Classic Poem

Sir Tristram was a Bear, in listed field
Or lady's bower, Champeen with sword or song;
All that life's traffic could be made to yield
Trist took; He'd tell some Sweet Thing, " You belong! "
And with that word he'd cop her from the throng.
Boudoir or tourney, tea or dancing green,
He never kept them waiting very long;
Nor Foe nor Frail had really turned his bean
Until he lamped King Mark of Cornwall's sprightly Queen.

Mark was a Pill. His little Dame had Class . . .
One of those Unions that neglect to Une . . .
She was a Saint! He was a Hound! Alas,
That such a Peach should marry such a Prune!
Why did she stick? Who knows the inward tune
To which these women march? We know, at least,
Mark had a Wad, and bought her gowns and shoon . . .
Also, one eats or one is soon deceased. . . .
Mayhap it was a case of Booty and the Beast!

Tristram rode by her palace on a day
When some young angel leaned from Paradise
And loved the earth and laughed and made it May;
And Izzy saw his lovely purple eyes —
Not the young angel's: Tristram's; otherwise
She might have flagged the angel for her Beau
Instead of Tristram. Ah! what tears and sighs
Were saved if women never looked below
The angels . . . yet, no doubt, at times they'd find it slow.

As she gave him the rapt Once Over, he
Felt all his bounding pulses pause, then fill
With love as tidal creeks flood from the sea. . . .
Sir Tristram, if you get me, got Some Thrill. . . .
One jump and he was at her window-sill,
The Sudden Cuss! " Divinity! " he said,
" Newly descended from th' Olympian Hill,
I'm yourn! Say, are you single? Are you wed?
If so, where is your Spouse? — I'll go and chop his head! "

" I'm not Olympian sir, " she said, " but only
Of this hick realm the melancholy Queen.
You love me, Stranger? Thanks! I get so lonely!
As for your kindly offer to unbean
My liege lord, 'Ataboy! I loathe a Scene,
As all Nice Women should, but this is Fate —
No girl can dodge her destiny, I ween . . .
Or do I dream? Pinch me — Ouch! Don't! I'd hate
To have you get some Horrid Notion in your pate!

" I know you'll think me Unconventional! " —
" What are conventions 'twixt Affinities? " —
" I always thought love was more gradual! "
" Let Temperate Zones grow warmer by degrees,
But why should we Equators think of these? " —
" Why does your mustache taste that funny way? " —
" Something the barber does. " — " Stop him! " — " Say please! "
" Please, then — and could you murder Mark to-day! "
" I'll cut his throat 'mid the sweet twilight's tender gray! " —

Ah, pretty prattle, innocent and artless!
Sweet interchange as when lute answers lute!
These cooing doves! what Fiend could be so heartless
As wish to make their happy murmurs mute?
What Fiend but Mark! That wicked, sly old brute,
Whenever his fair wife would kiss a stranger,
Would scowl at her and even stamp his boot,
Or read her lectures on A Young Wife's Danger —
When Home is Hell what wonder if Love proves a Ranger!

The Spoilsport crept behind them as they kissed
And slammed the window down across their necks,
Nor any guardian spirit grabbed his wrist,
And in one instant both of them were Wrecks!
The sad tale's Moral goes for either sex:
Don't spoon beneath a giddy guillotine
If any one's about whom it may vex —
Make love quite out of windows or quite in
If you aspire to keep a chest below your chin.

And so they died, in Cornwall by the sea,
Where tides asthmatic ever wheeze and snortle,
And the damp tin miners going home to tea
Still hear sometimes old Mark's complacent chortle
As his lean ghost by a ghostly window-portal
Slams phantom sashes down and gloats and gloats. . . .
And so they died, and so they are immortal,
And in Elysian meadows feel their oats
Forever! Death can never get true lovers' goats!