Drinking, I doze, and see the gods go by;
     They wave to me the hand of comradeship,
     For I am one with them, and at my lip
     The cup of wisdom bubbles ... up the sky
     A blur of moondust drifts to dull mine eye,
     But through the veil my romping visions slip
     To dance among the careless stars, outstrip
     The racing planets where they swoop and fly,
     And then . . . from somewhere east of Mars
          a keen
     Thin wind whines for a Dime; I drop one in
     A sad Salvation Army tambourine
     And hear a weary homily on Sin . . .
     “Sister,” I say, “you're right, and yet the Truth
     Sometimes sits near me in this tavern booth.”

     Our minds are schooled to grief and dearth,
     Our lips, too, are aware,
     But our feet still seek a railing
     When a railing isn't there.
     I went into a druggist's shop
     To get some stamps and soap,—
     My feet rose up in spite of me
     And pawed the air with hope.
     I know that neither East nor West,
     And neither North nor South,
     Shall rise a cloud of joy to shed
     Its dampness on my drouth,—.
     I know that neither here nor there,
     When winds blow to and fro,
     Shall any friendly odours find
     The nose they used to know,—

     No stein shall greet my straining eyes,
     No matter how they blink,
     Mine ears shall never hear again
     The highball glasses clink,—
     There is not anywhere a jug
     To cuddle with my wrist,—
     But my habituated foot
     Remains an optimist!
     It lifts itself, it curls itself,
     It feels the empty air,
     It seeks a long brass railing,
     And the railing isn't there!
     I do not seek for sympathy
     For stomach nor for throat,
     I never liked my liver much—
     'T is such a sulky goat!—
     I do not seek your pity for
     My writhen tongue and wried,
     I do not ask your tears because
     My lips are shrunk and dried,—
     But, oh! my foot! My cheated foot!
     My foot that lives in hope!
     It is a piteous sight to see
     It lift itself and grope!
     I look at it, I talk to it,
     I lesson it and plead,
     But with a humble cheerfulness,
     That makes my heart to bleed,
     It lifts itself, it curls itself,
     It searches through the air,
     It seeks a long brass railing,
     And the railing isn't there!
     I carried it to church one day—
     O foot so fond and frail!
     I had to drag it forth in haste:
     It grabbed the chancel rail.
     My heart is all resigned and calm,
     So, likewise, is my soul,
     But my habituated foot
     Is quite beyond control!
     An escalator on the Ell
     Began its upward trip,
     My foot reached up and clutched the rail
     And crushed it in its grip.
     It grabs the headboard of my bed
     With such determined clasp
     That I'm compelled to scald the thing
     To make it loose its grasp.
     Sometimes it leaps to clutch the curb
     When I walk down the street—
     Oh, how I suffer for the hope
     That lives within my feet!
     Myself, I can endure the drouth
     With stoic calm, and prayer—
     But my feet still seek a railing
     When a railing isn't there.

     Once the wild raptures and the beating wings
     Of Song were mine, the sun, the climbing flight;
     The wind's great fellowship upon the height. . . .
     Once Youth was mine, and the young heart that
          sings!
     But now the little things, the trivial things,
     Beat down my spirit with their leagued might . . .
     Could I, within some friendly Dive to-night,
     Meet the Old Gang, 'twould make me young, by
          jings!
     As the mad lark rises, drunk with joy and sun,
     When morning bends above the dewy meadow,
     And his clear call proclaims: “The day is won!”
      Over a hurried rout of driven shadow,
     So should I rise and sing, had I a Bun.
     O would that we were soused together, Kiddo!

     Out of my forehead now the long thoughts reach
     In level rays that melt the Pleiades,
     Which, melting, somehow smell like toasted
          cheese . . .
     I know Life's secret now, but have no speech
     To utter it: indeed, small wish to teach
     My truths to trivial planets such as these
     Whereon the populations drone like bees
     That have no honey-gift, each stinging each . . .
     And yet I will speak, too!... the slow words
          come
     With pain out of my deeps of ecstasy,
     Burst from my soul as from a beaten drum
     In a hoarse pulse of sound . . . But hark to
          me!
     “Life's secret is that all things cool somewhat
     Like golden bucks”...but, somehow, that
          seems rot.

     There is a place, not far from Gissing Street,
     In Paradise, where one can dream and laugh
     You go through Shelley Lane, striking your staff
     Upon the cobbles, turn with eager feet
     Down Benêt Place, and there you are! I'll meet
     You, Christopher, and we shall quarrel and quaff
     Our pewter tankards full of Shandygaff,
     And eat and eat and eat and eat and eat!
     And must we die first? Well, it's worth the trouble
     I shall go first, because I'm old and gray,
     And permanently I'll reserve a booth—
     And when you come, no doubt I'll see you double,
     And as you land from Charon's skiff I'll say:
     “Here, kid, taste this! Roll this upon your tooth!'

     The keyholes to the right of me
     Were dancing of a jig,
     The keyholes to the left of me
     Were merry as a grig,
     The keyholes right before my face
     Were drunk and winked at me,
     And I stood there alone—alone!—
     With one
     small
     key.

     They frightened me, they daunted me;
     I turned back to the stair,
     And faced nine keyholes pale and stern
     That lay in ambush there.
     Six keyholes on the ceiling sat,
     Eight keyholes on the door,
     And seven saddened keyholes lay
     Hiccoughing
     on the
     floor.

     I crawled through one, I crawled through two,
     I crawled through keyholes three—
     And then I saw a vistaed mile
     Of keyholes waiting me!—
     “I will not crawl another yard
     Through keyholes, though I die!”—
     Oh, when my fighting blood is up
     A Turk
     am.

     They leapt at me, they flew at me,
     They whistled as they came,
     They gritted of their gleaming teeth,
     They stung and spurted flame;
     I put my back against the floor
     And fought 'em gallantly—?
     But what could anybody do
     With one
     small
     key?

     Keyholes at the front of me,
     And keyholes on the flank,
     And as they rushed at me I smelled
     The liquor that they drank;
     Keyholes on my spinal cord,
     And keyholes in my hair—
     And with a “Heave together, boys!”
      They rolled
     me down
     the stair.

     It bumped me some, it bent me some,
     It broke a nose or two,
     And when the milkman came, he said:
     “What Kaiser Belgiumed you?”
      I says to him: “It might have been
     The same with you as me
     If you like me had had to fight
     A gang of keyholes all last night
     With one
     small
     key!”

     I thought a Sun pursued; through endless space
     I fled the following thunder of his feet;
     Snorting he came, his breath a withering heat,
     Blown soot of cindered comets freakt his face;
     My hide caught fire and crackled with the pace,
     My burning heart with jets of anguish beat;
     Flaming I leapt, in flame leapt on the fleet
     And savage star . . .  We slashed our fiery trace
     Ten constellations broad in screaming red
     Across the startled purple of the night;
     A word tremendous clove mine ears and head,
     A great arm fell and stripped my wings of flight:
     “Hey, Mister, pay your check!” a brute voice said.
     It was a red-haired barkeep known as Ed.

     Liquor there is—but how I miss the Bar!
     I miss a certain attitude of mind,
     Congenial, which I seek but never find
     Except beneath the golden triple star
     Which from the brandy bottle shines afar.
     I miss a type of jest that was designed
     For roaring barrooms warmed with booze, and
          kind—
     Good Gawd! how coarse and low my real tastes are.
     I miss an ambling, splay-foot waiter's beak,
     Which like some red peninsula of hell
     Glowed through the humming barroom's smoky
          reek—
     I miss the lies I used to hear men tell
     Over the telephone to waiting wives—
     What sweet aromas had these joyous lives!

     Do you remember that first Morning Drink
     When Ed would smile and say, “What shall it be?”
      “Would you advise a Gin Fizz, Ed, for me?”
      “It is too early for a Fizz, I think.”
      “And would an Absinthe put me on the blink,
     I wonder, Ed?”—“Absinthe would not agree
     This morning, sir.”—“Then what's your recipe?”
      “A bland Club Cocktail, delicate and pink!”
      O kindly Barkeeps that have raised me up
     From morning glooms and made me live again,
     Where are ye now, and where your wizardry?
     As dead as great Ulysses' faithful pup!
     As dead as Babylon and James G. Blaine!
     As dead as Gyp the Blood and Nineveh!

     —“I wanchya meeta 'nol' 'nol frien' o' mine!”
      —” Umgladdameecha! Bill's frien's my frien's, too!”
      —“Thish frien' besh frien'! I gotto open wine!”
      —“You gotto le' me buy thish drink f'r you!”
      —“I gotto buy thish drink f'r 'nol' 'nol' frien'!”
      —“Now, lishen, Jim! You gonna love thish lad!”
      —“Billsh friensh is my friensh to th' bitter en'!”
      —“Now, lishen, Jim! thish besh frien' ever had!”
      Honest, hardworking drunkards! Hour by hour
     They toiled on at their chosen task until
     They bent beneath the burdens that they bore,
     They bent and swayed, sustained but by the power,
     Each one, of his Indomitable Will,
     Which ever bade him conquer Just One More.

     Old Demon Rum, they say you ruined homes,
     Bashing the piteous Wife betwixt her eyes.
     Stabbing Aunt Tildy with her own hair-combs,
     And teaching your young offspring stealth and lies
     Angel! they say that one night, lost to grace,
     You filched the infant's coral from her crib,
     Hocked it, and blew the loot at Leery's Place-
     Then strangled Baby Sister in her bib
     Because it purchased only sixteen beers!
     Demon! they say you used to cut up rough,
     Sowing the earth with poverty and tears—
     And I believe it readily enough!
     I do admit your crimes as charged above,
     But, Angel! crime can never kill my love!

     If there were many miles of me
     How I would love to trail
     My length along the cooling sea
     Above the brown sea kale.
     Were there five thousand feet of me
     Instead of five feet four,
     A thousand times as cool I'd be
     Swimming from shore to shore.
     And when I saw a brewery
     Upon some cape or isle
     I'd crawl out of the dripping sea
     And greet it with a smile.
     Then all my lovely coils I'd wrap
     Around that brewery,
     And when I'd squeezed out every drap
     Slide back into the sea.

     Barleycorn, my jo John!
     They say that we must part!
     'Twill mend my stomach, maybe,
     But, O! it breaks my heart!
     I hoped that we should grow old
     Cheek by jowl together,
     Boozing by the fireside
     Through the wintry weather;—
     With white hair and red face,
     Full of dreams and liquor,
     Watching from an armchair
     The firelight flicker;—

     But Barleycorn, my jo John,
     Fare ye well forever!—
     The preachers have my soul, John,
     The doctors have my liver!
     And I shall have an old age
     Dry and dull as virtue—
     But never think, my dear friend,
     I'm happy to desert you!
     Barleycorn, my jo John!
     To think that we should part—.
     They say 'twill save my eyesight,
     But, O; it breaks my heart!

     I saw three roses on the wall,
     Three red, red roses on the wall,
     Repeated in a pattern:
     The first, I Cleopatra call,
     The second one's named Sadie Hall,
     The third one is a slattern.
     Three flowers, all curlycues and swirls,
     Each blare-mouthed like a trumpet;
     One used to fish for swine with pearls,
     The second was the best of girls,
     The third one was a strumpet.
     Three red-mouthed roses on the wall
     As bright and hot as blood;
     The first one caused an empire fall,
     The second was just Sadie Hall,
     The third died in the mud.

     Some fools keep ringing the dumb waiter bell
     Just as I finish killing Uncle Ned;
     I wonder if they could have heard him yell?
     A moment since I cursed at them and said:
     “This is a pretty time to bring the ice!”
      —Old Uncle Ned! Two times of late, or thrice,
     I've thought of prodding him with something keen,
     But always Fate has seemed to intervene;
     Last night, for instance, I was in the mood,
     But I was far too drunken yestere'en——-
     My way of life can end in nothing good!
     At Mrs. Dumple's, last week, when I fell
     And spoiled her dinner party I was led
     Out to a cab; they saw I was not well
     And took me home and tucked me into bed.
     I should quit mingling hashish with my rice!
     I should give over singing “Three Blind Mice”

     At funerals! Why will I make a scene?
     Why should I feed my cousins Paris Green?
     I am increasingly misunderstood:
     When I am tactless, people think 'tis spleen.
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     Why should one cry that he is William Tell,
     Then flip a pippin from his hostess' head
     That none but he can see? Why should one dwell
     Upon the failings of the newly wed
     At wedding breakfasts? Can I not be Nice?
     I am so silly and so full of vice!
     Such prestidigitator tricks, I ween,
     As finding false teeth in a soup tureen
     Are not real humour; they are crass and crude,
     And cast suspicion on the host's cuisine:
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     My wife and her best friend, a social swell,
     Zoo-ward I lured to see the cobras fed;—
     “We can't get home,” I giggled, “for the El
     Is broken, Sarah—let's elope, instead!”
      I spoke of all she'd have to sacrifice,
     And she seemed yielding to me, once or twice,
     Until my wife broke in and said: “Eugene,
     Your finger nails are seldom really clean;—
     I'd loose poor Sarah's hand, Eugene, I would!”
      How weak and stupid I have always been!
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     I drink and doze and wake and think of hell,
     My eyes are blear from all the tears I shed:
     I'm pitiably bald: I'm but a shell!
     I sobbed to-day, “I wish that I were dead!”
      I wish I could quit drugs and drink and dice.
     I wish I had not talked of chicken lice
     The Sunday that we entertained the Dean,
     Nor shouted to his wife that paraffin
     Would make her thin beard grow, nor played the
          food
     Was pennies and her face a slot machine:
     My way of life can end in nothing good.
     —That bell again: A voice: “Is your name Bryce?
     These goods is C. O. D. Send down the price!”
      “Bryce lives,” I yell, “at Number Seventeen!”
      Bryce doesn't live there, but I feel so mean
     I laugh and lie; my tone is harsh and rude.
     —Uncle is gone! I'm phthisical and lean—
     My way of life can end in nothing good!

     From many a classic scroll and tome
     In golden texts the warnings shine:
     “If you must drink, get soused at home!
     Will you get pickled? Then use brine!”
      Each generation gets a sign,
     But each one needs another prod
     From scriptures human or divine—
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!
     Sleek Athens from the Attic loam
     With ill intention coaxed the vine—
     Arcadian Simps admired the foam
     While hair-oiled City Gents malign
     Dropped philters in the neatherd's stein—
     Soon Corydon upon the sod
     Lay coinless with a cloven chine—
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!

     When Gallic ginks Cook-toured to Rome,
     Or roaring Teutons from the Rhine,
     The thought would fill some yokel's dome
     To dally with the stranger's wine—
     Next reel: tough students sprain his spine
     And bean him with a curule rod
     And roll him down the Palatine:
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!
     Raus! Bacchus, with that breath of thine,
     And sad eyes like a bilious cod!
     Me for the Tracts—I've learned, in fine,
     The Wastrel always drops his Wad!

     A young man in a Mu-se-um
     Was showing me a mummy
     Who lay there patiently, but glum,
     A-clasping of his tummy. . .
     Cophetua or Kafoozelum,
     Or some such regal rummy.
     “In youth,” says I, “this king was gay,
     In spite of Mrs. Grundy;
     He burnt the Nile one Saturday,

     But where was he on Sunday?”
      I added, in my learned way,
     “'Sic transit gloria mundi!'
     “He conquered princes not a few;
     They voted as he bid 'em.
     From Babylon to Timbuctoo,
     From Sheba up to Siddim,
     He thought of things he shouldn't do,
     And then he went and did 'em!
     “He loved to send out royal bids
     For high Egyptian jinkses
     Where pretty Theban katydids
     And little Memphian minxes
     Would trot among the pyramids
     And tango round the sphinxes . . .
     “But now, in his sarcophagus,
     How quite deceased we find him,
     With sand in his aesophagus
     And all his past behind him,
     While Time (the anthropophagus!)
     Is whetting teeth to grind him.
     “Then note, my lad, the end of kings!
     Therefore, avoid ambition,
     For earthly greatness all has wings.
     You stick to your position,
     And if men come with crowns and things
     To tempt you, go a-fishin'!”
      “Was I a Kingly Souse,” says he,
     Impressed from A to Izzard,
     “Would I wind up so leathery
     As this departed wizard,
     With baldness on the dome of me,
     And gravel in my gizzard?”
      “You would without a doubt,” says I,
     “Lose wealth and health and hair, O!”
      Shaken with sobs he made reply,
     “I promise, and I swear, O!
     That I will never drink!—and try
     And never be a Pharaoh!”

     I started from Missouri,
     The western part of Missouri,
     To ride to Nicodemus,
     To Nicodemus, Kansas,
     In the western part of Kansas;
     Not far from Happy, Kansas,
     In Graham County, Kansas . . .
     Across the State of Kansas I started in a flivver . . .
     A jolty little flivver with a rhythm rather jerky . . .
     Irregularly rhythmical, when rhythmical at all . . .
     I had to get to Nicodemus
     By noon on Saturday to pay the mortgage
     On a farm near Nicodemus,
     Graham County, Kansas,
     Belonging to a sweetheart who would otherwise be
          rooned
     Financially and so could not afford to marry me. . . .
     As I entered into Kansas,
     And crossed Miami County,
     At the town of Ossawatomie
     I received a telegraphic message
     From my love at Nicodemus.
     “Hasten with the money,” said the telegraphic
          message,
     “Hasten with the money you are bringing from my
          Uncle.
     From my Uncle Jethro, in Missouri,
     For the man that holds the mortgage,
     Banker Jasper Grinder, who holds the fiendish
     mortgage,
     Has said he will foreclose it
     And take away the homestead at noon on Saturday,
     Or else I'll have to marry him,
     To keep him from foreclosing,
     Marry Banker Jasper Grinder to keep him from
     foreclosing . . .
     I would hate to marry Grinder,
     But, on the other hand,
     I would hate to lose the whole alfalfa crop .  .  .
     Hasten with the money,
     From my Uncle Jethro,
     Hasten to your true love, Miss Elvira Simpkins,
     At Nicodemus, Kansas.”
      Three hundred miles away
     Was Nicodemus, Kansas,
     Nicodemus, Graham County,
     Not so far from Happy, Kansas
     Could I do it in a flivver
     In ten hours?
     from Ossawatomie I started with a burst of speed,
     That carried me to Quenemo,
     To Quenemo, in Osage County, Kansas,
     At the rate of forty miles an hour .  .  .
     At a garage in Quenemo
     I paused for gasolene,
     At Quenemo, in Osage County, Kansas .  .  .
     But the man that ran the place
     With shrill bucolic snicker
     Said: “There ain't no gasolene!
     The gasolene in Kansas
     Has all been took and contrabanded,
     Leastways, commandeered,
     Just one hour ago,
     By order of the Governor,
     The Governor of Kansas,
     On account of military operations “...
     No gasolene in Kansas!
     And three hundred miles away my love,
     My love, Elvira Simpkins,
     Was waiting for the money I had got from Uncle
          Jethro
     To save the home at Nicodemus
     From the clutch of Jasper Grinder!
     “I will telegraph the money!” I shouted
     With a flash of inspiration.  .  .
     But the station agent told me,
     “There ain't no telegraph nor nothing
     Runs into Nicodemus,
     To Nicodemus, Kansas.
     As fur as I can see in this here book!”
      And I looked at the wire from Elvira again
     And saw it had been sent from Happy, Kansas,
     And all the time the precious
     Minutes fluttered by
     Banker Jasper Grinder, in Nicodemus, Kansas,
     Minute after minute,
     Was approaching nearer to the hour of his desire . . .
     I could hear him chuckle,
     The dry and throaty chuckle that village bankers
          chuckle
     In the semi-arid regions
     Another inspiration came to me and I cried:
     “I will run my flivver
     To Nicodemus, Kansas,
     On alcohol, by heck!
     I can make the engine in my little flivver
     Run to Nicodemus, Kansas,
     On alcohol, by Henry!”
      But the crowd that gathered around me
     Laffed and laffed and laffed . . .
     “They ain't no alcohol in Kansas,”
      Said the crowd, between its chortles—
     “Kansas is a dry State,
     It's prohibition Kansas,
     And you'll never get to Nicodemus
     Graham County, Kansas,”
      Just then the village toper
     A gentle creature and decayed
     Thrust into my hand a gallon
     Of Stutter's Stomach Bitters,
     He handed me four big quarts
     Of Stutter's Stomach Bitters,
     And I poured 'em in the tank and left the town of
     Quenemo, with the engine doing lovely
     And the flivver going strong
     And I reached the town of Skiddy,
     The town of Skiddy, Kansas, in Morris County,
          Kansas,
     And I drew up by the drug store and I yelled
     For Stutter's Stomach Bitters . . .
     “I must reach Elvira Simpkins, in Nicodemus,
          Kansas,
     'Ere the clock strikes 12 . . .
     Give me Bitters, give me Bitters!
     Fill the tank with Bitters, for I race to raise the
     mortgage
     But the druggist said: “There's been a run on Bitters!
     Considerable colic in this watermelon weather!—
     How about Stewroona?”
      On a gallon of Stewroona I ran from Skiddy, Kansas,
     As far as Elmo, Kansas,
     And there I laid in nineteen quarts
     Of prohibition appetizer:
     Doctor Bunkus's Discovery for Kidneys
     Westward, aver westward;”:
     To my love,- Elvira Simpkins
     At Nicodemus, Kansas,
     I ran on Doctor Bunkus, through the dryest belt of
          Kansas,
     Through the prohibition centre,
     Dear Old Doctor Bunkus urged my little flivver;
     From Elmo, to Palacky,
     Six quarts of Lily Gingham's Discovery
     And a dozen more of Bunkus
     Took me nearer, nearer, nearer,
     To my love, Elvira Simpkins .  .  .
     From Palacky west to Pfeifer,
     Through the town of Fingal,
     Then northward to Ogallah,
     I ran on Si wash Injun Soorah,
     A Remedy for Liver Trouble,
     Take a wineglass full before each meal.
     Nearer, ever nearer, to my love at Nicodemus
     From Ogallah north to Happy,
     North to Happy, Kansas, in Graham County,
          Kansas,
     North and west to Happy, word of glorious omen . . .
     And the villagers came down to sniff the glad aroma
     Of the flying flivver
     As I turned north to Nicodemus
     At thirteen minutes until noon,
     Filled once more with! Stutter's Stomach Bitters
     I raced into the presence of my love,' Elvira Simpkins.
     Alas! Alas! Ala:
     Elvira did not clasp me in her sturdy Kansas
           arms
     She sniffed the air and said:
     “I never will be wedded
     To a man who reeks with liquor!
     Give me Uncle Jethro's money!
     And don't you leave that drunken flivver on the
           streets of Nicodemus.
     And she went and married Jasper Grinder after all.