Classic Poem

1

The V ILLAGE B ARBER

The village barber, in his old straw hat,
 And dancing pumps and waistcoat of piqué,
Plays sharp at cards, and on his knee-bones squat
 Hears mass, and rails at old Voltaire all day.

An “old subscriber” to El Liberal
 He works and sparkles like a merry glass
Of muscatel, his razor's rise and fall
 Timing his gossip of what comes to pass.

With mayor and veterinary, pious folk
Who say the rosary, he speaks no joke
 Of miracles by Peter Claver wrought;
A tavern champion, and a cock-pit sage,
Amid the scissors' clip, his wars he'll wage,
 Sparkling like muscatel the light has caught.

2

The V ILLAGE M AYOR

The village mayor, in a soiled panama
 With a tricolor ribbon at its crown,
Stout as Hugh Capet, in his loose eclát,
 Glitters with bull-dog face across the town.
A doughty neighbor, ruddy as the tow,
 His dagger's point his only signature,—
When at the night the garlic soup will flow,
 He makes his girdle strap the less secure.

His wife, a nervous, pretty, little thing,
Holds him as in an iron fastening,
 Cheering herself the while with Paul de Kock;
Decked in glass-beads, her eyebrows painted clear,—
The while her spouse through the backtown will steer
 With stomach jewels and a face of rock.