More Songs From Vagabondia | Page 7

society

With the variety
Of your esprit.
Here's a long purse to you,
And a
great thirst to you!
Fate be no worse to you,
Barney McGee!
Och, and the girls whose poor hearts you deracinate,
Whirl and
bewilder and flutter and fascinate!
Faith, it's so killing you are, you
assassinate,--
Murder's the word for you, Barney McGee!
Bold
when they're sunny and smooth when they're showery,--
Oh, but the
style of you, fluent and flowery!
Chesterfield's way, with a touch of
the Bowery!
How would they silence you, Barney machree?

Naught can your gab allay,
Learned as Rabelais
(You in his abbey
lay
Once on the spree).
Here's to the smile of you,
(Oh, but the
guile of you!)
And a long while of you,

Barney McGee!
Facile with phrases of length and Latinity,
Like honorificabilitudinity,

Where is the maid could resist your vicinity,
Wiled by the
impudent grace of your plea?
Then your vivacity and pertinacity

Carry the day with the divil's audacity;
No mere veracity robs your
sagacity
Of perspicacity, Barney McGee.
When all is new to them,

What will you do to them?
Will you be true to them?
Who shall
decree?
Here's a fair strife to you!
Health and long life to you!

And a great wife to you,
Barney McGee!

Barney McGee, you're the pick of gentility;
Nothing can phase you,
you've such a facility;
Nobody ever yet found your utility,--
That is
the charm of you, Barney McGee;
Under conditions that others would
stammer in,
Still unperturbed as a cat or a Cameron,
Polished as
somebody in the Decameron,
Putting the glamour on prince or
Pawnee!
In your meanderin',
Love, and philanderin',
Calm as a
mandarin
Sipping his tea!
Under the art of you,
Parcel and part of
you,
Here's to the heart of you,
Barney McGee!
You who were ever alert to befriend a man,
You who were ever the
first to defend a man,
You who had always the money to lend a man,

Down on his luck and hard up for a V!
Sure, you'll be playing a
harp in beatitude
(And a quare sight you will be in that attitude)--

Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude,
You'll find your
latitude, Barney McGee.
That's no flim-flam at all,
Frivol or sham
at all,
Just the plain--Damn it all,
Have one with me!
Here's luck
and more to you!
Friends by the score to you,
True to the core to
you,
Barney McGee!
THE SEA GYPSY.
I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the
wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.
There's a schooner in the offing,
With her topsails shot with fire,

And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire.
I must forth again to-morrow!
With the sunset I must be
Hull down
on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea.
SPEECH AND SILENCE.

The words that pass from lip to lip
For souls still out of reach!
A
friend for that companionship
That's deeper than all speech!

SECRETS.
Three secrets that never were said:
The stir of the sap in the spring,

The desire of a man to a maid,
The urge of a poet to sing.
THE FIRST JULEP.
I love the lazy Southern spring,
The way she melts around a chap

And lets the great magnolias fling
Their languid petals in his lap.
I love to travel down half-way
And meet her coming up the earth,

With hurdy-gurdy men who play
And make the children dance for
mirth.
But best of all I love to steer
For quiet corners not too far,
Where
the first juleps reappear
With fresh green mint behind the bar.
P. S. Perhaps you'll think it queer,
But I do not dislike a hint
To let
the juleps disappear
And stick my nose into the mint.
A STEIN SONG.
Give a rouse, then, in the Maytime
For a life that knows no fear!

Turn night-time into daytime
With the sunlight of good cheer!
For
it's always fair weather
When good fellows get together,
With a
stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.
When the wind comes up from Cuba
And the birds are on the wing,

And our hearts are patting juba
To the banjo of the spring,
Then
it's no wonder whether
The boys will get together,
With a stein on
the table and a cheer for everything.
For we're all frank-and-twenty
When the spring is in the air;
And
we've faith and hope a-plenty,
And we've life and love to spare;

And it's birds of a feather
When we all get together,
With a stein on
the table and a heart without a care.

For we know the world is glorious,
And the goal a golden thing,

And that God is not censorious
When his children have their fling;

And life slips its tether
When the boys get together,
With a stein on
the table in the fellowship of spring.
THE UNSAINTING OF KAVIN.
Saint Kavin was a gentleman,
He came from Tipperary;
And
woman was the only thing
That ever made him scary.
For Kavin was a tender youth,
And he was very simple;
He feared
the wiles of maiden smiles,
And fainted at a dimple.
But when Kathleen at seventeen
Came down the street one morning,

The luck of man came over him
And took him without warning.
Afraid to meet a foolish fate
By green sea or by dry land,
He fled
away without delay
And sought a desert