BALLADS OF A BOHEMIAN

     Alas! upon some starry height,
     The Gods of Excellence to please,
     This hand of mine will never smite
     The Harp of High Serenities.
     Mere minstrel of the street am I,
     To whom a careless coin you fling;
     But who, beneath the bitter sky,
     Blue-lipped, yet insolent of eye,
     Can shrill a song of Spring;
     A song of merry mansard days,
     The cheery chimney-tops among;
     Of rolics and of roundelays
     When we were young . . . when we were young;
     A song of love and lilac nights,
     Of wit, of wisdom and of wine;
     Of Folly whirling on the Heights,
     Of hunger and of hope divine;
     Of Blanche, Suzette and Celestine,
     And all that gay and tender band
     Who shared with us the fat, the lean,
     The hazard of Illusion-land;
     When scores of Philistines we slew
     As mightily with brush and pen
     We sought to make the world anew,
     And scorned the gods of other men;
     When we were fools divinely wise,
     Who held it rapturous to strive;
     When Art was sacred in our eyes,
     And it was Heav'n to be alive. . . .

     O days of glamor, glory, truth,
     To you to-night I raise my glass;
     O freehold of immortal youth,
     Bohemia, the lost, alas!
     O laughing lads who led the romp,
     Respectable you've grown, I'm told;
     Your heads you bow to power and pomp,
     You've learned to know the worth of gold.
     O merry maids who shared our cheer,
     Your eyes are dim, your locks are gray;
     And as you scrub I sadly fear
     Your daughters speed the dance to-day.
     O windmill land and crescent moon!
     O Columbine and Pierrette!
     To you my old guitar I tune
     Ere I forget, ere I forget. . . .

     So come, good men who toil and tire,
     Who smoke and sip the kindly cup,
     Ring round about the tavern fire
     Ere yet you drink your liquor up;
     And hear my simple songs of earth,
     Of youth and truth and living things;
     Of poverty and proper mirth,
     Of rags and rich imaginings;
     Of cock-a-hoop, blue-heavened days,
     Of hearts elate and eager breath,
     Of wonder, worship, pity, praise,
     Of sorrow, sacrifice and death;
     Of lusting, laughter, passion, pain,
     Of lights that lure and dreams that thrall . . .
     And if a golden word I gain,
     Oh, kindly folks, God save you all!
     And if you shake your heads in blame . . .
     Good friends, God love you all the same.

     Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs;
     Here's where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies,
     Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares,
     My sounding sonnets and my red romances.
     Here's where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes,
     And grope at glory—aye, and starve at times.

     Here is my Stronghold:  stout of heart am I,
     Greeting each dawn as songful as a linnet;
     And when at night on yon poor bed I lie
     (Blessing the world and every soul that's in it),
     Here's where I thank the Lord no shadow bars
     My skylight's vision of the valiant stars.

     Here is my Palace tapestried with dreams.
     Ah! though to-night ten sous are all my treasure,
     While in my gaze immortal beauty gleams,
     Am I not dowered with wealth beyond all measure?
     Though in my ragged coat my songs I sing,
     King of my soul, I envy not the king.

     Here is my Haven:  it's so quiet here;
     Only the scratch of pen, the candle's flutter;
     Shabby and bare and small, but O how dear!
     Mark you—my table with my work a-clutter,
     My shelf of tattered books along the wall,
     My bed, my broken chair—that's nearly all.

     Only four faded walls, yet mine, all mine.
     Oh, you fine folks, a pauper scorns your pity.
     Look, where above me stars of rapture shine;
     See, where below me gleams the siren city . . .
     Am I not rich?—a millionaire no less,
     If wealth be told in terms of Happiness.

  You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his môme. . . .
  Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
  A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache,—
  Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
  From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat,
  With every trick of twist and kick, a master of savate.
  And Gigolette was tall and fair, as stupid as a cow,
  With three combs in the greasy hair she banged upon her brow.
  You'd see her on the Place Pigalle on any afternoon,
  A primitive and strapping wench as brazen as the moon.
  And yet there is a tale that's told of Clichy after dark,
  And two gendarmes who swung their arms with Julot for a mark.
  And oh, but they'd have got him too; they banged and blazed away,
  When like a flash a woman leapt between them and their prey.
  She took the medicine meant for him; she came down with a crash . . .
  "Quick now, and make your get-away, O Julot the apache!" . . .
  But no!  He turned, ran swiftly back, his arms around her met;
  They nabbed him sobbing like a kid, and kissing Gigolette.

  Now I'm a reckless painter chap who loves a jamboree,
  And one night in Cyrano's bar I got upon a spree;
  And there were trollops all about, and crooks of every kind,
  But though the place was reeling round I didn't seem to mind.
  Till down I sank, and all was blank when in the bleary dawn
  I woke up in my studio to find—my money gone;
  Three hundred francs I'd scraped and squeezed to pay my quarter's rent.
  "Some one has pinched my wad," I wailed; "it never has been spent."
  And as I racked my brains to seek how I could raise some more,
  Before my cruel landlord kicked me cowering from the door:
  A knock . . . "Come in," I gruffly groaned; I did not raise my head,
  Then lo! I heard a husky voice, a swift and silky tread:
  "You got so blind, last night, mon vieux, I collared all your cash—
  Three hundred francs. . . .  There!  Nom de Dieu," said Julot the apache.

  And that was how I came to know Julot and Gigolette,
  And we would talk and drink a bock, and smoke a cigarette.
  And I would meditate upon the artistry of crime,
  And he would tell of cracking cribs and cops and doing time;
  Or else when he was flush of funds he'd carelessly explain
  He'd biffed some bloated bourgeois on the border of the Seine.
  So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace,
  And not a desperado and the terror of the police.

  Now one day in a bistro that's behind the Place Vendôme
  I came on Julot the apache, and Gigolette his môme.
  And as they looked so very grave, says I to them, says I,
  "Come on and have a little glass, it's good to rinse the eye.
  You both look mighty serious; you've something on the heart."
  "Ah, yes," said Julot the apache, "we've something to impart.
  When such things come to folks like us, it isn't very gay . . .
  It's Gigolette—she tells me that a gosse is on the way."
  Then Gigolette, she looked at me with eyes like stones of gall:
  "If we were honest folks," said she, "I wouldn't mind at all.
  But then . . . you know the life we lead; well, anyway I mean
  (That is, providing it's a girl) to call her Angeline."
  "Cheer up," said I; "it's all in life.  There's gold within the dross.
  Come on, we'll drink another verre to Angeline the gosse."

  And so the weary winter passed, and then one April morn
  The worthy Julot came at last to say the babe was born.
  "I'd like to chuck it in the Seine," he sourly snarled, "and yet
  I guess I'll have to let it live, because of Gigolette."
  I only laughed, for sure I saw his spite was all a bluff,
  And he was prouder than a prince behind his manner gruff.
  Yet every day he'd blast the brat with curses deep and grim,
  And swear to me that Gigolette no longer thought of him.
  And then one night he dropped the mask; his eyes were sick with dread,
  And when I offered him a smoke he groaned and shook his head:
  "I'm all upset; it's Angeline . . . she's covered with a rash . . .
  She'll maybe die, my little gosse," cried Julot the apache.

  But Angeline, I joy to say, came through the test all right,
  Though Julot, so they tell me, watched beside her day and night.
  And when I saw him next, says he:  "Come up and dine with me.
  We'll buy a beefsteak on the way, a bottle and some brie."
  And so I had a merry night within his humble home,
  And laughed with Angeline the gosse and Gigolette the môme.
  And every time that Julot used a word the least obscene,
  How Gigolette would frown at him and point to Angeline:
  Oh, such a little innocent, with hair of silken floss,
  I do not wonder they were proud of Angeline the gosse.
  And when her arms were round his neck, then Julot says to me:
  "I must work harder now, mon vieux, since I've to work for three."
  He worked so very hard indeed, the police dropped in one day,
  And for a year behind the bars they put him safe away.

  So dark and silent now, their home; they'd gone—I wondered where,
  Till in a laundry near I saw a child with shining hair;
  And o'er the tub a strapping wench, her arms in soapy foam;
  Lo! it was Angeline the gosse, and Gigolette the môme.
  And so I kept an eye on them and saw that all went right,
  Until at last came Julot home, half crazy with delight.
  And when he'd kissed them both, says he:  "I've had my fill this time.
  I'm on the honest now, I am; I'm all fed up with crime.
  You mark my words, the page I turn is going to be clean,
  I swear it on the head of her, my little Angeline."

  And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled
  Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old.
  I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache . . .
  I stopped, I stared. . . .  By all the gods! 'twas Julot the apache.
  "I'm in the garden way," he said, "and doing mighty well;
  I've half an acre under glass, and heaps of truck to sell.
  Come out and see.  Oh come, my friend, on Sunday, wet or shine . . .
  Say!—it's the First Communion of that little girl of mine."

     O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
     Ten sous have I, so I'll regale;
     Ten sous your amber brew to sip
     (Eight for the bock and two the tip),
     And so I'll sit the evening long,
     And smoke my pipe and watch the throng,
     The giddy crowd that drains and drinks,
     I'll watch it quiet as a sphinx;
     And who among them all shall buy
     For ten poor sous such joy as I?
     As I who, snugly tucked away,
     Look on it all as on a play,
     A frolic scene of love and fun,
     To please an audience of One.

     O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
     You've stuff indeed for many a tale.
     All eyes, all ears, I nothing miss:
     Two lovers lean to clasp and kiss;
     The merry students sing and shout,
     The nimble garcons dart about;
     Lo! here come Mimi and Musette
     With:  "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?"
     Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too,
     Behold the old rapscallion crew,
     With flowing tie and shaggy head . . .
     Who says Bohemia is dead?
     Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown,
     And I will watch and write it down.

     O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
     What crackling throats have gulped your ale!
     What sons of Fame from far and near
     Have glowed and mellowed in your cheer!
     Within this corner where I sit
     Banville and Coppée clashed their wit;
     And hither too, to dream and drain,
     And drown despair, came poor Verlaine.
     Here Wilde would talk and Synge would muse,
     Maybe like me with just ten sous.
     Ah! one is lucky, is one not?
     With ghosts so rare to drain a pot!
     So may your custom never fail,
     O Tavern of the Golden Snail!

     Lone amid the cafe's cheer,
     Sad of heart am I to-night;
     Dolefully I drink my beer,
     But no single line I write.
     There's the wretched rent to pay,
     Yet I glower at pen and ink:
     Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray,
     It is later than you think!
     Hello! there's a pregnant phrase.
     Bravo! let me write it down;
     Hold it with a hopeful gaze,
     Gauge it with a fretful frown;
     Tune it to my lyric lyre . . .
     Ah! upon starvation's brink,
     How the words are dark and dire:
     It is later than you think.

     Weigh them well. . . .  Behold yon band,
     Students drinking by the door,
     Madly merry, bock in hand,
     Saucers stacked to mark their score.
     Get you gone, you jolly scamps;
     Let your parting glasses clink;
     Seek your long neglected lamps:
     It is later than you think.

     Look again:  yon dainty blonde,
     All allure and golden grace,
     Oh so willing to respond
     Should you turn a smiling face.
     Play your part, poor pretty doll;
     Feast and frolic, pose and prink;
     There's the Morgue to end it all,
     And it's later than you think.

     Yon's a playwright—mark his face,
     Puffed and purple, tense and tired;
     Pasha-like he holds his place,
     Hated, envied and admired.
     How you gobble life, my friend;
     Wine, and woman soft and pink!
     Well, each tether has its end:
     Sir, it's later than you think.

     See yon living scarecrow pass
     With a wild and wolfish stare
     At each empty absinthe glass,
     As if he saw Heaven there.
     Poor damned wretch, to end your pain
     There is still the Greater Drink.
     Yonder waits the sanguine Seine . . .
     It is later than you think.

     Lastly, you who read; aye, you
     Who this very line may scan:
     Think of all you planned to do . . .
     Have you done the best you can?
     See! the tavern lights are low;
     Black's the night, and how you shrink!
     God! and is it time to go?
     Ah! the clock is always slow;
     It is later than you think;
     Sadly later than you think;
     Far, far later than you think.

     Zut! it's two o'clock.
     See! the lights are jumping.
     Finish up your bock,
     Time we all were humping.
     Waiters stack the chairs,
     Pile them on the tables;
     Let us to our lairs
     Underneath the gables.

     Up the old Boul' Mich'
     Climb with steps erratic.
     Steady . . . how I wish
     I was in my attic!
     Full am I with cheer;
     In my heart the joy stirs;
     Couldn't be the beer,
     Must have been the oysters.

     In obscene array
     Garbage cans spill over;
     How I wish that they
     Smelled as sweet as clover!
     Charing women wait;
     Cafes drop their shutters;
     Rats perambulate
     Up and down the gutters.

     Down the darkened street
     Market carts are creeping;
     Horse with wary feet,
     Red-faced driver sleeping.
     Loads of vivid greens,
     Carrots, leeks, potatoes,
     Cabbages and beans,
     Turnips and tomatoes.

     Pair of dapper chaps,
     Cigarettes and sashes,
     Stare at me, perhaps
     Desperate Apachès.
     "Needn't bother me,
     Jolly well you know it;
     Parceque je suis
     Quartier Latin poète.
     "Give you villanelles,
     Madrigals and lyrics;
     Ballades and rondels,
     Odes and panegyrics.
     Poet pinched and poor,
     Pricked by cold and hunger;
     Trouble's troubadour,
     Misery's balladmonger."

     Think how queer it is!
     Every move I'm making,
     Cosmic gravity's
     Center I am shaking;
     Oh, how droll to feel
     (As I now am feeling),
     Even as I reel,
     All the world is reeling.

     Reeling too the stars,
     Neptune and Uranus,
     Jupiter and Mars,
     Mercury and Venus;
     Suns and moons with me,
     As I'm homeward straying,
     All in sympathy
     Swaying, swaying, swaying.

     Lord! I've got a head.
     Well, it's not surprising.
     I must gain my bed
     Ere the sun be rising;
     When the merry lark
     In the sky is soaring,
     I'll refuse to hark,
     I'll be snoring, snoring.

     Strike a sulphur match . . .
     Ha! at last my garret.
     Fumble at the latch,
     Close the door and bar it.
     Bed, you graciously
     Wait, despite my scorning . . .
     So, bibaciously
     Mad old world, good morning.

     Heigh ho! to sleep I vainly try;
     Since twelve I haven't closed an eye,
     And now it's three, and as I lie,
     From Notre Dame to St. Denis
     The bells of Paris chime to me;
     "You're young," they say, "and strong and free."

     I do not turn with sighs and groans
     To ease my limbs, to rest my bones,
     As if my bed were stuffed with stones,
     No peevish murmur tips my tongue—
     Ah no! for every sound upflung
     Says:  "Lad, you're free and strong and young."

     And so beneath the sheet's caress
     My body purrs with happiness;
     Joy bubbles in my veins. . . .  Ah yes,
     My very blood that leaps along
     Is chiming in a joyous song,
     Because I'm young and free and strong.

     I think the moon must be to blame:
     It fills the room with fairy flame;
     It paints the wall, it seems to pour
     A dappled flood upon the floor.
     I rise and through the window stare . . .
     Ye gods! how marvelously fair!
     From Montrouge to the Martyr's Hill,
     A silver city rapt and still;
     Dim, drowsy deeps of opal haze,
     And spire and dome in diamond blaze;
     The little lisping leaves of spring
     Like sequins softly glimmering;
     Each roof a plaque of argent sheen,
     A gauzy gulf the space between;
     Each chimney-top a thing of grace,
     Where merry moonbeams prank and chase;
     And all that sordid was and mean,
     Just Beauty, deathless and serene.

     O magic city of a dream!
     From glory unto glory gleam;
     And I will gaze and pity those
     Who on their pillows drowse and doze . . .
     And as I've nothing else to do,
     Of tea I'll make a rousing brew,
     And coax my pipes until they croon,
     And chant a ditty to the moon.

     The moon peeped out behind the hill
     As yellow as an apricot;
     Then up and up it climbed until
     Into the sky it fairly got;
     The sky was vast and violet;
     The poor moon seemed to faint in fright,
     And pale it grew and paler yet,
     Like fine old silver, rinsed and bright.
     And yet it climbed so bravely on
     Until it mounted heaven-high;
     Then earthward it serenely shone,
     A silver sovereign of the sky,
     A bland sultana of the night,
     Surveying realms of lily light.

     A child saw in the morning skies
     The dissipated-looking moon,
     And opened wide her big blue eyes,
     And cried:  "Look, look, my lost balloon!"
     And clapped her rosy hands with glee:
     "Quick, mother!  Bring it back to me."

     A poet in a lilied pond
     Espied the moon's reflected charms,
     And ravished by that beauty blonde,
     Leapt out to clasp her in his arms.
     And as he'd never learnt to swim,
     Poor fool! that was the end of him.

     A rustic glimpsed amid the trees
     The bluff moon caught as in a snare.
     "They say it do be made of cheese,"
     Said Giles, "and that a chap bides there. . . .
     That Blue Boar ale be strong, I vow—
     The lad's a-winkin' at me now."

     Two lovers watched the new moon hold
     The old moon in her bright embrace.
     Said she:  "There's mother, pale and old,
     And drawing near her resting place."
     Said he:  "Be mine, and with me wed,"
     Moon-high she stared . . . she shook her head.

     A soldier saw with dying eyes
     The bleared moon like a ball of blood,
     And thought of how in other skies,
     So pearly bright on leaf and bud
     Like peace its soft white beams had lain;
     Like Peace! . . .  He closed his eyes again.

     Child, lover, poet, soldier, clown,
     Ah yes, old Moon, what things you've seen!
     I marvel now, as you look down,
     How can your face be so serene?
     And tranquil still you'll make your round,
     Old Moon, when we are underground.