The humble garret where I dwellIs 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 fightFor food and fame, my Muse inviting,And all the day and half the nightYou'll find me writing, writing, writing.Now, it was in the month of MayAs, 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 seemedSome fount of gladness must be springing,For as alone I sadly dreamedI heard her singing, singing, singing.God love her! how it cheered me thenTo 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 inkI watched her from a poet's distance,She stitched and sang . . . I scarcely thinkShe 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 wrongShe pined and peaked above her sewing.And then one day the blind she drew,Ah! though I sought with vain endeavorTo pierce the darkness, well I knewMy sewing-girl had gone for ever.And as I sit alone to-nightMy eyes unto her room are turning . . .I'd give the sum of all I writeOnce 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 spaceTo 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. . . .
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.
Well, here's the thing that has turned the tide for me. It is somewhat in the vein of "Sourdough" Service, the Yukon bard. I don't think much of his stuff, but they say he makes heaps of money. I can well believe it, for he drives a Hispano-Suiza in the Bois every afternoon. The other night he was with a crowd at the Dome Cafe, a chubby chap who sits in a corner and seldom speaks. I was disappointed. I thought he was a big, hairy man who swore like a trooper and mixed brandy with his beer. He only drank Vichy, poor fellow!
Of course you've heard of theNancy Lee, and how she sailed awayOn 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 theNancy 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.Soheretired; 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.Sosheretired; 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.
After all, I did not celebrate. I sat on the terrace of the Cafe Napolitain on the Grand Boulevard, half hypnotized by the passing crowd. And as I sat I fell into conversation with a god-like stranger who sipped some golden ambrosia. He told me he was an actor and introduced me to his beverage, which he called a "Suze-Anni". He soon left me, but the effect of the golden liquid remained, and there came over me a desire to write.C'était plus fort que moi.So instead of going to the Folies Bergère I spent all evening in the Omnium Bar near the Bourse, and wrote the following:
Oh, it's pleasant sitting here,Seeing all the people pass;You beside yourbockof beer,I behind mydemi-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 reciteWith inimitable grace.(Ah! Imagination's power)See yondemi-mondainethere,Idly toying with a flower,Smiling with a pensive air . . .Well, her smile is but a mask,For I saw within her muffSuch a wicked little flask:Vitriol—ugh! the beastly stuff.Now look back beside the bar.See yon curled and scentedbeau,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 taskIsn't easy . . . let me see . . .She will go to jail, no doubt,For a year, or maybe two;Then as soon as she gets outStart 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 dinHe will stand against a wall,With around his neck a tinInto 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 hatTo 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 soBring 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 lairHe 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.Garcon, 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'sThesaurus, a rhyming dictionary: sit before your typewriter with a strong glass of coffee at your elbow, and just click the stuff off.
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 beIf, when in haste hystericYou called the page, you learned that heWas grappling with a lyric.Or else what rapture it would yield,When cook sent up the salad,To find within its depths concealedA touching little ballad.Or if for tea and toast you yearned,What joy to find upon itThe chambermaid had coyly laidA 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 Iowedhim.So easy 'tis to rhyme . . . yet stay!Oh, terrible misgiving!Please do not give the game away . . .I've got to make my living.
My Garret
May 1914.
Another day of toil and strife,Another page so white,Within that fateful Log of LifeThat I and all must write;Another page without a stainTo make of as I may,That done, I shall not see againUntil the Judgment Day.Ah, could I, could I backward turnThe 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 handAnd make me worthy be,Since what I write to-day shall standTo all eternity;Aye, teach me, Lord of Life, I pray,As I salute the sun,To bear myself that every dayMay 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.
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 one's 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 lastThe 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 thenThere 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:
He's yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe 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 Cafe 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 mybrusquerie," he hissed; "but, sir, do you suppose—That portly man who passed us had awen 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 dayWill pass in pilgrimage before the Cafe de la Paix?""But, sir," I made remonstrance, "if it's 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 dreamOf 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 Cafe 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 hisapéritif.And thus each day I dodged about and kept the strictest guardFor 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 wasme.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 Cafe 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, seeThe 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 Cafe de la Paix. . . .
And now I'll leave my work and sally forth. The city isen fete. I'll join the crowd and laugh and sing with the best.
The sunshine seeks my little roomTo tell me Paris streets are gay;That children cry the lily bloomAll 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.
Parc Montsouris
June 1914.
To-day within a grog-shop nearI saw a newly captured linnet,Who beat against his cage in fear,And fell exhausted every minute;And when I asked the fellow thereIf he to sell the bird were willing,He told me with a careless airThat I could have it for a shilling.And so I bought it, cage and all(Although I went without my dinner),And where some trees were fairly tallAnd houses shrank and smoke was thinner,The tiny door I open threw,As down upon the grass I sank me:Poor little chap! How quick he flew . . .He didn't even wait to thank me.Life's like a cage; we beat the bars,We bruise our breasts, we struggle vainly;Up to the glory of the starsWe strain with flutterings ungainly.And then—God opens wide the door;Our wondrous wings are arched for flying;We poise, we part, we sing, we soar . . .Light, freedom, love. . . . Fools call it—Dying.
Yes, that wretched little bird haunted me. I had to let it go. Since I have seized my own liberty I am a fanatic for freedom. It is now a year ago I launched on my great adventure. I have had hard times, been hungry, cold, weary. I have worked harder than ever I did and discouragement has slapped me on the face. Yet the year has been the happiest of my life.
And all because I am free. By reason of filthy money no one can say to me: Do this, or do that. "Master" doesn't exist in my vocabulary. I can look any man in the face and tell him to go to the devil. I belong to myself. I am not for sale. It's glorious to feel like that. It sweetens the dry crust and warms the heart in the icy wind. For that I will hunger and go threadbare; for that I will live austerely and deny myself all pleasure. After health, the best thing in life is freedom.
Here is the last of my ballads. It is by way of being an experiment. Its theme is commonplace, its language that of everyday. It is a bit of realism in rhyme.
She risked her all, they told me, bravely sinkingThe pinched economies of thirty years;And there the little shop was, meek and shrinking,The sum of all her dreams and hopes and fears.Ere it was opened I would see them in it,The gray-haired dame, the daughter with her crutch;So fond, so happy, hoarding every minute,Like artists, for the final tender touch.The opening day! I'm sure that to their seemingWas never shop so wonderful as theirs;With pyramids of jam-jars rubbed to gleaming;Such vivid cans of peaches, prunes and pears;And chocolate, and biscuits in glass cases,And bon-bon bottles, many-hued and bright;Yet nothing half so radiant as their faces,Their eyes of hope, excitement and delight.I entered: how they waited all a-flutter!How awkwardly they weighed my acid-drops!And then with all the thanks a tongue could utterThey bowed me from the kindliest of shops.I'm sure that night their customers they numbered;Discussed them all in happy, breathless speech;And though quite worn and weary, ere they slumbered,Sent heavenward a little prayer for each.And so I watched with interest redoubledThat little shop, spent in it all I had;And when I saw it empty I was troubled,And when I saw them busy I was glad.And when I dared to ask how things were going,They told me, with a fine and gallant smile:"Not badly . . . slow at first . . . There's never knowing . . .'Twill surely pick up in a little while."I'd often see them through the winter weather,Behind the shutters by a light's faint speck,Poring o'er books, their faces close together,The lame girl's arm around her mother's neck.They dressed their windows not one time but twenty,Each change more pinched, more desperately neat;Alas! I wondered if behind that plentyThe two who owned it had enough to eat.Ah, who would dare to sing of tea and coffee?The sadness of a stock unsold and dead;The petty tragedy of melting toffee,The sordid pathos of stale gingerbread.Ignoble themes! And yet—those haggard faces!Within that little shop. . . . Oh, here I sayOne does not need to look in lofty placesFor tragic themes, they're round us every day.And so I saw their agony, their fighting,Their eyes of fear, their heartbreak, their despair;And there the little shop is, black and blighting,And all the world goes by and does not care.They say she sought her old employer's pity,Content to take the pittance he would give.The lame girl? yes, she's working in the city;She coughs a lot—she hasn't long to live.
Last night MacBean introduced me to Saxon Dane the Poet. Truly, he is more like a blacksmith than a Bard—a big bearded man whose black eyes brood somberly or flash with sudden fire. We talked of Walt Whitman, and then of others.
"The trouble with poetry," he said, "is that it is too exalted. It has a phraseology of its own; it selects themes that are quite outside of ordinary experience. As a medium of expression it fails to reach the great mass of the people."
Then he added: "To hell with the great mass of the people! What have they got to do with it? Write to please yourself, as if not a single reader existed. The moment a man begins to be conscious of an audience he is artistically damned. You're not a Poet, I hope?"
I meekly assured him I was a mere maker of verse.
"Well," said he, "better good verse than middling poetry. And maybe even the humblest of rhymes has its uses. Happiness is happiness, whether it be inspired by a Rossetti sonnet or a ballad by G. R. Sims. Let each one who has something to say, say it in the best way he can, and abide the result. . . . After all," he went on, "what does it matter? We are living in a pygmy day. With Tennyson and Browning the line of great poets passed away, perhaps for ever. The world to-day is full of little minstrels, who echo one another and who pipe away tunefully enough. But with one exception they do not matter."
I dared to ask who was his one exception. He answered, "Myself, of course."
Here's a bit of light verse which it amused me to write to-day, as I sat in the sun on the terrace of the Closerie de Lilas:
She was a Philistine spick and span,He was a bold Bohemian.She had themode, and the last at that;He had a cape and a brigand hat.She was soriantandchicand trim;He was so shaggy, unkempt and grim.On the rue de la Paix she was wont to shine;The rue de la Gaîté was more his line.She doted on Barclay and Dell and Caine;He quoted Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine.She was a triumph at Tango teas;At Vorticist's suppers he sought to please.She thought that Franz Lehar was utterly great;Of Strauss and Stravinsky he'd piously prate.She loved elegance, he loved art;They were as wide as the poles apart:Yet—Cupid and Caprice are hand and glove—They met at a dinner, they fell in love.Home he went to his garret bare,Thrilling with rapture, hope, despair.Swift he gazed in his looking-glass,Made a grimace and murmured: "Ass!"Seized his scissors and fiercely sheared,Severed his buccaneering beard;Grabbed his hair, and clip! clip! clip!Off came a bunch with every snip.Ran to a tailor's in startled state,Suits a dozen commanded straight;Coats and overcoats, pants in pairs,Everything that a dandy wears;Socks and collars, and shoes and ties,Everything that a dandy buys.Chums looked at him with wondering stare,Fancied they'd seen him before somewhere;A Brummell, a D'Orsay, abeauso fine,A shining, immaculate Philistine.Home she went in a raptured daze,Looked in a mirror with startled gaze,Didn't seem to be pleased at all;Savagely muttered: "Insipid Doll!"Clutched her hair and a pair of shears,Cropped and bobbed it behind the ears;Aimed at a wan and willowy-neckedSort of a Holman Hunt effect;Robed in subtile and sage-green tones,Like the dames of Rossetti and E. Burne-Jones;Girdled her garments billowing wide,Moved with an undulating glide;All her frivolous friends forsook,Cultivated a soulful look;Gushed in a voice with a creamy throbOver some weirdly Futurist daub—Did all, in short, that a woman canTo be a consummate Bohemian.A year went past with its hopes and fears,A year that seemed like a dozen years.They met once more. . . . Oh, at last! At last!They rushed together, they stopped aghast.They looked at each other with blank dismay,They simply hadn't a word to say.He thought with a shiver: "Can this be she?"She thought with a shudder: "This can't be he?"This simpering dandy, so sleek and spruce;This languorous lily in garments loose;They sought to brace from the awful shock:Taking a seat, they tried to talk.She spoke of Bergson and Pater's prose,He prattled of dances and ragtime shows;She purred of pictures, Matisse, Cezanne,His tastes to the girls of Kirchner ran;She raved of Tchaikovsky and Caesar Franck,He owned that he was a jazz-band crank!They made no headway. Alas! alas!He thought her a bore, she thought him an ass.And so they arose and hurriedly fled;Perish Illusion, Romance, you're dead.He loved elegance, she loved art,Better at once to part, to part.And what is the moral of all this rot?Don't try to be what you know you're not.And if you're made on a muttonish plan,Don't seek to seem a Bohemian;And if to the goats your feet incline,Don't try to pass for a Philistine.
A Small Cafe in a Side Street,
June 1914.
Because my overcoat's in pawn,I choose to take my glassWithin a littlebistroonThe rue du Montparnasse;The dusty bins with bottles shine,The counter's lined with zinc,And there I sit and drink my wine,And think and think and think.I think of hoary old Stamboul,Of Moslem and of Greek,Of Persian in coat of wool,Of Kurd and Arab sheikh;Of all the types of weal and woe,And as I raise my glass,Across Galata bridge I knowThey pass and pass and pass.I think of citron-trees aglow,Of fan-palms shading down,Of sailors dancing heel and toeWith wenches black and brown;And though it's all an ocean farFrom Yucatan to France,I'll bet beside the old bazaarThey dance and dance and dance.I think of Monte Carlo, whereThe pallid croupiers call,And in the gorgeous, guilty airThe gamblers watch the ball;And as I flick away the foamWith which my beer is crowned,The wheels beneath the gilded domeGo round and round and round.I think of vast Niagara,Those gulfs of foam a-shine,Whose mighty roar would stagger aMore prosy bean than mine;And as the hours I idly spendAgainst a greasy wall,I know that green the waters bendAnd fall and fall and fall.I think of Nijni NovgorodAnd Jews who never rest;And womenfolk with spade and hodWho slave in Buda-Pest;Of squat and sturdy JapaneseWho pound the paddy soil,And as I loaf and smoke at easeThey toil and toil and toil.I think of shrines in Hindustan,Of cloistral glooms in Spain,Of minarets in Ispahan,Of St. Sophia's fane,Of convent towers in Palestine,Of temples in Cathay,And as I stretch and sip my wineThey pray and pray and pray.And so my dreams I dwell within,And visions come and go,And life is passing like a Cin-Ematographic Show;Till just as surely as my pipeIs underneath my nose,Amid my visions rich and ripeI doze and doze and doze.
Alas! it is too true. Once more I am counting the coppers, living on the ragged edge. My manuscripts come back to me like boomerangs, and I have not the postage, far less the heart, to send them out again.
MacBean seems to take an interest in my struggles. I often sit in his room in the rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, smoking and sipping whisky into the small hours. He is an old hand, who knows the market and frankly manufactures for it.
"Give me short pieces," he says; "things of three verses that will fill a blank half-page of a magazine. Let them be sprightly, and, if possible, have a snapper at the end. Give me that sort of article. I think I can place it for you."
Then he looked through a lot of my verse: "This is the kind of stuff I might be able to sell," he said: