Fifty years Other Poems | Page 7

still strong,
There ought to be
twenty more years of good punching there. At the end of that time he
will be old and broken,
Not able to strike back,
But cringing and
crying for leave
To live a little longer."
Those twenty, pitiful, extra years
Would please you more than the
fifty past,
Would they not, Old World?
Well, I hold them up before
your greedy eyes,
And snatch them away as I laugh in your face,
Ha!
Ha!
Bang--!
DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA
I

Sunrise in the Tropics
Sol, Sol, mighty lord of the tropic zone,
Here I wait with the
trembling stars
To see thee once more take thy throne.
There the patient palm tree watching
Waits to say, "Good morn" to
thee,
And a throb of expectation
Pulses through the earth and me.
Now, o'er nature falls a hush,
Look! the East is all a-blush;
And a
growing crimson crest
Dims the late stars in the west;
Now, a flood
of golden light
Sweeps across the silver night,
Swift the pale moon
fades away
Before the light-girt King of Day,
See! the miracle is
done!
Once more behold! The Sun!
II
Los Cigarillos
This is the land of the dark-eyed gente,
Of the dolce far niente,

Where we dream away
Both the night and day,
At night-time in
sleep our dreams we invoke,
Our dreams come by day through the
redolent smoke,
As it lazily curls,
And slowly unfurls
From our
lips,
And the tips
Of our fragrant cigarillos.
For life in the tropics
is only a joke,
So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke,

Smoke--smoke--smoke.
Tropical constitutions
Call for occasional revolutions;
But after
that's through,
Why there's nothing to do
But smoke--smoke;
For life in the tropics is only a joke,
So we pass it in dreams, and we
pass it in smoke,
Smoke--smoke--smoke.
III
Teestay

Of tropic sensations, the worst
Is, sin duda, the tropical thirst.
When it starts in your throat and constantly grows,
Till you feel that it
reaches down to your toes,
When your mouth tastes like fur
And
your tongue turns to dust,
There's but one thing to do,
And do it you
must,
Drink teestay.
Teestay, a drink with a history,
A delicious, delectable mystery,

"_Cinco centavos el vaso, señor_,"
If you take one, you will surely
want more.
Teestay, teestay,
The national drink on a feast day;
How it
coolingly tickles,
As downward it trickles,
Teestay, teestay.
And you wish, as you take it down at a quaff,
That your neck was
constructed à la giraffe.
Teestay, teestay.
IV
The Lottery Girl
"Lottery, lottery,
Take a chance at the lottery?
Take a ticket,
Or,
better, take two;
Who knows what the future
May hold for you?

Lottery, lottery,
Take a chance at the lottery?"
Oh, limpid-eyed girl,
I would take every chance,
If only the prize

Were a love-flashing glance
From your fathomless eyes.
"Lottery, lottery,
Try your luck at the lottery?
Consider the size

Of the capital prize,
And take tickets
For the lottery.
Tickets,
_señor_? Tickets, _señor_?
Take a chance at the lottery?"
Oh, crimson-lipped girl,
With the magical smile,
I would count that
the gamble

Were well worth the while,
Not a chance would I miss,

If only the prize
Were a honey-bee kiss
Gathered in sips
From

those full-ripened lips,
And a love-flashing glance
From your eyes.
V
The Dancing Girl
Do you know what it is to dance?
Perhaps, you do know, in a fashion;

But by dancing I mean,
Not what's generally seen,
But dancing
of fire and passion,
Of fire and delirious passion.
With a dusky-haired _señorita_,
Her dark, misty eyes near your own,

And her scarlet-red mouth,
Like a rose of the south,
The reddest
that ever was grown,
So close that you catch
Her quick-panting
breath
As across your own face it is blown,
With a sigh, and a
moan.
Ah! that is dancing,
As here by the Carib it's known.
Now, whirling and twirling
Like furies we go;
Now, soft and
caressing
And sinuously slow;
With an undulating motion,
Like
waves on a breeze-kissed ocean:--
And the scarlet-red mouth
Is
nearer your own,
And the dark, misty eyes
Still softer have grown.
Ah! that is dancing, that is loving,
As here by the Carib they're
known.
VI
Sunset in the Tropics
A silver flash from the sinking sun,
Then a shot of crimson across the
sky
That, bursting, lets a thousand colors fly
And riot among the
clouds; they run,
Deepening in purple, flaming in gold,
Changing,
and opening fold after fold,
Then fading through all of the tints of the
rose into gray, Till, taking quick fright at the coming night,
They rush
out down the west,
In hurried quest
Of the fleeing day.

Now above where the tardiest color flares a moment yet, One point of
light, now two, now three are set
To form the starry stairs,--
And, in
her fire-fly crown,
Queen Night, on velvet slippered feet, comes
softly down.
AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS WAR
Around the council-board of Hell, with Satan at their head, The Three
Great Scourges of humanity sat.
Gaunt Famine, with hollow cheek
and voice, arose and spoke,-- "O, Prince, I have stalked the earth,

And my victims by ten thousands I have slain,
I have smitten old and
young.
Mouths of the helpless old moaning for bread, I have filled
with dust; And I have laughed to see a crying babe tug at the shriveling
breast Of its mother, dead and cold.
I