Ye, who are caught in the bonds of debt!
Ye, who are whipt with the thongs of scorn!
Feeding the ghost of some old regret
Born in a world that was tempest torn!
List to the words of a creed benign
Preached through the ages by old Omar:
Content ye, then, with a flask of Wine,
A girl, a song—and a good cigar!
The years that vanish leave no redress;
Last evening never a bridge has spanned;
So loll we here in the wilderness
That Love has sown in the arid sand:
The bush-birds sing of a world divine
As Pomp rolls by in its gilded car;
And I sit just so—with your hand in mine,
A bottle of wine—and a good cigar.
Heed not the pestilent kill-joys’ screech
That dulls your ears to the voice of Sue!
Disdain the gospel that dour men preach
To hide the light of her eyes from you!
Why should we sorrow, and sit supine
Or clutch the rays of some mystic star
While Love hangs near, on its drooping vine—
And smoke-wreaths curl from a good cigar?
This is the moment of all the year,
Casting a rose as it passes by—
Catch it quick! ere the leaves grow sere,
Blushing now ’neath an Austral sky;
For its petals whisper of His design,
Its heart is bursting with Life’s attar:
“A shady nook, with a flask of wine,
A lass, a loaf—and a good cigar!”
[Decoration: Man leading camel]
[Illustration: Four men in a bar]