English

From Polter's smirk I know his soul as well
As if I'd seen it in a stagnant pool:
A gray curled shred that wavers in such cool
Dead slime as crawls and wrinkles 'neath the swell
Of a blotched lizard's belly ... a tentacle
Wherewith some monster hidden deep and dim
May cup and suck green poisons down to him,
A charnel devil in his muddy hell.

For Polter is a kind of tube, a pipe,
A dribbling conduit through which slander flows ...
He has a loose mouth coloured like stewed tripe

Dirk gleams and twists sarcastic lips about
An epigram he's never uttered yet —
A mordant word! Edg'd phrase none might forget,
A spoken knife, did he but flash it out!
We wait for it! Applaud, almost, or shout,
Or wince beforehand, at that epithet: —
It never comes. But fifty men I've met
Say Dirk is keen. 'Twere heresy to doubt!

Dirk glinted thus on me ten years or more
Ere yet he uttered, mantling with conceit,
His jest ... poor ass! ... I glowered upon the floor,
Ashamed for him; I stared down at my feet:

A DELE is gayly anecdotal of
The whims and eccentricities of friends.
" Don't think from what I've said, " her story ends.
" That Sue's not sweet! She is! A perfect love! "
Making a dove of Sue, she soils the dove,
Assumes attack and speciously defends,
Plants little lisping doubts and still pretends
She loves that girl all lovely girls above.

Behind Adele's white teeth her pretty tongue
Lies coiled to strike without a warning hiss:
She smiles upon the victim newest stung
And marks the next for poison with a kiss;

Each time I've dined at Browber's " little flat "
He's wheezed and joked about " Con joo gal Strife " ;
Browber's convinced that 'tis a subject rife
With wit; above his cheeks of sallow fat
His bulged and yellowish eyes assure you that.
(His wife laughs too!) What jollier quip in life
Than this pretending that one beats one's wife! ...
As Browber drools he'll reach and tweak the cat.

Keen Browber knows his guests will know that none
Would frivol so unless he lived in bliss,
And often when their idiot mirth is done

" PRECIOUS ! " says Mrs. Goog. And, " Love! " cries he,
And smacks his liar's lips against her face.
" Sweet Dove! " — and then they clinch in close embrace.
He's thirty-one, and she's turned fifty-three;
She makes him pet her when there's company.
" My Angel! " " Little Wife! " — and all men trace
The hatred crawling through his forced grimace;
Some day he'll kill her to be rich and free.

If I am on Goog's jury then, he'll hang;
I know just how he trapped the love-starved hag;

M'C ORKLE has a long, white, pitted nose
Which somehow seems the index of his soul;
He talks down it like this: " Man's final goal
Is higher than materialists suppose! "
Himself, he hints, is ever in the throes
Of some grim struggle for his Self's control.
M'Corkle lies. He never fought. Speech is his r├┤le.
He's putty, and his holiness all gloze.

And when M'Corkle dies his flabby ghost,
By that uncertain, pale proboscis led,
Will maunder feebly on to Satan's House;
And when it melts, his diabolic host

Beauty, thou Sister to Heav'n's glorious Lamp,
Of finer Clay, thou finer stamp!
Thou second Light, by which we better live,
Thou better Sexe's vast prerogative!
Thou greatest gift that Heaven can give!
He who against thee does inveigh,
Never yet knew where Beauty lay,
And does betray
A deplorable want of Sense,
Blindness, or Age, or Impotence:
For Wit was given to no other end,
But Beauty to admire, or to commend;
And for our Sufferings here below
Beauty is all the recompence we know;

Beauty, thy Conquests still are made
Over the Vigorous more than the Decay'd;
And chiefly o're those of the Martial Trade;
And whom thou conquer'st still thou keep'st in thrall,
Untill you both together fall,
Whereas of all the Conquerours, how few
Know how to keep what they subdue?
Nay, even froward Age subdues thee too.
Thy Power, Beauty, has no bounds,
All sorts of men it equally confounds,
The young and old does both enslave,
The proud, meek, humble, and the brave,
And if it wounds, it only is to save.

Beauty, thou active, passive good!
Who both enflam'st and cool'st our Blood!
Thou glorious Flow'r, whose sov'reign juyce
Does wonderful Effects produce,
Who, Scorpion-like, do'st with thee bring
The Balm that cures thy deadly sting.
What pity 'tis the fairest Plant
That ever Heaven made
Should ever ever fade,
Yet Beauty we shall never want:
For she has off-sets of her own,
Which e're she dyes will be as fairly blown.
And though they blossom in variety,
Yet still new Beauties will descry,

Beauty, Love's Friend, who help'st him to a Throne,
By Wisdom Deify'd, to whom alone
Thy Excellence is known,
And ne're neglected but by those have none;
Thou noble Coyn, by no false sleight allay'd,
By whom we Lovers Militant are paid,
True to the Touch, and ever best
When thou art brought unto the Test,
And who do'st still of higher value prove.
As deeper thou art search'd by Love.
He who allows thee only in the Light
Is there mistaken quite,
For there we only see the outer skin,