32
NOCTAMBULE
Pair of dapper chaps,
Cigarettes and sashes,
Stare at me, perhaps
Desperate Apachès.
“Needn’t bother me.
Jolly well you know it;
Parceque je suis
Quartier Latin poet.
“Give you villanelles,
Madrigals and lyrics;
Ballades and rondels,
Odes and panegyrics.
Poet pinched and poor,
Pricked by cold and hunger;
Trouble’s troubadour,
Misery’s balladmonger.”
Think how queer it is!
Every move I’m making,
Cosmic gravity’s
Center I am shaking;
Oh, how droll to feel
(As I now am feeling),
Even as I reel,
All the world is reeling.
Reeling too the stars,
Neptune and Uranus,
Jupiter and Mars,
Mercury and Venus;
