Page 39 - Poetry-Books
P. 39
Who ever saw (out of a nightmare)
A thousand-fold Yawn?
Drop the curtain! The longest-drawn evening
Must come to the curtain at length.
Our Muse, as she found to her sorrow,
Had mistaken her speed for her strength.
Though comfort has come to our cottage,
‘Twas in the old commonplace way;
And though we’ve dessert with our pottage,
No thanks to our Play!
— Margaret Vandegrift (Scribner’s, 1879)
A Writer
He does not know his English well,
Our vulgar words he scorns to praise,
And, consequently, thinks it swell
To trifle with the Gallic phrase.
He writes amour instead of “love,”
Whenever he can find the chance;
Colombe is more gentil than “dove,”
It gives the essence of all France.
And when he scrawls his mongrel prose,
By many foreign terms disguised,
He Frenchifies a simple “rose,”
And has it down italicized !
For “darling,” chérie you will find
In every chapter, sure as fate;
And, for the glory of mankind,
He would not miss a tête-à-tête!
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