Six of us were your guards, slayers of fear,
Humor, the parti-colored, juggling knives,
Rhyme with a sonnet train of elfin wives,
Friendship, as solid-indolent as beer;
Love with his harp you thought a trifle queer,
But most amusing—if he walked in gyves.
Trust and myself made pillows of our lives.
And so you bore with us for quite a year.
You wearied. Humor twinkled to a star.
Rhyme turned a broker and began to add.
I’m sure that Friendship went entirely mad;
And Love crept stalely drunk from bar to bar.
Only remained the bald old dog, blind Trust
And I—and we shall growl till both are dust.
“LES CRUCHES CASSÉES”
Even old sofas can be reupholstered,
Covered with chintz that blinks with dragon’s eyes;
Worm-eaten chairs that tell too many lies
May yet be painted, puttied, somehow bolstered;
A rickety piano has a tuner
To plink it back to musical surprise;
And frugal housewives, strictly pennywise,
Cement burst jugs and make them healthy sooner.
But where’s the tinker-devil who will clout
Our cracked-up selves till they hold love once more?
Oh you can smooth your curlylocks, no doubt!
Look what a mess we’ve made on Life’s clean floor!
You can’t patch leaky clay. There are no cures.
And it was your fault, yours! “_No, yours!_” Yours! “_Yours!_”