In the days of the broken cubes of Picasso
And in the days of the broken songs of the young men
A little too drunk to sing
And the young women
A little too unsure of love to love —
I met on the boulevards of Paris
An African from Senegal.

God
Knows why the French
Amuse themselves bringing to Paris
Negroes from Senegal.

It's the old game of the boss and the bossed,
boss and the bossed,
amused
and
amusing,

Arranged by two's as peaches are,
at intervals that all may live—
eight and a single one, on twigs that
grew the year before—they look like
a derivative;
although not uncommonly
the opposite is seen—
nine peaches on a nectarine.
Fuzzless through slender crescent leaves
of green or blue or
both, in the Chinese style, the four

pairs' half-moon leaf-mosaic turns
out to the sun the sprinkled blush
of puce-American-Beauty pink
applied to bees-wax gray by the
uninquiring brush
of mercantile bookbinding.

Around were all the roses red,
The ivy all around was black.

Dear, so thou only move thine head,
Shall all mine old despairs awake.

Too blue, too tender was the sky,
The air too soft, too green the sea.

Always I fear, I know not why,
Some lamentable flight from thee.

I am so tired of holly-sprays
And weary of the bright box-tree,

Of all the endless country ways;
Of everything, alas, save thee.

A ROUND their legs girl athletes twist
Their silver-chased puttees,
Or they wear half-boots, blue-embossed
And bound with fleur-de-lys.
The sun has bronzed their knees
And bosoms, so that eagle-plumes
Are suited to their guise,
And agates from Ohio tombs,
And textures from Algonquin looms
With borders of sunrise.

In waxy curls they lift their hair
When the night's trail has turned;
The everlasting leaves of hair
Lie close and forest-ferned
Above their brows sun-burned.
The prairie eyes, miraged and deep,

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!--faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!

Around the campfire we sang hymns.
When asked I'd play my flute, and lay
a melody between night's
incessant cannonfire that boomed
irregularly, but with the depth
of kettle drums. Occasionally,
in lulls, we'd hear a fading snatch
of Yankee song sucked to us in
the backwash of their cannonballs.
These are, oddly enough, fond memories.

One night, a Texas boy sat down
and strummed a homemade banjo,
He'd bought it for a canteen full
of corn. He followed me around
and pestered me to teach him notes.

Around the bend we streaked it with the leaders swingin' wide;
Round the bend and down the mountain from the old El Oro mines:
Jim Waring he was ridin', gun — a sawed-off at his side,
And the sun was settin' level through the pines.
We was late — and come a-reelin',
With the gritty brakes a-squealin',
And the slack a-dancin' lively down the lines.

Jim Waring he said nothin', for he weren't the talkin' kind;
He left that to his lawyer — and his lawyer was a gun;
But I seen as plain as daylight he had somethin' on his mind,

Around her shrine no earthly blossoms blow,
No footsteps fret the pathway to and fro;
No sign nor record of departed prayer,
Print of the stone, nor echo of the air;
Worn by the lip, nor wearied by the knee, —
Only a deeper silence of the sea:
For there, in passing, pause the breezes bleak,
And the foam fades, and all the waves are weak.
The pulse-like oars in softer fall succeed,
The black prow falters through the wild seaweed —
Where, twilight-borne, the minute thunders reach
Of deep-mouthed surf, that bays by Lido's beach,

THE VILE TRAITOR

Arnold! the name, as heretofore,
Shall now be Benedict no more:
Since, instigated by the devil,
Thy ways are turned from good to evil.

'T is fit we brand thee with a name
To suit thy infamy and shame;
And, since of treason thou 'rt convicted,
Thy name shall be maledicted.
Unless, by way of contradiction,
We style thee Britain's Benediction.
Such blessings she, with lavish hand,
Confers on this devoted land.

For instance, only let us mention
Some proof of her benign intention:

Arithmetique nine digits, and no more
Admits of, then I still have all my store.
For what mischance hath tane from my left hand,
It seemes did only for a Cipher stand.
But this I'le say for thee departed joynt,
Thou wert not given to steale, nor pick, not point
At any in disgrace; but thou didst go
Untimely to thy Death only to show
The other members what they once must doe;
Hand, arme, legge, thigh, and all must follow too.
Oft didst thou scan my verse, where if I misse
Henceforth I will impute the cause to this.