POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
He vent to the office in a plum-colored coat,
Of the cut of the early 'twenties,
And a voluminous stock—
Though others might see but "mixed goods"
And a four-in-hand.
Some damsel, principessa or contadina,
Hung on his lips, or carelessly betrayed his heart;
And he, the young poet—
Though he had never written a line
(Such stuff as this having not yet been invented)—
Lay down in dreamless slumber beside Keats,
Close to the walls of Rome.
Some years passed by,
But Albert never budged from home.
Savings grew slowly; no kindly patron appeared; no rich relation died.
But less and less did Albert live
In terms of Dodgetown and of Caldwell County.
It was all Lambeth and Lincoln's Inn and Bridgewater House;
The Schwarzwald and the Forest of Arden;
The cypresses of Verona, the cascades of Tivoli,
And the Pincian Hill.
At forty Albert was getting a lukewarm salary for lukewarm work;
And some small five-and-a-half per-cent investments
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