# Ballads of a Bohemian/Book 1

BOOK ONE
SPRING
I
Montparnasse, April 1914.
All day the sun has shone into my little attic, a bitter sunshine that brightened yet did not warm. And so as I toiled and toiled doggedly enough, many were the looks I cast at the three faggots I had saved to cook my evening meal. Now, however, my supper is over, my pipe alight, and as I stretch my legs before the embers I have at last a glow of comfort, a glimpse of peace.
MY GARRET
Here Is my Garret up five flights of stairs; Here’s where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies, Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares, My sounding sonnets and my red romances. Here’s where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes, And grope at glory—aye, and starve at times.
Here is my Stronghold: stout of heart am I, Greeting each dawn as songful as a linnet; And when at night on yon poor bed I lie (Blessing the world and every soul that’s in it), Here’s where I thank the Lord no shadow bars My skylight’s vision of the valiant stars.
Here is my Palace tapestried with dreams. Ah! though to-night ten sous are all my treasure, While in my gaze immortal beauty gleams, Am I not dowered with wealth beyond all measure? Though in my ragged coat my songs I sing, King of my soul, I envy not the king.
Here is my Haven: it’s so quiet here; Only the scratch of pen, the candle's flutter; Shabby and bare and small, but O how dear! Mark you—my table with my work a-clutter, My shelf of tattered books along the wall, My bed, my broken chair—that’s nearly all.
Only four faded walls, yet mine, all mine. Oh, you fine folks, a pauper scorns your pity. Look, where above me stars of rapture shine; See, where below me gleams the siren city… Am I not rich?—a millionaire no less, If wealth be told in terms of Happiness.
JULOT THE APACHE
You’ve heard of Julot the apache, and GigoIette, his môme…. Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home. A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache,— Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache. From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat, With every trick of twist and kick, a master of savate. And Gigolette was tall and fair, as stupid as a cow, With three combs in the greasy hair she banged upon her brow. You’d see her on the Place Pigalle on any afternoon, A primitive and strapping wench as brazen as the moon. And yet there is a tale that’s told of Clichy after dark, And two gendarmes who swung their arms with Julot for a mark. And oh, but they’d have got him too; they banged and blazed away,
When like a flash a woman leapt between them and their prey. She took the medicine meant for him; she came down with a crash… “Quick now, and make your get-away, O Julot the apache!”… But no! He turned, ran swiftly back, his arms around her met; They nabbed him sobbing like a kid, and kissing Gigolette.
Now I’m a reckless painter chap who loves a jamboree, And one night in Cyrano’s bar I got upon a spree; And there were trollops all about, and crooks of every kind, But though the place was reeling round I didn’t seem to mind. Till down I sank, and all was blank when In the bleary dawn I woke up in my studio to find—my money gone; Three hundred francs I’d scraped and squeezed to pay my quarter’s rent. “Some one has pinched my wad,” I wailed; “It never has been spent.” And as I racked my brains to seek how I could raise some more, Before my cruel landlord kicked me cowering from the door: A knock… “Come in,” I gruffly groaned; I did not raise my head,
Then lo! I heard a husky voice, a swift and silky tread: “You got so blind, last night, mon vieux, I collared all your cash— Three hundred francs…. There! Nom de Dieu,” said Julot the apache.
And that was how I came to know Julot and Gigolette, And we would talk and drink a bock, and smoke a cigarette. And I would meditate upon the artistry of crime, And he would tell of cracking cribs and cops and doing time; Or else when he was flush of funds he’d carelessly explain He’d biffed some bloated bourgeois on the border of the Seine. So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace, And not a desperado and the terror of the police.
Now one day in a bistro that’s behind the Place Vendôme I came on Julot the apache, and Gigolette his môme. And as they looked so very grave, says I to them, says I, “Come on and have a little glass, it’s good to rinse the eye. You both look mighty serious; you’ve something on the heart.”
“Ah, yes,” said Julot the apache, “we’ve something to impart. When such things come to folks like us, it isn’t very gay… It’s Gigolette—she tells me that a gosse is on the way.” Then Gigolette, she looked at me with eyes like stones of gall: “If we were honest folks,” said she, “I wouldn’t mind at all. But then… you know the life we lead; well, anyway I mean (That is, providing it’s a girl) to call her Angeline.” “Cheer up,” said I; “It’s all in life. There’s gold within the dross. Come on, we’ll drink another verre to Angeline the gosse.”
And so the weary winter passed, and then one April morn The worthy Julot came at last to say the babe was born. “I’d like to chuck it in the Seine,” he sourly snarled, “and yet I guess I’ll have to let it live, because of Gigolette.” I only laughed, for sure I saw his spite was all a bluff, And he was prouder than a prince behind his manner gruff. Yet every day he’d blast the brat with curses deep and grim, And swear to me that Gigolette no longer thought of him.
And then one night he dropped the mask; his eyes were sick with dread, And when I offered him a smoke he groaned and shook his head: “I’m all upset; it’s Angeline… she’s covered with a rash… She’ll maybe die, my little gosse,” cried Julot the apache.
But Angeline, I joy to say, came through the test all right, Though Julot, so they tell me, watched beside her day and night. And when I saw him next, says he: “Come up and dine with me. We’ll buy a beefsteak on the way, a bottle and some brie.” And so I had a merry night within his humble home, And laughed with Angeline the gosse and Gigolette the môme. And every time that Julot used a word the least obscene, How Gigolette would frown at him and point to Angeline: Oh, such a little innocent, with hair of silken floss, I do not wonder they were proud of Angeline the gosse. And when her arms were round his neck, then Julot says to me: “I must work harder now, mon vieux, since I’ve to work for three.”
He worked so very hard indeed, the police dropped in one day, And for a year behind the bars they put him safe away.
So dark and silent now, their home; they’d gone—I wondered where, Till in a laundry near I saw a child with shining hair; And o’er the tub a strapping wench, her arms in soapy foam; Lo! it was Angeline the gosse, and Gigolette the môme. And so I kept an eye on them and saw that all went right, Until at last came Julot home, half crazy with delight. And when he’d kissed them both, says he: “I’ve had my fill this time. I’m on the honest now, I am; I’m all fed up with crime. You mark my words, the page I turn is going to be clean, I swear it on the head of her, my little Angeline.”
And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old. I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache… I stopped, I stared…. By all the gods! ’twas Julot the apache.
“I’m in the garden way,” he said, “and doing mighty well; I’ve half an acre under glass, and heaps of truck to sell. Come out and see. Oh come, my friend, on Sunday, wet or shine… Say!—it’s the First Communion of that little girl of mine.”
II
Chez Moi, Montparnasse, The same evening.
To-day is an anniversary. A year ago to-day I kicked over an office stool and came to Paris thinking to make a living by my pen. I was twenty then, and in my pocket I had twenty pounds. Of that, my ten sous are all that remain. And so to-night I am going to spend them, not prudently on bread, but prodigally on beer.
As I stroll down the Boul’ Mich’ the lingering light has all the exquisite tenderness of violet; the trees are in their first translucent green; beneath them the lamps are lit with purest gold, and from the Little Luxembourg comes a silver jangle of tiny voices. Taking the gay side of the street, I enter a café. Although it isn’t its true name, I choose to call my café—
L’ESCARGOT D’OR
O Tavern of the Golden Snail! Ten sous have I, so I’ll regale;
Ten sous your amber brew to sip (Eight for the bock and two the tip), And so I’ll sit the evening long, And smoke my pipe and watch the throng, The giddy crowd that drains and drinks, I’ll watch it quiet as a sphinx; And who among them all shall buy For ten poor sous such joy as I? As I who, snugly tucked away, Look on it all as on a play, A frolic scene of love and fun, To please an audience of One.
O Tavern of the Golden Snail! You’ve stuff indeed for many a tale. All eyes, all ears, I nothing miss: Two lovers lean to clasp and kiss; The merry students sing and shout, The nimble garçons dart about; Lo! here come Mimi and Musette With: “S’il vous plait, une cigarette?” Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too, Behold the old rapscallion crew, With flowing tie and shaggy head… Who says Bohemia is dead? Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown, And I will watch and write it down.
O Tavern of the Golden Snail! What crackling throats have gulped your ale! What sons of Fame from far and near
Have glowed and mellowed In your cheer! Within this corner where I sit Banville and Coppée clashed their wit; And hither too, to dream and drain, And drown despair, came poor Verlaine. Here Wilde would talk and Singe would muse, Maybe like me with just ten sous. Ah! one is lucky. Is one not? With ghosts so rare to drain a pot! So may your custom never fail, O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
There! my pipe is out. Let me light it again and consider. I have no illusions about myself. I am not fool enough to think I am a poet, but I have a knack of rhyme and I love to make verses. Mine is a tootling, tin-whistle music. Humbly and afar I follow in the footsteps of Praed and Lampson, of Field and Riley, hoping that in time my Muse may bring me bread and butter. So far, however, it has been all kicks and no coppers. And to-night I am at the end of my tether. I wish I knew where to-morrow’s breakfast was coming from. Well, since rhyming’s been my ruin, let me rhyme to the bitter end.
IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK
Lone amid the café’s cheer, Sad of heart am I to-night; Dolefully I drink my beer, But no single line I write. There’s the wretched rent to pay,
Yet I glower at pen and ink: Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray, It is later than you think!
Hello! there’s a pregnant phrase. Bravo! let me write it down; Hold it with a hopeful gaze, Gauge it with a fretful frown; Tune it to my lyric lyre… Ah! upon starvation’s brink, How the words are dark and dire: It is later than you think.
Weigh them well…. Behold yon band, Students drinking by the door. Madly merry, bock in hand, Saucers stacked to mark their score. Get you gone, you jolly scamps; Let your parting glasses clink; Seek your long neglected lamps: It is later than you think.
Look again: yon dainty blonde, All allure and golden grace, Oh so willing to respond Should you turn a smiling face. Play your part, poor pretty doll; Feast and frolic, pose and prink; There’s the Morgue to end it all. And it’s later than you think.
Yon’s a playwright—mark his face, Puffed and purple, tense and tired; Pasha-like he holds his place. Hated, envied and admired. How you gobble life, my friend; Wine, and woman soft and pink! Well, each tether has its end: Sir, it’s later than you think.
See yon living scarecrow pass With a wild and wolfish stare At each empty absinthe glass, As if he saw Heaven there. Poor damned wretch, to end your pain There is still the Greater Drink. Yonder waits the sanguine Seine… It is later than you think.
Lastly, you who read; aye, you Who this very line may scan: Think of all you planned to do… Have you done the best you can? See! the tavern lights are low; Black’s the night, and how you shrink! God! and is it time to go? Ah! the clock is always slow; It is later than you think; Sadly later than you think; Far, far later than you think.
Scarcely do I scribble that last line on the back of an old envelope when a voice hails me. It is a fellow free-lance, a short-story man called MacBean. He is having a feast of Marennes and he asks me to join him.
MacBean is a Scotsman with the soul of an Irishman. He has a keen, lean, spectacled face, and if it were not for his gray hair he might be taken for a student of theology. However, there is nothing of the Puritan in MacBean. He loves wine and women, and money melts in his fingers.
He has lived so long in the Quarter he looks at life from the Parisian angle. His knowledge of literature is such that he might be a Professor, but he would rather be a vagabond of letters. We talk shop. We discuss the American short story, but MacBean vows they do these things better in France. He says that some of the contes printed every day in the Journal are worthy of Maupassant. After that he buys more beer, and we roam airily over the fields of literature, plucking here and there a blossom of quotation. A fine talk, vivid and eager. It puts me into a kind of glow.
MacBean pays the bill from a handful of big notes, and the thought of my own empty pockets for a moment damps me. However, when we rise to go, it is well after midnight, and I am In a pleasant daze. The rest of the evening may be summed up in the following jingle:
NOCTAMBULE
Zut! it’s two o’clock. See! the lights are jumping. Finish up your bock, Time we all were humping. Waiters stack the chairs,
Pile them on the tables; Let us to our lairs Underneath the gables.
Up the old Boul’ Mich’ Climb with steps erratic. Steady… how I wish I was in my attic! Full am I with cheer; In my heart the joy stirs; Couldn’t be the beer, Must have been the oysters.
In obscene array Garbage cans spill over; How I wish that they Smelled as sweet as clover! Charing women wait; Cafés drop their shutters; Rats perambulate Up and down the gutters.
Down the darkened street Market carts are creeping; Horse with wary feet, Red-faced driver sleeping. Loads of vivid greens, Carrots, leeks, potatoes, Cabbages and beans, Turnips and tomatoes.
Pair of dapper chaps, Cigarettes and sashes, Stare at me, perhaps Desperate Apachès. “Needn’t bother me. Jolly well you know it; Parceque je suis Quartier Latin poet.
“Give you villanelles, Madrigals and lyrics; Ballades and rondels, Odes and panegyrics. Poet pinched and poor, Pricked by cold and hunger; Trouble’s troubadour, Misery’s balladmonger.”
Think how queer it is! Every move I’m making, Cosmic gravity’s Center I am shaking; Oh, how droll to feel (As I now am feeling), Even as I reel, All the world is reeling.
Reeling too the stars, Neptune and Uranus, Jupiter and Mars, Mercury and Venus;
Suns and moons with me, As I’m homeward straying, All in sympathy Swaying, swaying, swaying.
Lord! I’ve got a head. Well, it’s not surprising. I must gain my bed Ere the sun be rising; When the merry lark In the sky is soaring, I’ll refuse to hark, I’ll be snoring, snoring.
Strike a sulphur match… Ha! at last my garret. Fumble at the latch, Close the door and bar it. Bed, you graciously Wait, despite my scorning… So, bibaciously Mad old world, good morning.
III
My Garret, Montparnasse, April.
INSOMNIA
Heigh ho! to sleep I vainly try; Since twelve I haven’t closed an eye,
And now it’s three, and as I lie, From Notre Dame to St. Denis The bells of Paris chime to me; “You’re young,” they say, “and strong and free.”
I do not turn with sighs and groans To ease my limbs, to rest my bones, As if my bed were stuffed with stones, No peevish murmur tips my tongue— Ah no! for every sound upflung Says: “Lad, you’re free and strong and young.”
And so beneath the sheet’s caress My body purrs with happiness; Joy bubbles in my veins…. Ah yes, My very blood that leaps along Is chiming in a joyous song, Because I’m young and free and strong.
Maybe it is the springtide. I am so happy I am afraid. The sense of living fills me with exultation. I want to sing, to dance; I am dithyrambic with delight.
I think the moon must be to blame: It fills the room with fairy flame; It paints the wall, it seems to pour A dappled flood upon the floor. I rise and through the window stare… Ye gods! how marvelously fair! From Montrouge to the Martyr’s Hill,
A silver city rapt and still; Dim, drowsy deeps of opal haze, And spire and dome in diamond blaze; The little lisping leaves of spring Like sequins softly glimmering; Each roof a plaque of argent sheen, A gauzy gulf the space between; Each chimney-top a thing of grace, Where merry moonbeams prank and chase; And all that sordid was and mean, Just Beauty, deathless and serene.
O magic city of a dream! From glory unto glory gleam; And I will gaze and pity those Who on their pillows drowse and doze… And as I’ve nothing else to do, Of tea I’ll make a rousing brew, And coax my pipes until they croon, And chant a ditty to the moon.
There! my tea is black and strong. Inspiration comes with every sip. Now for the moon.
The moon peeped out behind the hill As yellow as an apricot; Then up and up it climbed until Into the sky it fairly got; The sky was vast and violet; The poor moon seemed to faint in fright,
And pale it grew and paler yet, Like fine old silver, rinsed and bright. And yet it climbed so bravely on Until it mounted heaven-high; Then earthward it serenely shone, A silver sovereign of the sky, A bland sultana of the night, Surveying realms of lily light.
MOON SONG
A child saw in the morning skies The dissipated-looking moon, And opened wide her big blue eyes, And cried: “Look, look, my lost balloon!” And clapped her rosy hands with glee: “Quick, mother! Bring it back to me.”
A poet in a lilied pond Espied the moon’s reflected charms, And ravished by that beauty blonde, Leapt out to clasp her in his arms. And as he’d never learnt to swim, Poor fool! that was the end of him.
A rustic glimpsed amid the trees The bluff moon caught as in a snare. “They say it do be made of cheese,” Said Giles, “and that a chap bides there…. That Blue Boar ale be strong, I vow— The lad’s a-winkin’ at me now.”
Two lovers watched the new moon hold The old moon in her bright embrace. Said she: “There’s mother, pale and old, And drawing near her resting place.” Said he: “Be mine, and with me wed,” Moon-high she stared… she shook her head.
A soldier saw with dying eyes The bleared moon like a ball of blood, And thought of how in other skies, So pearly bright on leaf and bud Like peace its soft white beams had lain; Like Peace!… He closed his eyes again.
Child, lover, poet, soldier, clown. Ah yes, old Moon, what things you’ve seen! I marvel now, as you look down, How can your face be so serene? And tranquil still you’ll make your round, Old Moon, when we are underground.
“And now, blow out your candle, lad, and get to bed. See, the dawn is in the sky. Open your window and let its freshness rouge your cheek. You’ve earned your rest. Sleep.”
Aye, but before I do so, let me read again the last of my Ballads.
THE SEWING-GIRL
The humble garret where I dwell Is in that Quarter called the Latin; It isn’t spacious—truth to tell, There’s hardly room to swing a cat in. But what of that! It’s there I fight For food and fame, my Muse inviting, And all the day and half the night You’ll find me writing, writing, writing.
Now, it was in the month of May As, wrestling with a rhyme rheumatic, I chanced to look across the way, And lo! within a neighbor attic, A hand drew back the window shade, And there, a picture glad and glowing, I saw a sweet and slender maid, And she was sewing, sewing, sewing.
So poor the room, so small, so scant, Yet somehow oh, so bright and airy. There was a pink geranium plant, Likewise a very pert canary. And in the maiden’s heart it seemed Some fount of gladness must be springing. For as alone I sadly dreamed I heard her singing, singing, singing.
God love her! how it cheered me then To see her there so brave and pretty; So she with needle, I with pen, We slaved and sang above the city. And as across my streams of ink I watched her from a poet’s distance,
She stitched and sang… I scarcely think She was aware of my existence.
And then one day she sang no more. That put me out, there’s no denying. I looked—she labored as before, But, bless me! she was crying, crying. Her poor canary chirped in vain; Her pink geranium drooped in sorrow; “Of course,” said I, “she’ll sing again. Maybe,” I sighed, “she will to-morrow.”
Poor child; ’twas finished with her song: Day after day her tears were flowing; And as I wondered what was wrong She pined and peaked above her sewing. And then one day the blind she drew. Ah! though I sought with vain endeavor To pierce the darkness, well I knew My sewing-girl had gone for ever.
And as I sit alone to-night My eyes unto her room are turning… I’d give the sum of all I write Once more to see her candle burning,
Once more to glimpse her happy face, And while my rhymes of cheer I’m ringing, Across the sunny sweep of space To hear her singing, singing, singing.
Heigh ho! I realize I am very weary. It’s nice to be so tired, and to know one can sleep as long as one wants. The morning sunlight floods in at my window, so I draw the blind, and throw myself on my bed….
IV
My Garret, Montparnasse, April.
Hurrah! As I opened my eyes this morning to a hard, unfeeling world, little did I think what a surprise awaited me. A big blue envelope had been pushed under my door. Another rejection, I thought, and I took it up distastefully. The next moment I was staring at my first cheque.
It was an express order for two hundred francs, in payment of a bit of verse…. So to-day I will celebrate. I will lunch at the D’Harcourt, I will dine on the Grand Boulevard, I will go to the theater.
LUCILLE
Of course you’ve heard of the Nancy Lee, and how she sailed away On her famous quest of the Arctic flea, to the wilds of Hudson’s Bay? For it was a foreign Prince’s whim to collect this tiny cuss, And a golden quid was no more to him than a copper to coves like us. So we sailed away and our hearts were gay as we gazed on the gorgeous scene; And we laughed with glee as we caught the flea of the wolf and the wolverine; Yea, our hearts were light as the parasite of the ermine rat we slew, And the great musk ox, and the silver fox, and the moose and the caribou. And we laughed with zest as the insect pest of the marmot crowned our zeal, And the wary mink and the wily “link,” and the walrus and the seal. And with eyes aglow on the scornful snow we danced a rigadoon,
Round the lonesome lair of the Arctic hare, by the light of the silver moon.
But the time was nigh to homeward hie, when, imagine our despair! For the best of the lot we hadn’t got—the flea of the polar bear. Oh, his face was long and his breath was strong, as the Skipper he says to me: “I wants you to linger ’ere, my lad, by the shores of the Hartic Sea; I wants you to ’unt the polar bear the perishin’ winter through, And if flea ye find of its breed and kind, there’s a ’undred quid for you.” But I shook my head: “No, Cap,” I said; “It’s yourself I’d like to please, But I tells ye flat I wouldn’t do that if ye went on yer bended knees.” Then the Captain spat in the seething brine, and he says: “Good luck to you, If it can’t be did for a ’undred quid, supposin’ we call it two?” So that was why they said good-by, and they sailed and left me there— Alone, alone in the Arctic Zone to hunt for the polar bear.
Oh, the days were slow and packed with woe, till I thought they would never end; And I used to sit when the fire was lit, with my pipe for my only friend. And I tried to sing some rollicky thing, but my song broke off in a prayer,
And I’d drowse and dream by the driftwood gleam; I’d dream of a polar bear; I’d dream of a cloudlike polar bear that blotted the stars on high, With ravenous jaws and flenzing claws, and the flames of hell in his eye. And I’d trap around on the frozen ground, as a proper hunter ought, And beasts I’d find of every kind, but never the one I sought. Never a track in the white ice-pack that humped and heaved and flawed, Till I came to think: “Why, strike me pink! if the creature ain’t a fraud.” And then one night in the waning light, as I hurried home to sup, I hears a roar by the cabin door, and a great white hulk heaves up. So my rifle flashed, and a bullet crashed; dead, dead as a stone fell he. And I gave a cheer, for there in his ear—Gosh ding me!—a tiny flea.
At last, at last! Oh, I clutched it fast, and I gazed on it with pride; And I thrust it into a biscuit-tin, and I shut it safe inside; With a lid of glass for the light to pass, and space to leap and play; Oh, it kept alive; yea, seemed to thrive, as I watched it night and day.
And I used to sit and sing to it, and I shielded it from harm, And many a hearty feed it had on the heft of my hairy arm. For you’ll never know in that land of snow how lonesome a man can feel; So I made a fuss of the little cuss, and I christened it “Lucille.” But the longest winter has its end, and the ice went out to sea, And I saw one day a ship in the bay, and there was the Nancy Lee. So a boat was lowered and I went aboard, and they opened wide their eyes— Yes, they gave a cheer when the truth was clear, and they saw my precious prize. And then it was all like a giddy dream; but to cut my story short. We sailed away on the fifth of May to the foreign Prince’s court; To a palmy land and a palace grand, and the little Prince was there. And a fat Princess in a satin dress with a crown of gold on her hair. And they showed me into a shiny room, just him and her and me. And the Prince he was pleased and friendly-like, and he calls for drinks for three. And I shows them my battered biscuit-tin, and I makes my modest spiel.
And they laughed, they did, when I opened the lid, and out there popped Lucille.
Oh, the Prince was glad, I could soon see that, and the Princess she was too; And Lucille waltzed round on the tablecloth as she often used to do. And the Prince pulled out a purse of gold, and he put it in my hand; And he says: “It was worth all that, I’m told, to stay in that nasty land.” And then he turned with a sudden cry, and he clutched at his royal beard; And the Princess screamed, and well she might—for Lucille had disappeared.
“She must be here,” said his Noble Nibbs, so we hunted all around; Oh, we searched that place, but never a trace of the little beast we found. So I shook my head, and I glumly said: “Gol darn the saucy cuss! It’s mighty queer, but she isn’t here; so… she must be on one of us. You’ll pardon me if I make so free, but—there’s just one thing to do: If you’ll kindly go for a half a mo’ I’ll search me garments through.” Then all alone on the shiny throne I stripped from head to heel;
In vain, in vain; it was very plain that I hadn’t got Lucille. So I garbed again, and I told the Prince, and he scratched his august head; “I suppose if she hasn’t selected you. It must be me,” he said. So he retired; but he soon came back, and his features showed distress: “Oh, it isn’t you and it isn’t me.”… Then we looked at the Princess. So she retired; and we heard a scream, and she opened wide the door; And her fingers twain were pinched to pain, but a radiant smile she wore: “It’s here,” she cries, “our precious prize. Oh, I found it right away….” Then I ran to her with a shout of joy, but I choked with a wild dismay. I clutched the back of the golden throne, and the room began to reel… What she held to me was, ah yes! a flea, but… it wasn’t my Lucille.
ON THE BOULEVARD
Oh, it’s pleasant sitting here, Seeing all the people pass; You beside your bock of beer, I behind my demi-tasse. Chatting of no matter what. You the Mummer, I the Bard; Oh, it’s jolly, is it not?— Sitting on the Boulevard.
More amusing than a book, If a chap has eyes to see; For, no matter where I look, Stories, stories jump at me. Moving tales my pen might write; Poems plain on every face; Monologues you could recite With inimitable grace.
(Ah! Imagination’s power) See yon demi-mondaine there. Idly toying with a flower. Smiling with a pensive air… Well, her smile is but a mask. For I saw within her muff
Such a wicked little flask: Vitriol—ugh! the beastly stuff.
Now look back beside the bar. See yon curled and scented beau, Puffing at a fine cigar— Sale espèce de maquereau. Well (of course, it’s all surmise), It’s for him she holds her place; When he passes she will rise, Dash the vitriol in his face.
Quick they’ll carry him away, Pack him in a Red Cross car; Her they’ll hurry, so they say, To the cells of St. Lazare. What will happen then, you ask? What will all the sequel be? Ah! Imagination’s task Isn’t easy… let me see…
She will go to jail, no doubt, For a year, or maybe two; Then as soon as she gets out Start her bawdy life anew. He will lie within a ward, Harmless as a man can be, With his face grotesquely scarred, And his eyes that cannot see.
Then amid the city’s din He will stand against a wall.
With around his neck a tin Into which the pennies fall. She will pass (I see it plain, Like a cinematograph), She will halt and turn again, Look and look, and maybe laugh.
Well, I’m not so sure of that— Whether she will laugh or cry. He will hold a battered hat To the lady passing by. He will smile a cringing smile, And into his grimy hold, With a laugh (or sob) the while, She will drop a piece of gold.
“Bless you, lady,” he will say, And get grandly drunk that night. She will come and come each day, Fascinated by the sight. Then somehow he’ll get to know (Maybe by some kindly friend) Who she is, and so… and so Bring my story to an end.
How his heart will burst with hate! He will curse and he will cry. He will wait and wait and wait, Till again she passes by. Then like tiger from its lair He will leap from out his place,
Down her, clutch her by the hair, Smear the vitriol on her face.
(Ah! Imagination rare) See… he takes his hat to go; Now he’s level with her chair; Now she rises up to throw…. God! and she has done it too… Oh, those screams; those hideous screams! I imagined and… It’s true: How his face will haunt my dreams!
What a sight! It makes me sick. Seems I am to blame somehow. Garçon, fetch a brandy quick… There! I’m feeling better now. Let’s collaborate, we two, You the Mummer, I the Bard; Oh, what ripping stuff we’ll do, Sitting on the Boulevard!
It is strange how one works easily at times. I wrote this so quickly that I might almost say I had reached the end before I had come to the beginning. In such a mood I wonder why everybody does not write poetry. Get a Roget’s Thesaurus, a rhyming dictionary: sit before your typewriter with a strong glass of coffee at your elbow, and just click the stuff off.
FACILITY
So easy ’tis to make a rhyme, That did the world but know it, Your coachman might Parnassus climb, Your butler be a poet.
Then, oh, how charming it would be If, when in haste hysteric You called the page, you learned that he Was grappling with a lyric.
Or else what rapture it would yield, When cook sent up the salad, To find within its depths concealed A touching little ballad.
Or if for tea and toast you yearned, What joy to find upon it The chambermaid had coyly laid A palpitating sonnet.
Your baker could the fashion set; Your butcher might respond well; With every tart a triolet, With every chop a rondel.
Your tailor’s bill… well, I’ll be blowed! Dear chap! I never knowed him… He’s gone and written me an ode, Instead of what I owed him.
So easy ’tis to rhyme… yet stay! Oh, terrible misgiving! Please do not give the game away… I’ve got to make my living.
V
My Garret, May 1914.
GOLDEN DAYS
Another day of toll and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day.
Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that Book, How often would I blench and burn! How often loathe to look! What pages would be meanly scrolled; What smeared as if with mud; A few, maybe, might gleam like gold, Some scarlet seem as blood.
O Record grave, God guide my hand And make me worthy be,
Since what I write to-day shall stand To all eternity; Aye, teach me, Lord of Life, I pray, As I salute the sun, To bear myself that every day May be a Golden One.
I awoke this morning to see the bright sunshine flooding my garret. No chamber in the palace of a king could have been more fair. How I sang as I dressed! How I lingered over my coffee, savoring every drop! How carefully I packed my pipe, gazing serenely over the roofs of Paris.
Never is the city so lovely as in this month of May, when all the trees are in the fullness of their foliage. As I look, I feel a freshness of vision in my eyes. Wonder wakes in me. The simplest things move me to delight.
THE JOY OF LITTLE THINGS
It’s good the great green earth to roam, Where sights of awe the soul inspire; But oh, it’s best, the coming home, The crackle of ones own hearth-fire! You’ve hob-nobbed with the solemn Past; You’ve seen the pageantry of kings; Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last The peace and rest of Little Things!
Perhaps you’re counted with the Great; You strain and strive with mighty men; Your hand is on the helm of State; Colossus-like you stride… and then There comes a pause, a shining hour, A dog that leaps, a hand that clings: O Titan, turn from pomp and power; Give all your heart to Little Things.
Go couch you childwise in the grass, Believing it’s some jungle strange, Where mighty monsters peer and pass. Where beetles roam and spiders range. ’Mid gloom and gleam, of leaf and blade, What dragons rasp their painted wings! O magic world of shine and shade! O beauty land of Little Things!
I sometimes wonder, after all, Amid this tangled web of fate, If what is great may not be small, And what is small may not be great. So wondering I go my way, Yet in my heart contentment sings… O may I ever see, I pray, God’s grace and love in Little Things.
So give to me, I only beg, A little roof to call my own, A little cider in the keg, A little meat upon the bone;
A little garden by the sea, A little boat that dips and swings… Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me, O Lord of Life, just Little Things.
Yesterday I finished my tenth ballad. When I have done about a score I will seek a publisher. If I cannot find one, I will earn, beg or steal the money to get them printed. Then if they do not sell I will hawk them from door to door. Oh, I’ll succeed, I know I’ll succeed. And yet I don’t want an easy success; give me the joy of the fight, the thrill of the adventure. Here’s my last ballad:
THE ABSINTHE DRINKERS
He’s yonder, on the terrace of the Café de la Paix, The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day. He’s sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair; He’s staring at the passers with his customary stare. He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng, That current cosmopolitan meandering along: Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru, An Englishman from Bloomsbury, a Yank from Kalamazoo; A poet from Montmartre’s heights, a dapper little Jap, Exotic citizens of all the countries on the map;
A tourist horde from every land that’s underneath the sun— That little wizened Spanish man, he misses never one. Oh, foul or fair he’s always there, and many a drink he buys, And there’s a fire of red desire within his hollow eyes. And sipping of my Pernod, and a-knowing what I know, Sometimes I want to shriek aloud and give away the show. I’ve lost my nerve; he’s haunting me; he’s like a beast of prey, That Spanish man that’s watching at the Café de la Paix.
Say! Listen and I’ll tell you all… the day was growing dim, And I was with my Pernod at the table next to him; And he was sitting soberly as If he were asleep, When suddenly he seemed to tense, like tiger for a leap. And then he swung around to me, his hand went to his hip, My heart was beating like a gong—my arm was in his grip; His eyes were glaring into mine; aye, though I shrank with fear, His fetid breath was on my face, his voice was in my ear:
“Excuse my brusquerie,” he hissed; “but, sir, do you suppose— That portly man who passed us had a wen upon his nose?”
And then at last it dawned on me, the fellow must be mad; And when I soothingly replied: “I do not think he had,” The little wizened Spanish man subsided in his chair, And shrouded in his raven cloak resumed his owlish stare. But when I tried to slip away he turned and glared at me, And oh, that fishlike face of his was sinister to see: “Forgive me if I startled you; of course you think I’m queer; No doubt you wonder who I am, so solitary here; You question why the passers-by I piercingly review… Well, listen, my bibacious friend, I’ll tell my tale to you.
“It happened twenty years ago, and in another land: A maiden young and beautiful, two suitors for her hand. My rival was the lucky one; I vowed I would repay; Revenge has mellowed in my heart, it’s rotten ripe to-day. My happy rival skipped away, vamoosed, he left no trace;
And so I’m waiting, waiting here to meet him face to face; For has it not been ever said that all the world one day Will pass in pilgrimage before the Café de la Paix?”
“But, sir,” I made remonstrance, “if its twenty years ago, You’d scarcely recognize him now, he must have altered so.” The little wizened Spanish man he laughed a hideous laugh, And from his cloak he quickly drew a faded photograph. “You’re right,” said he, “but there are traits (oh, this you must allow) That never change; Lopez was fat, he must be fatter now. His paunch is senatorial, he cannot see his toes, I’m sure of it; and then, behold! that wen upon his nose. I’m looking for a man like that. I’ll wait and wait until…” “What will you do?” I sharply cried; he answered me: “Why, kill! He robbed me of my happiness—nay, stranger, do not start; I’ll firmly and politely put—a bullet in his heart.”
And then that little Spanish man, with big cigar alight,
Uprose and shook my trembling hand and vanished in the night. And I went home and thought of him and had a dreadful dream Of portly men with each a wen, and woke up with a scream. And sure enough, next morning, as I prowled the Boulevard, A portly man with wenny nose roamed into my regard; Then like a flash I ran to him and clutched him by the arm: “Oh, sir,” said I, “I do not wish to see you come to harm; But if your life you value aught, I beg, entreat and pray— Don’t pass before the terrace of the Café de la Paix.” That portly man he looked at me with such a startled air, Then bolted like a rabbit down the rue Michaudière. “Ha! ha! I’ve saved a life,” I thought; and laughed in my relief, And straightway joined the Spanish man o’er his apéritif. And thus each day I dodged about and kept the strictest guard For portly men with each a wen upon the Boulevard. And then I hailed my Spanish pal, and sitting in the sun,
We ordered many Pernods and we drank them every one. And sternly he would stare and stare until my hand would shake, And grimly he would glare and glare until my heart would quake. And I would say: “Alphonso, lad, I must expostulate; Why keep alive for twenty years the furnace of your hate? Perhaps his wedded life was hell; and you, at least, are free…” “That’s where you’ve got it wrong,” he snarled; “the fool she took was me.” My rival sneaked, threw up the sponge, betrayed himself a churl: “’Twas he who got the happiness, I only got—the girl.” With that he looked so devil-like he made me creep and shrink, And there was nothing else to do but buy another drink.
Now yonder like a blot of ink he sits across the way, Upon the smiling terrace of the Café de la Paix; That little wizened Spanish man, his face is ghastly white, His eyes are staring, staring like a tiger’s in the night. I know within his evil heart the fires of hate are fanned,
I know his automatic’s ready waiting to his hand. I know a tragedy is near. I dread, I have no peace… Oh, don’t you think I ought to go and call upon the police? Look there… he’s rising up… my God! He leaps from out his place… Yon millionaire from Argentine… the two are face to face… A shot! A shriek! A heavy fall! A huddled heap! Oh, see The little wizened Spanish man is dancing in his glee…. I’m sick… I’m faint… I’m going mad…. Oh, please take me away… There’s blood upon the terrace of the Café de la Paix….
And now I’ll leave my work and sally forth. The city is en fête. I’ll join the crowd and laugh and sing with the best.
The sunshine seeks my little room To tell me Paris streets are gay; That children cry the lily bloom All up and down the leafy way; That half the town is mad with May, With flame of flag and boom of bell: For Carnival is King to-day; So pen and page, awhile farewell.