T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Yvonne
By Walter Jack Duncan (18811941)(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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
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! | |
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 |
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. | |
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?” | |
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! | |
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.” | |
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 |
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! | |
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? | |