Our hall-boy service is a joke;
Our janitor's a foreign dub
Who never does a thing but smoke
Our landlord says he will not cut
A cent from rent already dear;
And so we sought for better--but
We think we'll stay another year.
Birds and Bards
When Milton sang "O nightingale
That on yon gloomy spray,"
The sonneteer whom we revere
Lauded that birdie's lay.
While Keats's ode upon that bird
Was limpid as the notes
That, sweet and strong, were in the song
Of Philomelian throats.
And Bryant's "To a Water-fowl!"
Had praise in every line,
And every word about the bird
Impinged on the divine.
When Wordsworth did the skylark stuff,
He praised the bird a few,
And Shelley's ode sincerely showed
He liked the skylark, too.
O Poets, if ye had but dwelt
Upon a Harlem block,
Fain would I read your poems sweet
Upon the sparrows' "Peet! Peet! Peet!"
The sparrows that have built their nest
Ten feet from where one takes one's rest,
And 'gin their merry, blithesome song
Each morning--quenchless, clear and strong
Promptly at four o'clock.
A Wish
(An Apartmental Ditty.)
Mine be a flat beside the Hill;
A vendor's cry shall soothe my ear
A landlord shall present his bill
At least a dozen times a year.
The tenor, oft, below my flat,
Shall practise "Violets" and such;
And in the area a cat
Shall beat the band, the cars, and Dutch.
Around the neighbourhood shall be
About a hundred thousand kids;
And, eke in that vicinitee,
Ten pianolas without lids.
And mornings, I suppose, by gosh,
I'll be awakened prompt at seven,
By ladies hanging up the wash
Only a mile or so from heaven.
The Monument of Q.H.F.
AD MELPOMENEN
Horace: Book III, Ode 30.
_"Exegi monumentum aere perennius.
Regalique situ pyramidum altius"_
Look you, the monument I have erected
High as the pyramids, royal, sublime,
During as brass--it shall not be affected
E'en by the elements coupled with Time.
Part of me, most of me never shall perish;
I shall be free from Oblivion's curse;
Mine is a name that the future will cherish--
I shall be known by my excellent verse.
I shall be famous all over this nation
Centuries after myself shall have died;
People will point to my versification--
I, who was born on the Lower East Side!
Come, then, Melpomene, why not admit me?
I want a wreath that is Delphic and green,
Seven, I think, is the size that will fit me--
Slip me some laurel to wear on my bean.