We took up the Bhagavad Gita -- our Little
Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know --
in quite a thorough way the other
evening.
Isn't the Bhagavad Gita just simply WONDERFUL!
It has nothing at all to do with Bagdad, you
know -- though at first glance it seems quite like
it might, doesn't it?
Of course, they're both Oriental -- aren't you just
simply WILD about Oriental things? But really,
they're QUITE different.
The Bhagavad Gita, you know, is all about
Reincarnation and Karma, and all those lovely old
things.
When I start my Salon I'm going to have a
Bhagavad Gita Evening -- all in costume, you know.
I find that when I dress in harmony with the
Idea I RADIATE so much more effectively, if you
get what I mean.
Fothergil Finch is the same way.
He writes his best vers libre things in a purple
dressing-gown.
There's an amber-colored pane of glass in his
studio skylight, and he has to sit and wait and wait
and wait until the moonlight falls through that pane
onto his paper, and then it only stays long enough
so he can write a few lines, and he can't go on with
the poem until he comes again.
He brought me one last night -- he wrote it to me
yes, really! -- and he waited and waited for
enough moonlight to do it, and caught a terrible
cold in his head, poor dear Fothy.
It goes like this:
Poppies, poppies, silver poppies in the moonlight,
poppies!
Silver poppies,
Silver poppies in the moonlight,
Youth!
Poppies poppies, crimson poppies in the sunset,
Love!
Poppies, poppies, poppies!
Black poppies in the midnight,
Death!
Three colors of poppies!
One color is silver,
The second color is crimson,
The third color is black,
And if there were a fourth color it would be
green!
Alas! Why is there never a fourth color?
Poppies, poppies, poppies, but no Green Poppy!
I asked the little crippled girl who sells poppies to
Buy bread for the drunken father who beats her,