A line-o'-verse or two

I would really as soon
Write in straightaway words.

Tho’ my songs are as sweet
As Apollo e’er piped,
And my lines are as neat
As have ever been typed,

I would rather write prose —
I prefer it to rime;
It’s less hard to compose,
And it takes me less time.

“Well, if that be the case,”
You are moved to inquire,
“Why appropriate space
For extolling your lyre?”

I can only reply
That this form I elect
’Cause it pleases the eye,
And I like the effect.

THE OLD ROLLER TOWEL

How dear to this heart is the old roller towel
Which fond recollection presents to my view.
It hung like a pall on the wall of the washroom,
And gathered the grime of the linotype crew.
The sink and the soap and the lye that stood by it
Remain; but the towel is gone past recall.
O tempora! Also, O mores! Sic transit
The time-honored towel that creaked on the wall.
The grimy old towel, the slimy old towel,
The tacky old towel that hung on the wall.

Now hangs in the washroom a huge roll of paper —
The old printer’s towel we’ll never see more.
The new (see directions) is “used like a blotter,”
And crumpled and scattered in wads on the floor.
And often, when drying my hands in this fashion,
The tears of remembrance will gather and fall,
And I sigh (though I’m not what you’d call sentimental)
For the classic old towel that propped up the wall.
The sainted old towel, the tainted old towel,
The gooey old towel that hung on the wall.

UP CULTURE’S HILL

(The confession of a club lady.)

The path up Culture’s Hill is steep,
And weary is the way,
With very little time for sleep
And none at all for play.

She that this toilsome task essays
Must never bat an eye,
But keep her firm, unwavering gaze
Forever fixed on high.

For should she ever careless grow,
And let her glances stray
Down to the shallow vale below,
Where Pleasure’s Court holds sway —

Lured by the thrice forbidden fruit,
She’d lose her equipoise,
And like a wayward Pleiad shoot
Down to forbidden joys.

I’ve been but short time on the road,
My courage still is strong;
Yet often have I felt the goad
That hurries me along.

I’ve fallen over Maeterlinck,
And bumped myself to tears,
Burne-Jones’s pictures made me blink,
And Wagner hurts my ears.

I’ve stumbled over Ibsen humps
And over Rembrandt rocks,
I’ve got some fierce Debussy bumps,
Some awful Nietsche knocks.

I’m wearied by the ceaseless quest,
I’m wayworn and footsore.
I’ve Culture till I cannot rest —
Yet still I climb for more.

But oh, when all is done and said,
Upon some manly breast
I’d like to lay my tired head
And take a good long rest.

THE PASSIONAL NOTE

“The erotic motive is almost entirely absent from American poetry. Even our younger American poets are more profoundly interested in the why and wherefore of things than in the girdle of Helen or the gleaming limbs of ‘the white implacable Aphrodite.’”