  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 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 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. |
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