Present Imperative
Horace: Book I, Ode 11
"Tu ne quaesieris--scire nefas
--quem mihi; quem tibi--"
AD LEUCONOEN
Nay querry not, Leuconoë, the finish of the fable;
Eliminate the worry as to what the years may hoard!
You only waste your time upon the Babylonian Table--
(Slang for the ouija board).
And as to whether Jupiter, the final, unsurpassed one,
May add a lot of winters to our portion here below,
Or this impinging season is to be our very last one--
Really, I'd hate to know.
Apply yourself to wisdom! Sweep the floor and wash the dishes,
Nor dream about the things you'll do in 1928!
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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On Tradition
LINES PROVOKED BY HEARING A YOUNG MAN WHISTLING
No carmine radical in Art,
I worship at the shrine of Form;
Yet open are my mind and heart
To each departure from the norm.
When Post-Impressionism emerged,
I hesitated but a minute
Before I saw, though it diverged,
That there was something healthy in it.
And eke when Music, heavenly maid,
Undid the chains that chafed her feet,
I grew to like discordant shade--
Unharmony I thought was sweet.
When verse divorced herself from sound,
I wept at first. Now I say: "Oh, well,
I see some sense in Ezra Pound,
And nearly some in Amy Lowell."
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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Ballade of the Traffickers
Up goes the price of our bread--
Up goes the cost of our caking!
People must ever be fed;
Bakers must ever be baking.
So, though our nerves may be quaking,
Dumbly, in arrant despair,
Pay we the crowd that is taking
All that the traffic will bear.
Costly to sleep in a bed!
Costlier yet to be waking!
Costly for one who is wed!
Ruinous for one who is raking!
Tradespeople, ducking and draking,
Charge you as much as they dare,
Asking, without any faking,
All that the traffic will bear.
Roof that goes over our head,
Thirst so expensive for slaking,
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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A New York Child's Garden of Verses
(With the usual.)
I
In winter I get up at night,
And dress by an electric light.
In summer, autumn, ay, and spring,
I have to do the self-same thing.
I have to go to bed and hear
Pianos pounding in my ear,
And hear the janitor cavort
With garbage cans within the court.
And does it not seem hard to you
That I should have these things to do?
Is it not hard for us Manhat-
Tan children in a stuffy flat?
II
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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A Summer Summary
Shall I, lying in a grot,
Die because the day is hot?
Or declare I can't endure
Such a torrid temperature?
Be it hotter than the flames
South Gehenna Junction claims,
If it be not so to me,
What care I how hot it be?
Shall I say I love the town
Praised by Robinson and Browne?
Shall I say, 'In summer heat
Old Manhattan can't be beat?'
Be it luring as a bar,
Or my neighbour's motor-car,
If I think it is pazziz
What care I how fine it is?
Shall I prate of rural joys
Far from civic smoke and noise?
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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From: Horace To: Phyllis Subject: Invitation
Horace: Book IV, Ode 11
"Est mihi nonum superantis annum--"
Phyllis, I've a jar of wine,
(Alban, B.C. 49)
Parsley wreathes, and, for your tresses,
Ivy that your beauty blesses.
Shines my house with silverware;
Frondage decks the altar stair--
Sacred vervain, a device
For a lambkin's sacrifice.
Up and down the household stairs
What a festival prepares!
Everybody's superintending--
See the sooty smoke ascending!
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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To Alice-Sit-By-The-Hour
Lady in the blue kimono, you that live across the way,
One may see you gazing, gazing gazing all the livelong day,
Idly looking out your window from your vantage point above.
Are you convalescent, lady? Are you worse? Are you in love?
Ever gazing, as you hang there on the little window seat,
Into flats across the way or down upon the prosy street,
Can't you rent a pianola? Can't you iron, sew, or cook?
Write a letter, bake a pudding, make a bed or read a book?
Tell me of the fascination you indubitably find
In the "High Cash Cloe's!" man's holler in the hurdy-gurdy grind.
Are your Spanish castles blue prints? Are you waiting for a knight
To descend upon your fastness and to save you from your plight?
Lady in the blue kimono, idle mollycoddle dame,
Does your doing nothing never make you feel the blush of shame?
As you sit and stare and ditto, not a single thing to do,
Lady in the blue kimono, lady, how I envy you!
poem by Franklin P. Adams
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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
There was a man in our town who had King Midas' touch;
He gave away his millions to the colleges and such;
And people cried: "The hypocrite! He ought to understand
The ones who really need him are the children of this land!"
When Andrew Croesus built a home for children who were sick,
The people said they rather thought he did it as a trick,
And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping girls and boys,
But what about conditions with the men whom he employs?"
There was a man in our town who said that he would share
His profits with his laborers, for that was only fair,
And people said: "Oh, isn't he the shrewd and foxy gent?
It cost him next to nothing for that free advértisement!"
There was a man in our town who had the perfect plan
To do away with poverty and other ills of man,
But he feared the public jeering, and the folks who would defame him,
So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly blame him.
poem by Franklin P. Adams
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The Ballad of the Thoughtless Waiter
I saw him lying cold and dead
Who yesterday was whole.
"Why," I inquired, "hath he expired?
And why hath fled his soul?
"but yesterday," his comrade said,
"All health was his, and strength;
And this is why he came to die--
If I may speak at length.
"But yesternight at dinnertime
At a not unknown café,
He had a frugal meal as you
Might purchase any day.
"The check for his so simple fare
Was only eighty cents,
And a dollar bill with a right good will
Came from his opulence.
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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I Remember, I Remember
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born;
The rent was thirty-two a month,
Which made my father mourn.
He said he could remember when
His father paid the rent;
And when a man's expenses did
Not take his every cent.
I remember, I remember--
My mother telling my cousin
That eggs had gone to twenty-six
Or seven cents a dozen;
And how she told my father that
She didn't like to speak
Of things like that, but Bridget now
Demanded four a week.
I remember, I remember--
And with a mirthless laugh--
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poem by Franklin P. Adams
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