O Saepe Mecum

Edward! you knew the city and you knew
Where dancing and where music were,
And every hall and theatre,
And every green purlieu

Of gardens where beneath the vines and trees
One might sip beer and be consoled
By music mixed with talk, behold
The summer’s devotees

About the tables, idling June away.
And you knew chicory and cress,
With French or Mayonnaise could dress
A salad, growing gay

As you poured Burgundy or Rhenish wine,
Or had a sirloin brought to see
If it were ripe, the recipe
For broiling it, to dine

Thereon in fitting state, the waiter took
And bowed in admiration, then
You snapped your silver case again
And from the holders shook
Such cigarettes as Turkish grandees smoke,
And blew the perfumed incense forth,
Descanting on our life, the worth
Of lawyers, noted folk:

Of judges, politicians, governors,
Until the dinner came at last.
And there amid the rich repast
We poor solicitors

Gloried in life, and ruddy faced would laugh
At any mishap, any fate
That we could fancy might await,
And glorying would quaff

Incredible goblets of the quickening juice,
With blackest coffee topping all,
And afterwards a cordial--
Nothing we could abuse

And nothing hurt us, Edward! It was well
We lived, I think, and memories stored:
For now I am a little bored
With the invariable

And settled round of nights and days wherein
I must have sleep to work, and keep
Abstemious to work and sleep--
While you long since have been
The tangled lion of a woman’s hair
Who reads you novels and the news,
And mends you, tends you, even brews
Your broth and gives you care

In these dyspeptic mornings. As for me
The cafés, gardens haunt me yet.
I go about as one who can’t forget
A dead felicity--

The Bismarck, Rector’s where I enter not--
The music all is changed--and where
No faces that we knew are there,
And where we are forgot.