A little garden by the sea,
A little boat that dips and swings…
Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me,
O Lord of Life, just Little Things.
Yesterday I finished my tenth ballad. When I have done about a score I will seek a publisher. If I cannot find one, I will earn, beg or steal the money to get them printed. Then if they do not sell I will hawk them from door to door. Oh, I’ll succeed, I know I’ll succeed. And yet I don’t want an easy success; give me the joy of the fight, the thrill of the adventure. Here’s my last ballad:
THE ABSINTHE DRINKERS
He’s yonder, on the terrace of the Café de la Paix,
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He’s sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He’s staring at the passers with his customary stare.
He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng,
That current cosmopolitan meandering along:
Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru,
An Englishman from Bloomsbury, a Yank from Kalamazoo;
A poet from Montmartre’s heights, a dapper little Jap,
Exotic citizens of all the countries on the map;
