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(1918)
YVONNE it was I met in Angers, | |
| Yvonne Moreau—if that’s her name; | |
| But let no sceptical éstranger | |
| Doubt, but rather sing her fame. | |
| For she was rare! A maiden never | 5 |
| Breathed her graces did excel! | |
| Mistake me not; how brief soever | |
| Our love, at least I loved her well. | |
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| Seated at a window, dreaming | |
| O’er my morning omelette, | 10 |
| Saw I her—tho’ without seeming— | |
| Struggling with her bicyclette. | |
| Saw I first a knee, a stocking; | |
| Then those jolie jambes of hers! | |
| Ah, Messieurs! it’s no use talking: | 15 |
| As I live, I have seen worse. | |
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| One so young, thought I, so pretty, | |
| Little knows, on her machine, | |
| Half the charms—the more’s the pity!— | |
| She reveals at seventeen. | 20 |
| Still she lingered, still she hovered, | |
| Shyly blushing in distress, | |
| That she could not keep ’em covered, | |
| Could not hide ’em ’neath her dress. | |
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| Sweet the sight was, sweet her trouble, | 25 |
| As she tried, poor child! in vain, | |
| To conceal, by bending double, | |
| What each moment showed more plain. | |
| Strange! thought I, her bycyclette | |
| Has such a fancy for this spot. | 30 |
| Can she think—But I forget:— | |
| Garçon! warm this chocolate! | |
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| Would she—? might she—? mused I, oddly, | |
| As once more she pedaled by, | |
| (For the strain was grown un-godly; | 35 |
| Yet no thought of harm had I.) | |
| Can it be—? I saw her turning— | |
| Turning to come back again! | |
| Then it was I fell a-yearning…. | |
| Oh the villany of men! | 40 |
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| Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça? cried I | |
| To the Maitre d’hotel. | |
| “Une Steno-Dactylographie.” | |
| “A Steno- what? La Ma’moiselle.” | |
| Bien! quoth I, she’s apropos. | 45 |
| You say they call her Miss Yvonne? | |
| “Mais oui—!” Pardon! I’ll have to go, | |
| For I have need of such an one. | |
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| And was she coy? And did she fear | |
| A stranger’s voice? his first advances? | 50 |
| Yvonne! Yvonne!! “O-ui, M’sieur.” | |
| How lightly off her wheel she dances! | |
| “Que voulez-vous?” she begs so sweet, | |
| I ’gin to doubt, and then to worry. | |
| “A—just what is the word for it? | 55 |
| Have you, perchance, a dictionary?” | |
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| Ah la belle France! so old and famous | |
| For countless joys that cheer, and bless; | |
| None so much are like to shame us | |
| As these angels in distress. | 60 |
| None so sweet, with grace and charms full, | |
| Labor in the fields of love, | |
| Make such dear, delightsome arms-full, | |
| Soft, delicious, fond enough! | |
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| Your Pa? I ask; and where is he, dear? | 65 |
| “Mon pere? Son Colonel’s cheval grooms.” | |
| Your Ma? “En Toulouse.” What does she there? | |
| “Ma mere sells cabbages, and brooms.” | |
| And you so young, so all alone? | |
| But you will die of poverty! | 70 |
| “Mais je travaille!” Indeed, Yvonne? | |
| “A Steno-Dactylographie.” | |
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| And so she did, beyond compare! | |
| How faithfully she filled her task! | |
| Accounts were sadly in arrear; | 75 |
| In truth, it was too much to ask. | |
| Still would she smile, and sing one song: | |
| “Je sais que vous-etes jolie.” | |
| She charmed me with it all day long: | |
| “Je sais que c’est mon folie.” | 80 |
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| Four days and nights she kept it going. | |
| “Tis time,” said I, “I must be gone.” | |
| And would she tell me what was owing? | |
| Ah no, you little know Yvonne! | |
| “Vous-etes un artist, Jacques, compleet!” | 85 |
| An artist? I? What do you mean?— | |
| And you’re another, chère petite; | |
| The first I’ve met at seventeen! | |
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| No longer now I go, regretting, | |
| That all the girls, where’er I stray, | 90 |
| Have strangely taken to ’cycletting, | |
| And practice daily in Angers. | |
| No more the sight fills me with wonder, | |
| (I only hope the fashion grows). | |
| Somehow it makes the heart grow fonder. | 95 |
| Pourquoi? Messieurs! Who knows—who knows? | |
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