| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | The Little Café | | By Florence Wilkinson |
| | From “Latin Quarter Ways”
Montparnasse
SLEEK, pleasant, pompous and paternal | |
| Is our Eugene; | |
| High priest and saint and alchemist of | |
| His copper-bright cuisine. | |
| He knows us all, translates us into French— | 5 |
| Sonia the Muscovite, | |
| Lee, of Kentucky, with his Pan’s bold eyes, | |
| And Neville Denzil Whyte. | |
| “Petite Marmotte,” and “Drôle,” and “Bon Sujet,”— | |
| He’s handy with his phrase, | 10 |
| The while he masks his horror at a misapplied | |
| Sauce Béarnaise. | |
| He supervises with a noble air | |
| The ignorant’s menu: | |
| The little mademoiselle from Maine?—“Mais oui, | 15 |
| Red wine and pot-au-feu.” | |
| |
| Some twenty years ago he boiled the mash | |
| For pigs, in rough Savoy, | |
| Crumbling the black bread from his hairy hand— | |
| A peasant boy. | 20 |
| Belloy, that Beaux-Arts chap who dines alone, | |
| Saw once the ancestral stock, | |
| The father of Eugene, glued to the soil | |
| As lichen to its rock. | |
| Eugene had bought him with his hoarded sous | 25 |
| The Auberge d’Or at Gex; | |
| The old man to his neighbors brags of ’Gene, | |
| Their simple souls to vex— | |
| How since he took the Grand’ route years agone, | |
| A lord he is become, “Englees he spig.” | 30 |
| So saying, flourishes in their awed faces, | |
| His broom of twig. | | | | |
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