Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.
By. Austin DobsonThe Romaunt of the Rose
P
Far better I should own you,
Than you should lie for random feet,
Where careless hands have thrown you!
Did heartless Mayfair use you,
Then cast you forth to lie forlorn,
For chariot wheels to bruise you?
Rose, you would scarce discover
That I she passed upon the stair
Was Edith’s favored lover.
O theme for moral writer!—
’Twixt you and me, my Rose, you know,
She might have been politer;
Behind the oleander—
To one, perhaps, of all the men,
Who best could understand her,—
As only Cyril’s able,
With just the same Arcadian look
He used, last night, for Mabel;
Had paled away in morning,
Lit up his cynical cigar,
And tossed you downward, scorning.
She made my heart-strings quiver;
And yet—You sha’n’t lie in the street,
I’ll drop you in the River.