Because my overcoat's in pawn,
I choose to take my glass
Within a little _bistro_ on
The rue du Montparnasse;
The dusty bins with bottles shine,
The counter's lined with zinc,
And there I sit and drink my wine,
And think and think and think.
I think of hoary old Stamboul,
Of Moslem and of Greek,
Of Persian in coat of wool,
Of Kurd and Arab sheikh;
Of all the types of weal and woe,
And as I raise my glass,
Across Galata bridge I know
They pass and pass and pass.
I think of citron-trees aglow,
Of fan-palms shading down,
Of sailors dancing heel and toe
With wenches black and brown;
And though it's all an ocean far
From Yucatan to France,
I'll bet beside the old bazaar
They dance and dance and dance.
I think of Monte Carlo, where
The pallid croupiers call,
And in the gorgeous, guilty air
The gamblers watch the ball;
And as I flick away the foam
With which my beer is crowned,
The wheels beneath the gilded dome
Go round and round and round.
I think of vast Niagara,
Those gulfs of foam a-shine,
Whose mighty roar would stagger a
More prosy bean than mine;
And as the hours I idly spend
Against a greasy wall,
I know that green the waters bend
And fall and fall and fall.
I think of Nijni Novgorod
And Jews who never rest;
And womenfolk with spade and hod
Who slave in Buda-Pest;
Of squat and sturdy Japanese
Who pound the paddy soil,
And as I loaf and smoke at ease
They toil and toil and toil.
I think of shrines in Hindustan,
Of cloistral glooms in Spain,
Of minarets in Ispahan,
Of St. Sophia's fane,
Of convent towers in Palestine,
Of temples in Cathay,
And as I stretch and sip my wine
They pray and pray and pray.
And so my dreams I dwell within,
And visions come and go,
And life is passing like a Cin-
Ematographic Show;
Till just as surely as my pipe
Is underneath my nose,
Amid my visions rich and ripe
I doze and doze and doze.
Alas! it is too true. Once more I am counting the coppers, living on
the ragged edge. My manuscripts come back to me like boomerangs, and I
have not the postage, far less the heart, to send them out again.
MacBean seems to take an interest in my struggles. I often sit in his
room in the rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, smoking and sipping whisky into
the small hours. He is an old hand, who knows the market and frankly
manufactures for it.
"Give me short pieces," he says; "things of three verses that will fill
a blank half-page of a magazine. Let them be sprightly, and, if
possible, have a snapper at the end. Give me that sort of article. I
think I can place it for you."
Then he looked through a lot of my verse: "This is the kind of stuff I
might be able to sell," he said: