Page 21 - Poetry-Romance

Before her comprehensive brain,
All difficulties vanish,
She’s mastered Hebrew, Chinese, Greek,
And French, of course—and Spanish !

In Latin she composes hymns,
And five-act plays in German !
While she in Zend or Portuguese,
Could surely write a sermon!

But when I spoke of love to her
In accents chaste, poetic,
She’d chat for hours to prove that love
Was hate turned sympathetic!

And show by legends, myths, or dates,
And curious Hindoo omens,
That such unintellectual trash
Was unknown to the Romans!

I thought the only way to please
Her most aesthetic optic,
Was quietly to go to work,
And master ancient Coptic!

And this I did, and further wrote
A mammoth life of Moses,
Also three volumes in blank verse
About metempsychosis!

It took me many years, and when
I went unto her dwelling,
I found—she’d run off with a man
Who made mistakes in spelling!

— Debonair (Scribner’s, 1879)

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