Page 78 - Poetry-Romance

She’s all a fiancée should be;
No words are fond enough to praise her;
But life has lost its charm for me
Since Nan became a crystal-gazer.

The passing fad of each new day
Has caught and held her fickle fancy;
It nearly took my breath away
When she went in for chiromancy.
She studied psychical research,
And hypnotism didn’t faze her;
She even joined the Buddhist church;
But now she is a crystal-gazer.

Some of her fads I rather liked—
Her cult of Ibsen or of Browning,
Her swagger costume when she biked,
Her dress-reform and Delsarte gowning;
I liked it when she tried to cook
Crabs a la Newburg in her blazer;
But life takes on a different look
Since Nan became a crystal-gazer.

Her fervid gaze she concentrates—
That crystal ball her constant focus;
She ardently invokes the Fates
And all their mystic hocus-pocus,
With muscles tense, and head erect,
Until the gleaming crystal sways her
(I’ve known it to have that effect,
Though I am not a crystal-gazer).

Of course I know it’s but a freak,
The very latest London notion;
She may forget it in a week,
And find some other new devotion.
But with my heart too long she’s played,—
I wonder if it would amaze her
If I should woo another maid
While Nan remains a crystal-gazer.

— Carolyn Wells (Century Magazine, 1897)

~ 76 ~