You ask me, Araminta, why my pen,
Whose airy efforts helped me once to win you,
Has, since you made me happiest of men,
Apparently resolved to discontinue
Its periodic flights
And steadily avoids the Muses' heights.
I, too, have wondered. Are connubial cares
Antipathetic to divine afflatus?
Yet many a bard has piped his liveliest airs
After surrendering his single status;
Or can it be the War
That's been and dried me up in every pore?
Darling, I groped for light, but found no ray;
Chill with despair, I almost ceased to seek a
Way through the fog, when suddenly to-day
Like ARCHIMEDES I exclaimed, "Eureka!"
I found indeed the path
This morning as I lay inside my bath.
For yesterday to rural scenes you fled
And left me, duty's slave, to desolation;
To-day I sought my tub with measured tread
And spent an hour immersed in contemplation
Just as I used to do
Ere yet in beauty side by side we grew.
No urgent call to breakfast broke my rest;
Serene and snug I heard the quarters chiming,
And, as the brimming waters lapped my breast,
Almost unconsciously I started rhyming;
Then through my mind it shot
That thus were all my master-works begot.
Straight from the slopes of Helicon the stream
Poured through the tap its music-making shower;
Each floating bubble held a precious gleam
Which grew to glory as a lyric flower;
Idly I laved my curls,
And from the sponge there dropped a rain of pearls.
Therefore, when back you hasten to my side,
Place this, my love, among your resolutions--
Though eggs grow chill and bacon petrified,
Never to hustle me in my ablutions,
And, to redeem your fault,
Order me several tins of Attic Salt.
STANLEY J. FAY.
July 28, 1915.