Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of FriendshipThe Cane-Bottomed Chair
William Makepeace Thackeray (18111863)I
And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,
Away from the world and its toils and its cares,
I ’ve a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.
But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;
And the view I behold on a sunshiny day
Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.
With worthless old knick-knacks and silly old books,
And foolish old odds and foolish old ends,
Cracked bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.
Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed;
A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see;
What matter? ’t is pleasant to you, friend, and me.
Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire;
And ’t is wonderful, surely, what music you get
From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.
By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp;
A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn:
’T is a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.
Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times;
As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie
This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.
There ’s one that I love and I cherish the best:
For the finest of couches that ’s padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair.
With a breaking old back, and twisted old feet;
But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottomed chair.
A thrill must have passed through your withered old arms;
I looked, and I longed, and I wished in despair;
I wished myself turned to a cane-bottomed chair.
She ’d a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face!
A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,
And she sat there, and bloomed in my cane-bottomed chair.
Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;
Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare,
The queen of my heart and my cane-bottomed chair.
In the silence of night as I sit here alone—
I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair—
My Fanny I see in my cane-bottomed chair.
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair.