Classic Poem

(After an evening with Browning, Masefield, Lewis Carroll and Gertrude Stein)

I TURNED to the parlor in panic
And blurted out, " What must you think? "
She rippled, " Then let me the canick-
in clink! "

I soared to my feet; it was still dim. . . .
The moon, like an opal in fright,
Leaned over and whispered, " I killed him
Last night. "

Not an hour to lose; I would save her —
I fastened my spurs in the air
With the scent of the twilight I gave her
To wear.

And I thought, with a shriek, of how Friday
Would burst into corduroy pants —
And I drove like a fiend, and I cried " Day,
Advance! "

The wind smacked its lips, " Here's a nice treat. "
The sea was a forest of flame. . . .
And so to the billowy Bye Street
I came.

The stars at my shoulder were baying;
I surged through a hole i' the gate;
And I knew that the Bishop was saying,
" Too late. "
...

They tell me that no one believed me;
I never was asked to the feast. . . .
My dears, 'twas the cabby deceived me —