From love's sunny, flowery way:
How I floundered, how I stuttered!
And, deprived of ways and means,
What egregious rot I uttered,--
Such as suits the magazines!
I was rescued only when
Eros called me back again.

Gods forefend that I should shun
That benignant Mother's son!
Why, the poet who refuses
To emblazon love's delights
Gets the mitten from the Muses,--
Then what balderdash he writes!
I love Love; which being so,
See how smooth my verses flow!

Gentle Eros, lead the way,--
I will follow while I may:
Be thy path by hill or hollow,
I will follow fast and free;
And when I'm too old to follow,
I will sit and sing of thee,--
Potent still in intellect,
Sit, and sing, and retrospect.

MR. BILLINGS OF LOUISVILLE.

THERE are times in one's life which one cannot forget;
And the time I remember's the evening I met
A haughty young scion of bluegrass renown
Who made my acquaintance while painting the town:
A handshake, a cocktail, a smoker, and then
Mr. Billings of Louisville touched me for ten.

There flowed in his veins the blue blood of the South,
And a cynical smile curled his sensuous mouth;
He quoted from Lanier and Poe by the yard,
But his purse had been hit by the war, and hit hard:
I felt that he honored and flattered me when
Mr. Billings of Louisville touched me for ten.

I wonder that never again since that night
A vision of Billings has hallowed my sight;
I pine for the sound of his voice and the thrill
That comes with the touch of a ten-dollar bill:
I wonder and pine; for--I say it again--
Mr. Billings of Louisville touched me for ten.

I've heard what old Whittier sung of Miss Maud;
But all such philosophy's nothing but fraud;
To one who's a bear in Chicago to-day,
With wheat going up, and the devil to pay,
These words are the saddest of tongue or of pen:
"Mr. Billings of Louisville touched me for ten."

POET AND KING.

THOUGH I am king, I have no throne
Save this rough wooden siege alone;
I have no empire, yet my sway
Extends a myriad leagues away;
No servile vassal bends his knee
In grovelling reverence to me,