Ballads of a Bohemian | Page 7

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.
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!
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,