Читать книгу Something Else Again - Franklin P. Adams - Страница 12

I

"Uxor pauperis Ibyci, Tandem nequitiæ fige modum tuæ——"

IN CHLORIN

Dear Mrs. Ibycus, accept a little sound advice,

Your manners and your speech are over-bold;

To chase around the sporty way you do is far from nice;

Believe me, darling, you are growing old.

Now Pholoë may fool around (she dances like a doe!)

A débutante has got to think of men;

But you were twenty-seven over thirty years ago—

You ought to be asleep at half-past ten.

O Chloris, cut the ragging and the roses and the rum—

Delete the drink, or better, chop the booze!

Go buy a skein of yarn and make the knitting needles hum,

And imitate the art of Sister Suse.

II

Chloris, lay off the flapper stuff;

What's fit for Pholoë, a fluff,

Is not for Ibycus's wife—

A woman at your time of life!

Ignore, old dame, such pleasures as

The shimmy and "the Bacchus Jazz";

Your presence with the maidens jars—

You are the cloud that dims the stars.

Your daughter Pholoë may stay

Out nights upon the Appian Way;

Her love for Nothus, as you know,

Makes her as playful as a doe.

No jazz for you, no jars of wine,

No rose that blooms incarnadine.

For one thing only are you fit:

Buy some Lucerian wool—and knit!