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The Rubáiyát of a Bachelor

Chapter 3: Transcriber's Notes
By Helen Rowland
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About This Book

A sequence of light, sardonic poems that chronicles a bachelor’s attitudes toward love, courtship, and marriage, alternating playful flirtation with cautionary satire. Short rhymed pieces depict seasonal romances, club and supperroom pleasures, temptation and repentance, the comforts of single life, fears of marital bondage and alimony, and social episodes involving fashionable women and performers. Tone shifts between witty self-justification and ironic warning, employing vivid domestic and urban images and concise epigrams. The collection mixes humorous observation with sly moral commentary on desire, commitment, and the social costs of romantic choices.






ND those who hung around the green-room door,

And those who backed the Show and paid the score,

Alike, to no such "Angels" have been turned,

As, once repentant, men feel sorry for.







H, my Good Fellow, keep the cash, that clears

To-day of unpaid debts and future fears.

To-morrow! Why, to-morrow, you may be,

Yourself, with Yesterday's cast-off millionaires.







HEN, make the most of what you still may spend,

Ere you, too, into bankruptcy descend,

Bill upon bill, and under bill, to lie,

Sans Cash, sans Love, sans Lady—What an end!

.        .        .        .        .        .






ASTE not your evenings in the vain pursuit

Of this or that girl. Bittersweet the fruit!

Better be jocund with them, one and all,

And loving many, thus your love dilute.







OME, with vivacity have sought to charm

Away my fears, and still my soul's alarm;

To win me subtly, with a smile or sigh,

Or sweet appealing touch upon the arm.







THERS have tempted me with festive cheer,

And Chafing-dish Concoctions, quaint and queer;

With dear, domestic airs have plied their arts—

Yet, all their wiles were neither there nor here!







UT when Platonic Friendship they have tried,

Then, to the gods for Mercy, have I cried!

For, in the Husband-hunt, all other snares

Sink into Nothingness, this game beside!







HERE is the Trap, from which you may not flee;

There is the Net, through which no man may see.

Some jest at "love," some talk of "chums," and then,

Into the Consommé, for thee and me!

THERE IS THE TRAP, FROM WHICH YOU MAY NOT FLEE.






HETHER to Church, or to the Magistrate,

You follow, after that, 'tis all too late!

For, from your Pipe-dream, you, at last, shall
wake,

A MARRIED MAN, to rail in vain at Fate!







OVE, but the Vision of a dear desire!

Marriage, the Ashes, whence has fled the fire!

Cast into chains which you, yourself, have forged!

Caught, like a sheep upon a stray barbed wire!

.        .        .        .        .        .






H Thou, who first the Apple Tree didst shake,

And e'en in Eden flirted with the Snake,

Still, as in that first moment 'neath the Bough,

Dost thou, to-day, of Man a puppet make!







UT this I know—whether the one True Mate,

Or just some Fluffy Thing with hook and bait,

Eve-like, tempt me—one flash of Common Sense,

And all her sorcery shall be too late!







HEN, let her never look for me, again;

For, once escaped, how many moons shall wane,

And wax and wane full oft, while still she looks

Down that same street—but ah, for ME, in vain!







ET, much as I have played the Infidel,

If, as the fated Pitcher to the Well,

Too oft to Love's empyrean Font I stray,

To fall, at last, beneath some Siren's spell,







HEN, in your mercy, Friend, forbear to smile,

And with the grape my last few hours beguile,

Or, let me in some Caravanserie,

My Cynic's soul to shackles reconcile.







ND when, with me, some fair, triumphant lass,

Up to the rose-decked Altar-Rail shall pass,

And, in her joyous errand, reach the spot,

Where we're made One—oh, drain a silent glass!
Tamam.

Transcriber's Notes

Page 48, closing quotation mark removed. Original read ("Fool, beware!")

Page 67, "loveing" changed to "loving" (cast a loving Woman)