Franklin P. Adams

“ Palmer has taken the raw, human—all too human—stuff of the underworld, with its sighs of sadness and regret, its mad merriment, its swift blaze of passion, its turbulent dances, its outlaw music, its songs of the social bandit, and made a new art product of the theatre. She is to the sources of jazz and the blues what François Villon was to the wild life of Paris. ”

“ Swift as the wind, to use a new expression—
Care is some sprinter.
Merry and bright, the citizen who’s cheerful
Won’t worry much about to-morrow’s breakfast.
“No one,” he smiles, “who faces Time the pitcher
Wallops one thousand.”
There was Achilles, cut off in his twenties,
And, au contraire, Tithonus was a hundred:
I may be lucky; you might be run over
Most any morning.
You’ve got a farm with fancy sheep and heifers;
You’ve got a mare all curry-combed and glossy;
Purple silk socks and purple fancy weskits—
You’re a swell dresser.
And what has Fate, the undeceitful, slipped me? ”

“ Book I., Ode 13.
"Quem tu, Lydia, Telephi Cervicem roseam, cerea Telephi—"
What time thou yearnest for the arms
Of Telephus, I fain would twist 'em;
When thou dost praise his other charms
It just upsets my well-known system;
My brain is like a three-ring circus,
In short, it gets my capra hircus.
My reason reels, my cheeks grow pale,
My heart becomes unduly spiteful,
My verses in the Evening Mail
Are far from snappy and delightful.
I put a civil question, Lyddy:
Is that a way to treat one's stiddy? ”

“ Blow on, thou wind, blow on!
Across my little bed
Blow on!
It’s true there’s aching in my head;
It’s true my room is twenty-two;
My feet are numb; my lips are blue—
But please don’t let that worry you! ”

“ This is my firm conclusion,
Come to but yesternight:
Woman, respect my wishes —
Can you not cease to sing
While you are washing dishes?
You are an Awful Thing.
Melody is not in you
You are from song immune. ”

“ To find what years remain to you
To know your length of tether
And the weather
In advance.
Life? Don’t have such a thirst of it;
The best you get’s the worst of it!
You can’t be here forever,
They assever. ”

“ That one last word in humor,
That was-to-be-deathless line!
It may be that Death’s bright Angel
Will slip me that joke, I guess,
But that does me no good this morning
When the page is going to press. ”

“ Well, William, when your people cease to strafe,
When you have put an end to all this war stuff,
When all the world is reasonably safe,
I'll write some more stuff.
And when you miss the quip and wanton wile,
And learn you can't endure the Towerless season,
O William, I shall not be petty ... I'll
Listen to reason. ”

“ Lady, better bards than I,
Poets of an elder day,
Seemed to love to versify
On “her eyes,” or blue or gray.
’T is an oft-recurrent theme
For the bards who rhapsodize;
Not a one but used to dream
Of the loveliness of eyes. ”

“ You never say “How small the bat is!”
You never have to ask who that is.
Nay, Myrt, too well you like the game;
You are too true a devotee;
My Blue-Print is the kind of dame
Whose love is less for ball than me ”

“ Chop it, old top, it arouses my goat.
Blame not the stuff that is sacred to Bacchus;
Cupid’s the reason that pome isn’t done.
He is some deity, flip it from Flaccus,
Keeps me from finishing work I’ve begun. ”

“ Because I’m fresh and will not shut up
You think that I’m an awful cut-up.
A poet in the major league
Must lead a life above suspicion,
Though he may write of love, intrigue,
Society and prohibition. ”

“ And strong with the salt of hopeless years,
And her heart is heavy with Dread and Hate
And she questions Justice whose name is Fate;
And she wonders, too, at the will to live,
As she thinks of the things she cannot give. ”

“ O pretty Pyrrha, false as fair,
For whom dost thou do up thy hair,
Thy crown of gold, thy shining tresses?
What gracile youth gives thee caresses?
Alas! How often shall he find
The faithlessness of womankind! ”

“ The Morgans and such hadn’t any too much,
And the poorest had more than enough.
Return once again, O ye days that I sing,
When Labor was wearing a crown!
O life was more spacious, grab this from Horatius,
When Rome was a Socialist town. ”

“ CHORUS: "I cannot pay that premium, I'll have to let it go;
It fills me with remorse and sorrow, not to mention woe.
Though I'm quite strong and healthy, and will outlive you, perhaps,
I cannot pay that premium; I'll have to let it lapse."
The wife she naught did answer, for it cut her to the quick;
She washed the dishes, filled the lamp, and likewise trimmed the wick;
She took in washing the next day and played bridge whist all night,
Until she had enough to pay her husband's premium, quite. ”

“ She labored all day in the hot little kitchen;
She washed and she ironed and hummed most bewitchin’,
The beautiful anthem of Erin go bragh.
All friendless and lonely was Maggie O’Ryan,
No sweethearts there came her lone heart to beguile;
Yet cheerful and gladsome, nor sobbin’ nor sighin’,
For friends that were left in the Emerald Isle;
No threnody hers for the land she was born in;
She always arose before six in the mornin’,
And sang the sweet strains of her “Erin Mavourneen”—
The minor melodics of Erin go bragh. ”

“ Remember, I'm the bard that built the first Horatian ode.
I shall not altogether die; a part of me's immortal.
A part of me shall never pass the mortuary portal;
And when I die my fame shall stand the nitric test of time—
The fame of me of lowly birth, who built the lofty rhyme! ”

“ He has no end of patience with others, and he is always willing to oversee what they are doing, and to offer them counsel. When it comes to giving his time and his energy there is nobody who could not admit that Henry is generous. To a fault, I have even heard people go so far as to say.
If, for instance, Henry happens to drop in while four of his friends are struggling along through a game of bridge he does not cut in and take a hand, thereby showing up their playing in comparison to his. No, Henry draws up a chair and sits looking on with a kindly smile. ”

“ The hills and waters o’er,
When those summer tourists moor’d their bark
On the swell New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the weak-hearted, came.
But, like a bunch of exiled bums,
Trying to beat the game. ”

“ From what clouds cannot sunshine be distilled! When, in a fit of godless rage, Mr. Carlyle threw a teacup at the good woman he had vowed at the altar to love, honour, and obey, she smiled and the thought of China entered her head. ”

“ Left everything to keep, one night,
A small appointment.
And are you sure the girl you love—
This maid on whom you have your heart set
Is lowly—that she is not of
The Roman smart set?
A maiden modest as is she,
So full of sweetness and forbearance,
Must be all right; her folks must be
Delightful parents. ”

“ Charlie has no end of anecdotes about the interesting women he meets, too. There is one girl he often dwells on, who, if you only give her time, can get you little bottles of chartreuse, each containing an individual drink. Another gifted young woman friend of his is the inventor of a cocktail in which you mix a spoonful of orange marmalade. ”

“ No gold-reguerdoned poet I to puff a book for pelf,
For even I am forced to buy the books I praise myself,
Albeit there be those that think that when I laud a tome
Its publisher invites me in to make myself at home. ”

“ Phyllis, I've a keg of fine fermented grape juice,
Alban wine that's been nine years in the cellar.
Ivy chaplets? Sure. Also, in the garden,
Plenty of parsley.
See my little shack—why, you'd hardly know it.
All the rooms are swept, Sunday-like and shiny;
Flowers all around, altar simply famished—
Hungry for lamb stew.
Neighbours all are coming over to the party,
All the busy boys, all the giggling girlies,
Whiffs of certain things wafted from the kitchen—
Simply delicious.
Oh, of course. You ask why the fancy fireworks,
Why the awning out, why the stylish doings. ”

“ Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher that the boy brings up the hall.
But sweeter to me than the sparrow's song or the goose's autumn honks
Is the sound of the ice in the shaker as the barkeeper mixes a Bronx.
Between the dark and the daylight, when I'm worried about The Tower,
Comes a pause in the day's tribulations that is known as the cocktail hour ”

“ Though the universal rumor
Place her at the top of fun,
To my narrow mind, of humor
She has absolutely none.
Lives of actresses remind us,
We can make an awful Hit,
If we only put behind us
All our Piety and Wit. ”

“ He is lacking in ambition and in force.
If a man but bats his consort oh-so-gently on the head,
If he throttles her a little round the neck,
He's a brute; if he's considerately conjugal instead,
Everybody calls him Mr. Henry Peck.
Lowers Scylla—frowns Charybdis—and the bark is like to sink—
This the symbolistic moral of my rhyme—
If Opinion trims your sails and if you care what people think
You will have a most unhappy sort of time.
An Election Night Pantoum
Gaze at the good-natured crowd,
List to the noise and the rattle!
Heavens! that woman is loud—
Loud as the din of a battle. ”

“ There’s such a charm in melancholy
I would not, if I could, be gay.
For me the month is never May.
Fate hurls at me a daily volley.
The nights are black, the noons are gray—
Go! you may call it madness, folly. ”