(For Lloyd Williams.)
I like to dream of some established spot
Where you and I, old friend, an evening through
Under tobacco's fog, streaked gray and blue,
Might reconsider laughters unforgot.
Beside a hearth-glow, golden-clear and hot,
I'd hear you tell the oddities men do.
The clock would tick, and we would sit, we two—
Life holds such meetings for us, does it not?
Happy are men when they have learned to prize
The sure unvarnished virtue of their friends,
The unchanged kindness of a well-known face:
On old fidelities our world depends,
And runs a simple course in honest wise,
Not a mere taxicab shot wild through space!
TO A BURLESQUE SOUBRETTE
Upstage the great high-shafted beefy choir
Squawked in 2000 watts of orange glare—
You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care
And followed you. The blatant brassy clang
Of instruments drowned out the words you sang,
A sprite of irresistible disdain,
Fair as a jonquil in an April rain,