The Home Book of Verse Volume Ii Part 89

Most of the gray-green meadow land Was sold in parsimonious lots; The dingy houses stand Pressed by some stout contractor's hand Tightly together in their plots.

Through builded banks the sullen river Gropes, where its houses crouch and shiver.

Over the bridge the tyrant train Shrieks, and emerges on the plain.

In all the better gardens you may pa.s.s, (Product of many careful Sat.u.r.days), Large red geraniums and tall pampas gra.s.s Adorn the plots and mark the gravelled ways.

Sometimes in the background may be seen A private summer-house in white or green.

Here on warm nights the daughter brings Her vacillating clerk, To talk of small exciting things And touch his fingers through the dark.

He, in the uncomfortable breach Between her trilling laughters, Promises, in halting speech, Hopeless immense Hereafters.

She trembles like the pampas plumes.

Her strained lips haggle. He a.s.sumes The serious quest....

Now as the train is whistling past He takes her in his arms at last.

It's done. She blushes at his side Across the lawn--a bride, a bride.

The stout contractor will design, The lazy laborers will prepare, Another villa on the line; In the little garden-square Pampas gra.s.s will rustle there.

Harold Monro [1879-1932]

THE BETROTHED "You must choose between me and your cigar"-- Breach of Promise case, circa 1885.

Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarreled about Havanas--we fought o'er a good cheroot-- And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box--let me consider a s.p.a.ce, In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie's face.

Maggie is pretty to look at--Maggie's a loving la.s.s.

But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pa.s.s.

There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away--

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown-- But I never could throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty--gray and dour and old-- With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold.

And the light of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the b.u.t.t of a dead cigar--

The b.u.t.t of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket-- With never a new one to light, though it's charred and black to the socket.

Open the old cigar-box--let me consider awhile; Here is a mild Manilla--there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion--bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counselors cunning and silent--comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.

This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return, With only a Suttee's pa.s.sion--to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear that my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal, So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides, And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between The wee little whimpering Love and the great G.o.d Nick o' Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear, But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light Of stumps that I burned to Friendship, and Pleasure, and Work, and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged in the mire?

Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box--let me consider anew-- Old friends, and who is Maggie, that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba--I hold to my first-sworn vows, If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!

Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]

LOVE'S SADNESS