Volume Ii Part 89 (1/2)

Most of the gray-green meadow land Was sold in parsimonious lots; The dingy houses stand Pressed by some stout contractor's hand Tightly together in their plots.

Through builded banks the sullen river Gropes, where its houses crouch and s.h.i.+ver.

Over the bridge the tyrant train Shrieks, and emerges on the plain.

In all the better gardens you may pa.s.s, (Product of many careful Sat.u.r.days), Large red geraniums and tall pampas gra.s.s Adorn the plots and mark the gravelled ways.

Sometimes in the background may be seen A private summer-house in white or green.

Here on warm nights the daughter brings Her vacillating clerk, To talk of small exciting things And touch his fingers through the dark.

He, in the uncomfortable breach Between her trilling laughters, Promises, in halting speech, Hopeless immense Hereafters.

She trembles like the pampas plumes.

Her strained lips haggle. He a.s.sumes The serious quest....

Now as the train is whistling past He takes her in his arms at last.

It's done. She blushes at his side Across the lawn--a bride, a bride.

The stout contractor will design, The lazy laborers will prepare, Another villa on the line; In the little garden-square Pampas gra.s.s will rustle there.

Harold Monro [1879-1932]

THE BETROTHED ”You must choose between me and your cigar”-- Breach of Promise case, circa 1885.

Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarreled about Havanas--we fought o'er a good cheroot-- And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box--let me consider a s.p.a.ce, In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie's face.

Maggie is pretty to look at--Maggie's a loving la.s.s.

But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pa.s.s.

There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away--

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown-- But I never could throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty--gray and dour and old-- With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold.

And the light of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the b.u.t.t of a dead cigar--