[Dedicated to Frank Harris, editor of Vanity Fair]

On the black night, beneath the winter moon,
I clothed me in the limbs of Codia,
Swooning my soul out into her red throat,
So that the glimmer of our skins, the tune
Og our ripe rythm, seemed the hideous play
Of death-worms crawling on a corpse,afloat
With life that takes its thirst
Only from things accurst.

Closer than Clodia's clasp, Death had me down
To his black heart, and fed upon my breath,
So that we seemed a stilness -whiter than

Every morning, as I walk down
From my dreary lodgings, toward the town,
I see at a window, near the street,
The face of a woman, fair and sweet,
With soft brown eyes and chestnut hair,
And red lips, warm with the kisses left there.
And she stands there as long as she can see
The man who walks just ahead of me.

At night, when I come from my office down town,
There stands a woman with eyes of brown,
Smiling out through the window blind
At the man who is walking just behind.

This fellow and I resemble each other -

THE CURTAIN rose—the play began—
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze.
Long lark-notes clear the first act close,
So the soprano: then a hush—
The tenor, tender as a thrush;
Then loud and high the chorus rose,
Till, with a sudden rush and strong,
It ended in a storm of song.

The curtain fell—the music died—
The lights grew bright, revealing there

Searching the pile of corpses the victors found four Frenchmen still breathing. Three had scarcely a spark of life . . . the fourth seemed likely to survive and they reserved him for future torments.

- Parkman's History


A prisoner under the stars I lie,
With no friend near;
To-morrow they lead me forth to die,
The stake is ready, the torments set,
They will pay in full their deadly debt;
But I fear them not! Oh, none could fear
Of those who stood by Daulac's side­
While he prayed and laughed and sang and fought

You had two girls -- Baptiste --
One is Virginie --
Hold hard -- Baptiste!
Listen to me.

The whole drive was jammed
In that bend at the Cedars,
The rapids were dammed
With the logs tight rammed
And crammed; you might know
The Devil had clinched them below.

We worked three days -- not a budge,
'She's as tight as a wedge, on the ledge,'
Says our foreman;
'Mon Dieu! boys, look here,
We must get this thing clear.'
He cursed at the men
And we went for it then;
With our cant-dogs arow,
We just gave he-yo-ho;

In the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay
A catbird singing, never the same phrase twice.
Here under the pines a little off the road
In 1927 the Chief of Police
And Mrs. W. killed themselves together,
Sitting in a roadster. Ancient unshaken pilings
And underwater chunks of still-mortared brick
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel and Theater.
And here's where boats blew two blasts for the keeper
To shunt the iron swing-bridge. He leaned on the gears

Over and back,
the long waves crawl
and track the sand with foam;
night darkens, and the sea
takes on that desperate tone
of dark that wives put on
when all their love is done.

Over and back,
the tangled thread falls slack,
over and up and on;
over and all is sewn;
now while I bind the end,
I wish some fiery friend
would sweep impetuously
these fingers from the loom.

My weary thoughts
play traitor to my soul,
just as the toil is over;
swift while the woof is whole,

El Arabi! El Arabi! Burn in thy brilliance, mine own!
O Beautiful! O Barbarous! Seductive as a serpent is
That poises head and hood, and makes his body tremble to the drone
Of tom-tom and of cymbal wooed by love's assassin sorceries!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
The moon is down; we are alone;
May not our mouths meet, madden, mix, melt in the starlight of a kiss?
El Arabi!

There by the palms, the desert's edge, I drew thee to my heart and held
Thy shy slim beauty for a splendid second; and fell moaning back,

Wife
Reach out your arms, and hold me close and fast.
Tell me there are no memories of your past
That mar this love of ours, so great, so vast.

Husband
Some truths are cheapened when too oft averred.
Does not the deed speak louder than the word?
(dear God, that old dream woke again and stirred.)

Wife
As you love me, you never loved before?
Though oft you say it, say it yet once more.
My heart is jealous of those days of yore.

Husband
Sweet wife, dear comrade, mother of my child,

I should have thought
in a dream you would have brought
some lovely, perilous thing,
orchids piled in a great sheath,
as who would say (in a dream),
"I send you this,
who left the blue veins
of your throat unkissed."

Why was it that your hands
(that never took mine),
your hands that I could see
drift over the orchid-heads
so carefully,
your hands, so fragile, sure to lift
so gently, the fragile flower-stuff--
ah, ah, how was it

You never sent (in a dream)
the very form, the very scent,