A CAN(NES)DID CONFESSION.

You write to me, sweetest, with envy

Of "zephyrs" and "summerlike stars;"

You say women, horses, and men vie

In chorus of croups and catarrhs;

You picture me safe from the snarling

Of Winter's tyrannical sway.

This isn't, believe me, my darling,

The Mediterranean way.

You rave of the "shimmering light on

An ocean pellucidly fair."

You get it, my darling, at Brighton,

And coals that can warm you are there:

Of "boughs with hot oranges breaking"—

Cold comfort, while fortunes we pay

For faggots that mock us in making

Their Mediterranean way!

You dream of me rapt by a casement

Mimosa caresses and rose;

This window was surely the place meant

For mistral to buffet my nose.

Of tennis and dances and drums in

"That Eden for Eves"—did you say?

Apt phrase! Nothing masculine comes in

Our Mediterranean way.

And "Esterel's amethyst ranges

Of gossamer shapes"—and the rest.

Good gracious, how scenery changes!

They too have a cold on their chest.

At "delicate lungs," dear, and so on

No more for this climate I'll play,

But homeward in ecstasy go on

My Mediterranean way.