sat in the shade the elm-tree made
And rolled the fragrant weed together?
I at her side beatified,
To hold and guide her fingers willing;
She rolling slow the paper's snow,
Putting my heart in with the filling.
My cigarette! I see her yet,
The white smoke from her red lips curling,
Her dreaming eyes, her soft replies,
Her gentle sighs, her laughter purling!
Ah, dainty roll, whose parting soul
Ebbs out in many a snowy billow,
I, too, would burn if I might earn
Upon her lips so soft a pillow!
Ah, cigarette! The gay coquette
Has long forgot the flames she lighted,
And you and I unthinking by
Alike are thrown, alike are slighted.
The darkness gathers fast without,
A raindrop on my window plashes;
My cigarette and heart are out,
And naught is left me but the ashes.