Ballads of a Bohemian
R >>
Robert W. Service >> Ballads of a Bohemian
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9
Oh, don't you remember that moonlit sea,
With us on a silver trail afloat,
When I gracefully sank on my bended knee
At the risk of upsetting our little boat?
Oh, I vowed that my life was blighted then,
As friendship you proffered with mournful mien;
But now as I think of your children ten,
I'm glad you refused me, Evangeline.
Oh, is that moment eternal still
When I breathed my love in your shell-like ear,
And you plucked at your fan as a maiden will,
And you blushed so charmingly, Guenivere?
Like a worshiper at your feet I sat;
For a year and a day you made me mad;
But now, alas! you are forty, fat,
And I think: What a lucky escape I had!
Oh, maidens I've set in a sacred shrine,
Oh, Rosamond, Molly and Mignonette,
I've deemed you in turn the most divine,
In turn you've broken my heart . . . and yet
It's easily mended. What's past is past.
To-day on Lucy I'm going to call;
For I'm sure that I know true love at last,
And ~She~ is the fairest girl of all.
The ~Petit Vieux~
"Sow your wild oats in your youth," so we're always told;
But I say with deeper sooth: "Sow them when you're old."
I'll be wise till I'm about seventy or so:
Then, by Gad! I'll blossom out as an ancient ~beau~.
I'll assume a dashing air, laugh with loud Ha! ha! . . .
How my grandchildren will stare at their grandpapa!
Their perfection aureoled I will scandalize:
Won't I be a hoary old sinner in their eyes!
Watch me, how I'll learn to chaff barmaids in a bar;
Scotches daily, gayly quaff, puff a fierce cigar.
I will haunt the Tango teas, at the stage-door stand;
Wait for Dolly Dimpleknees, bouquet in my hand.
Then at seventy I'll take flutters at roulette;
While at eighty hope I'll make good at poker yet;
And in fashionable togs to the races go,
Gayest of the gay old dogs, ninety years or so.
"Sow your wild oats while you're young," that's what you are told;
Don't believe the foolish tongue -- sow 'em when you're old.
Till you're threescore years and ten, take my humble tip,
Sow your nice tame oats and then . . . Hi, boys! Let 'er rip.
My Masterpiece
It's slim and trim and bound in blue;
Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold;
Its words are simple, stalwart too;
Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.
Its pages scintillate with wit;
Its pathos clutches at my throat:
Oh, how I love each line of it!
That Little Book I Never Wrote.
In dreams I see it praised and prized
By all, from plowman unto peer;
It's pencil-marked and memorized,
It's loaned (and not returned, I fear);
It's worn and torn and travel-tossed,
And even dusky natives quote
That classic that the world has lost,
The Little Book I Never Wrote.
Poor ghost! For homes you've failed to cheer,
For grieving hearts uncomforted,
Don't haunt me now. . . . Alas! I fear
The fire of Inspiration's dead.
A humdrum way I go to-night,
From all I hoped and dreamed remote:
Too late . . . a better man must write
That Little Book I Never Wrote.
Talking about writing books, there is a queer character
who shuffles up and down the little streets that neighbor the Place Maubert,
and who, they say, has been engaged on one for years. Sometimes I see him
cowering in some cheap ~bouge~, and his wild eyes gleam at me
through the tangle of his hair. But I do not think he ever sees me.
He mumbles to himself, and moves like a man in a dream.
His pockets are full of filthy paper on which he writes from time to time.
The students laugh at him and make him tipsy; the street boys
pelt him with ordure; the better cafes turn him from their doors.
But who knows? At least, this is how I see him:
My Book
Before I drink myself to death,
God, let me finish up my Book!
At night, I fear, I fight for breath,
And wake up whiter than a spook;
And crawl off to a ~bistro~ near,
And drink until my brain is clear.
Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength
To write and write; and so I spend
Day after day, until at length
With joy and pain I'll write The End:
Then let this carcase rot; I give
The world my Book -- my Book will live.
For every line is tense with truth,
There's hope and joy on every page;
A cheer, a clarion call to Youth,
A hymn, a comforter to Age:
All's there that I was meant to be,
My part divine, the God in me.
It's of my life the golden sum;
Ah! who that reads this Book of mine,
In stormy centuries to come,
Will dream I rooted with the swine?
Behold! I give mankind my best:
What does it matter, all the rest?
It's this that makes sublime my day;
It's this that makes me struggle on.
Oh, let them mock my mortal clay,
My spirit's deathless as the dawn;
Oh, let them shudder as they look . . .
I'll be immortal in my Book.
And so beside the sullen Seine
I fight with dogs for filthy food,
Yet know that from my sin and pain
Will soar serene a Something Good;
Exultantly from shame and wrong
A Right, a Glory and a Song.
How charming it is, this Paris of the summer skies! Each morning
I leap up with joy in my heart, all eager to begin the day of work.
As I eat my breakfast and smoke my pipe, I ponder over my task.
Then in the golden sunshine that floods my little attic I pace up and down,
absorbed and forgetful of the world. As I compose I speak the words aloud.
There are difficulties to overcome; thoughts that will not fit their mold;
rebellious rhymes. Ah! those moments of despair and defeat.
Then suddenly the mind grows lucid, imagination glows, the snarl unravels.
In the end is always triumph and success. O delectable ~me/tier~!
Who would not be a rhymesmith in Paris, in Bohemia, in the heart of youth!
I have now finished my twentieth ballad. Five more and they will be done.
In quiet corners of cafes, on benches of the Luxembourg, on the sunny Quays
I read them over one by one. Here is my latest:
My Hour
Day after day behold me plying
My pen within an office drear;
The dullest dog, till homeward hieing,
Then lo! I reign a king of cheer.
A throne have I of padded leather,
A little court of kiddies three,
A wife who smiles whate'er the weather,
A feast of muffins, jam and tea.
The table cleared, a romping battle,
A fairy tale, a "Children, bed,"
A kiss, a hug, a hush of prattle
(God save each little drowsy head!)
A cozy chat with wife a-sewing,
A silver lining clouds that low'r,
Then she too goes, and with her going,
I come again into my Hour.
I poke the fire, I snugly settle,
My pipe I prime with proper care;
The water's purring in the kettle,
Rum, lemon, sugar, all are there.
And now the honest grog is steaming,
And now the trusty briar's aglow:
Alas! in smoking, drinking, dreaming,
How sadly swift the moments go!
Oh, golden hour! 'twixt love and duty,
All others I to others give;
But you are mine to yield to Beauty,
To glean Romance, to greatly live.
For in my easy-chair reclining . . .
~I feel the sting of ocean spray;
And yonder wondrously are shining
The Magic Isles of Far Away.
Beyond the comber's crashing thunder
Strange beaches flash into my ken;
On jetties heaped head-high with plunder
I dance and dice with sailor-men.
Strange stars swarm down to burn above me,
Strange shadows haunt, strange voices greet;
Strange women lure and laugh and love me,
And fling their bastards at my feet.
Oh, I would wish the wide world over,
In ports of passion and unrest,
To drink and drain, a tarry rover
With dragons tattooed on my chest,
With haunted eyes that hold red glories
Of foaming seas and crashing shores,
With lips that tell the strangest stories
Of sunken ships and gold moidores;
Till sick of storm and strife and slaughter,
Some ghostly night when hides the moon,
I slip into the milk-warm water
And softly swim the stale lagoon.
Then through some jungle python-haunted,
Or plumed morass, or woodland wild,
I win my way with heart undaunted,
And all the wonder of a child.
The pathless plains shall swoon around me,
The forests frown, the floods appall;
The mountains tiptoe to confound me,
The rivers roar to speed my fall.
Wild dooms shall daunt, and dawns be gory,
And Death shall sit beside my knee;
Till after terror, torment, glory,
I win again the sea, the sea. . . .~
Oh, anguish sweet! Oh, triumph splendid!
Oh, dreams adieu! my pipe is dead.
My glass is dry, my Hour is ended,
It's time indeed I stole to bed.
How peacefully the house is sleeping!
Ah! why should I strange fortunes plan?
To guard the dear ones in my keeping --
That's task enough for any man.
So through dim seas I'll ne'er go spoiling;
The red Tortugas never roam;
Please God! I'll keep the pot a-boiling,
And make at least a happy home.
My children's path shall gleam with roses,
Their grace abound, their joy increase.
And so my Hour divinely closes
With tender thoughts of praise and peace.
II
The Garden of the Luxembourg,
Late July 1914.
When on some scintillating summer morning I leap lightly
up to the seclusion of my garret, I often think of those lines:
"In the brave days when I was twenty-one."
True, I have no loving, kind Lisette to pin her petticoat across the pane,
yet I do live in hope. Am I not in Bohemia the Magical,
Bohemia of Murger, of de Musset, of Verlaine? Shades of Mimi Pinson,
of Trilby, of all that immortal line of laughterful grisettes,
do not tell me that the days of love and fun are forever at an end!
Yes, youth is golden, but what of age? Shall it too not testify
to the rhapsody of existence? Let the years between be those of struggle,
of sufferance -- of disillusion if you will; but let youth and age
affirm the ecstasy of being. Let us look forward all to a serene sunset,
and in the still skies "a late lark singing".
This thought comes to me as, sitting on a bench near the band-stand,
I see an old savant who talks to all the children. His clean-shaven face
is alive with kindliness; under his tall silk hat his white hair falls
to his shoulders. He wears a long black cape over a black frock-coat,
very neat linen, and a flowing tie of black silk. I call him
"Silvester Bonnard". As I look at him I truly think the best of life
are the years between sixty and seventy.
A Song of Sixty-Five
Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one,
And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer;
And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run,
Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year.
But if I worthy were to sing a richer, rarer time,
I'd tune my pipes before the fire and merrily I'd strive
To praise that age when prose again has given way to rhyme,
The Indian Summer days of life when I'll be Sixty-five;
For then my work will all be done, my voyaging be past,
And I'll have earned the right to rest where folding hills are green;
So in some glassy anchorage I'll make my cable fast, --
Oh, let the seas show all their teeth, I'll sit and smile serene.
The storm may bellow round the roof, I'll bide beside the fire,
And many a scene of sail and trail within the flame I'll see;
For I'll have worn away the spur of passion and desire. . . .
Oh yes, when I am Sixty-five, what peace will come to me.
I'll take my breakfast in my bed, I'll rise at half-past ten,
When all the world is nicely groomed and full of golden song;
I'll smoke a bit and joke a bit, and read the news, and then
I'll potter round my peach-trees till I hear the luncheon gong.
And after that I think I'll doze an hour, well, maybe two,
And then I'll show some kindred soul how well my roses thrive;
I'll do the things I never yet have found the time to do. . . .
Oh, won't I be the busy man when I am Sixty-five.
I'll revel in my library; I'll read De Morgan's books;
I'll grow so garrulous I fear you'll write me down a bore;
I'll watch the ways of ants and bees in quiet sunny nooks,
I'll understand Creation as I never did before.
When gossips round the tea-cups talk I'll listen to it all;
On smiling days some kindly friend will take me for a drive:
I'll own a shaggy collie dog that dashes to my call:
I'll celebrate my second youth when I am Sixty-five.
Ah, though I've twenty years to go, I see myself quite plain,
A wrinkling, twinkling, rosy-cheeked, benevolent old chap;
I think I'll wear a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane.
I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap.
I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee;
So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive.
Let others sing of Youth and Spring, still will it seem to me
The golden time's the olden time, some time round Sixty-five.
From old men to children is but a step, and there too,
in the shadow of the Fontaine de Medicis, I spend much of my time
watching the little ones. Childhood, so innocent, so helpless, so trusting,
is somehow pathetic to me.
There was one jolly little chap who used to play with a large
white Teddy Bear. He was always with his mother, a sweet-faced woman,
who followed his every movement with delight. I used to watch them both,
and often spoke a few words.
Then one day I missed them, and it struck me I had not seen them for a week,
even a month, maybe. After that I looked for them a time or two
and soon forgot.
Then this morning I saw the mother in the rue D'Assas.
She was alone and in deep black. I wanted to ask after the boy,
but there was a look in her face that stopped me.
I do not think she will ever enter the garden of the Luxembourg again.
Teddy Bear
O Teddy Bear! with your head awry
And your comical twisted smile,
You rub your eyes -- do you wonder why
You've slept such a long, long while?
As you lay so still in the cupboard dim,
And you heard on the roof the rain,
Were you thinking . . . what has become of ~him~?
And when will he play again?
Do you sometimes long for a chubby hand,
And a voice so sweetly shrill?
O Teddy Bear! don't you understand
Why the house is awf'ly still?
You sit with your muzzle propped on your paws,
And your whimsical face askew.
Don't wait, don't wait for your friend . . . because
He's sleeping and dreaming too.
Aye, sleeping long. . . . You remember how
He stabbed our hearts with his cries?
And oh, the dew of pain on his brow,
And the deeps of pain in his eyes!
And, Teddy Bear! you remember, too,
As he sighed and sank to his rest,
How all of a sudden he smiled to you,
And he clutched you close to his breast.
I'll put you away, little Teddy Bear,
In the cupboard far from my sight;
Maybe he'll come and he'll kiss you there,
A wee white ghost in the night.
But me, I'll live with my love and pain
A weariful lifetime through;
And my Hope: will I see him again, again?
Ah, God! If I only knew!
After old men and children I am greatly interested in dogs.
I will go out of my way to caress one who shows any desire to be friendly.
There is a very filthy fellow who collects cigarette stubs
on the Boul' Mich', and who is always followed by a starved yellow cur.
The other day I came across them in a little side street.
The man was stretched on the pavement brutishly drunk and dead to the world.
The dog, lying by his side, seemed to look at me with sad, imploring eyes.
Though all the world despise that man, I thought, this poor brute
loves him and will be faithful unto death.
From this incident I wrote the verses that follow:
The Outlaw
A wild and woeful race he ran
Of lust and sin by land and sea;
Until, abhorred of God and man,
They swung him from the gallows-tree.
And then he climbed the Starry Stair,
And dumb and naked and alone,
With head unbowed and brazen glare,
He stood before the Judgment Throne.
The Keeper of the Records spoke:
"This man, O Lord, has mocked Thy Name.
The weak have wept beneath his yoke,
The strong have fled before his flame.
The blood of babes is on his sword;
His life is evil to the brim:
Look down, decree his doom, O Lord!
Lo! there is none will speak for him."
The golden trumpets blew a blast
That echoed in the crypts of Hell,
For there was Judgment to be passed,
And lips were hushed and silence fell.
The man was mute; he made no stir,
Erect before the Judgment Seat . . .
When all at once a mongrel cur
Crept out and cowered and licked his feet.
It licked his feet with whining cry.
Come Heav'n, come Hell, what did it care?
It leapt, it tried to catch his eye;
Its master, yea, its God was there.
Then, as a thrill of wonder sped
Through throngs of shining seraphim,
The Judge of All looked down and said:
"Lo! here is ONE who pleads for him.
"And who shall love of these the least,
And who by word or look or deed
Shall pity show to bird or beast,
By Me shall have a friend in need.
Aye, though his sin be black as night,
And though he stand 'mid men alone,
He shall be softened in My sight,
And find a pleader by My Throne.
"So let this man to glory win;
From life to life salvation glean;
By pain and sacrifice and sin,
Until he stand before Me -- ~clean~.
For he who loves the least of these
(And here I say and here repeat)
Shall win himself an angel's pleas
For Mercy at My Judgment Seat."
I take my exercise in the form of walking. It keeps me fit and leaves me
free to think. In this way I have come to know Paris like my pocket.
I have explored its large and little streets, its stateliness and its slums.
But most of all I love the Quays, between the leafage and the sunlit Seine.
Like shuttles the little steamers dart up and down, weaving the water
into patterns of foam. Cigar-shaped barges stream under
the lacework of the many bridges and make me think of tranquil days
and willow-fringed horizons.
But what I love most is the stealing in of night, when the sky takes on
that strange elusive purple; when eyes turn to the evening star
and marvel at its brightness; when the Eiffel Tower becomes
a strange, shadowy stairway yearning in impotent effort to the careless moon.
Here is my latest ballad, short if not very sweet:
The Walkers
(~He speaks.~)
Walking, walking, oh, the joy of walking!
Swinging down the tawny lanes with head held high;
Striding up the green hills, through the heather stalking,
Swishing through the woodlands where the brown leaves lie;
Marveling at all things -- windmills gaily turning,
Apples for the cider-press, ruby-hued and gold;
Tails of rabbits twinkling, scarlet berries burning,
Wedge of geese high-flying in the sky's clear cold,
Light in little windows, field and furrow darkling;
Home again returning, hungry as a hawk;
Whistling up the garden, ruddy-cheeked and sparkling,
Oh, but I am happy as I walk, walk, walk!
(~She speaks.~)
Walking, walking, oh, the curse of walking!
Slouching round the grim square, shuffling up the street,
Slinking down the by-way, all my graces hawking,
Offering my body to each man I meet.
Peering in the gin-shop where the lads are drinking,
Trying to look gay-like, crazy with the blues;
Halting in a doorway, shuddering and shrinking
(Oh, my draggled feather and my thin, wet shoes).
Here's a drunken drover: "Hullo, there, old dearie!"
No, he only curses, can't be got to talk. . . .
On and on till daylight, famished, wet and weary,
God in Heaven help me as I walk, walk, walk!
III
The Cafe de la Source,
Late in July 1914.
The other evening MacBean was in a pessimistic mood.
"Why do you write?" he asked me gloomily.
"Obviously," I said, "to avoid starving. To produce something
that will buy me food, shelter, raiment."
"If you were a millionaire, would you still write?"
"Yes," I said, after a moment's thought. "You get an idea. It haunts you.
It seems to clamor for expression. It begins to obsess you.
At last in desperation you embody it in a poem, an essay, a story.
There! it is disposed of. You are at rest. It troubles you no more.
Yes; if I were a millionaire I should write, if it were only to escape
from my ideas."
"You have given two reasons why men write," said MacBean: "for gain,
for self-expression. Then, again, some men write to amuse themselves,
some because they conceive they have a mission in the world;
some because they have real genius, and are conscious they can enrich
the literature of all time. I must say I don't know of any
belonging to the latter class. We are living in an age of mediocrity.
There is no writer of to-day who will be read twenty years after he is dead.
That's a truth that must come home to the best of them."
"I guess they're not losing much sleep over it," I said.
"Take novelists," continued MacBean. "The line of first-class novelists
ended with Dickens and Thackeray. Then followed some of the second class,
Stevenson, Meredith, Hardy. And to-day we have three novelists
of the third class, good, capable craftsmen. We can trust ourselves
comfortably in their hands. We read and enjoy them, but do you think
our children will?"
"Yours won't, anyway," I said.
"Don't be too sure. I may surprise you yet. I may get married
and turn ~bourgeois~."
The best thing that could happen to MacBean would be that.
It might change his point of view. He is so painfully discouraging.
I have never mentioned my ballads to him. He would be sure
to throw cold water on them. And as it draws near to its end
the thought of my book grows more and more dear to me.
How I will get it published I know not; but I will.
Then even if it doesn't sell, even if nobody reads it, I will be content.
Out of this brief, perishable Me I will have made something concrete,
something that will preserve my thought within its dusty covers
long after I am dead and dust.
Here is one of my latest:
Poor Peter
Blind Peter Piper used to play
All up and down the city;
I'd often meet him on my way,
And throw a coin for pity.
But all amid his sparkling tones
His ear was quick as any
To catch upon the cobble-stones
The jingle of my penny.
And as upon a day that shone
He piped a merry measure:
"How well you play!" I chanced to say;
Poor Peter glowed with pleasure.
You'd think the words of praise I spoke
Were all the pay he needed;
The artist in the player woke,
The penny lay unheeded.
Now Winter's here; the wind is shrill,
His coat is thin and tattered;
Yet hark! he's playing trill on trill
As if his music mattered.
And somehow though the city looks
Soaked through and through with shadows,
He makes you think of singing brooks
And larks and sunny meadows.
Poor chap! he often starves, they say;
Well, well, I can believe it;
For when you chuck a coin his way
He'll let some street-boy thieve it.
I fear he freezes in the night;
My praise I've long repented,
Yet look! his face is all alight . . .
Blind Peter seems contented.
~A day later~.
On the terrace of the Closerie de Lilas I came on Saxon Dane.
He was smoking his big briar and drinking a huge glass of brown beer.
The tree gave a pleasant shade, and he had thrown his sombrero on a chair.
I noted how his high brow was bronzed by the sun and there were golden lights
in his broad beard. There was something massive and imposing in the man
as he sat there in brooding thought.
MacBean, he told me, was sick and unable to leave his room.
Rheumatism. So I bought a cooked chicken and a bottle of Barsac,
and mounting to the apartment of the invalid, I made him eat and drink.
MacBean was very despondent, but cheered up greatly.
I think he rather dreads the future. He cannot save money,
and all he makes he spends. He has always been a rover,
often tried to settle down but could not. Now I think he wishes for security.
I fear, however, it is too late.
The Wistful One
I sought the trails of South and North,
I wandered East and West;
But pride and passion drove me forth
And would not let me rest.
And still I seek, as still I roam,
A snug roof overhead;
Four walls, my own; a quiet home. . . .
"You'll have it -- ~when you're dead~."
MacBean is one of Bohemia's victims. It is a country of the young.
The old have no place in it. He will gradually lose his grip,
go down and down. I am sorry. He is my nearest approach to a friend.
I do not make them easily. I have deep reserves. I like solitude.
I am never so surrounded by boon companions as when I am all alone.
But though I am a solitary I realize the beauty of friendship,
and on looking through my note-book I find the following:
If You Had a Friend
If you had a friend strong, simple, true,
Who knew your faults and who understood;
Who believed in the very best of you,
And who cared for you as a father would;
Who would stick by you to the very end,
Who would smile however the world might frown:
I'm sure you would try to please your friend,
You never would think to throw him down.
And supposing your friend was high and great,
And he lived in a palace rich and tall,
And sat like a King in shining state,
And his praise was loud on the lips of all;
Well then, when he turned to you alone,
And he singled you out from all the crowd,
And he called you up to his golden throne,
Oh, wouldn't you just be jolly proud?
If you had a friend like this, I say,
So sweet and tender, so strong and true,
You'd try to please him in every way,
You'd live at your bravest -- now, wouldn't you?
His worth would shine in the words you penned;
You'd shout his praises . . . yet now it's odd!
You tell me you haven't got such a friend;
You haven't? I wonder . . . ~What of God?~
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9