Ballads of a Bohemian | Page 9

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'e/tait plus fort que moi.~ So instead of going to the Folies
Berge
e I spent all evening in the Omnium Bar near the Bourse, and
wrote the following:
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 espe\ce 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.

~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'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