Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/357

The Green Bag Shield me from the icy blast; And though dark skies frown and lower, Still, with all my heart and power, On the perch or on the wing, I bravely sing — and sing — and sing." By all the friends below us and by all the saints above, Printing Katharyn's little Birdie was evidence of love! A reading of her verses also leads one to deduce That Lucius loved a handsome, red-headed little goose. Not so. Wise folk and canny oft yield to a desire, Without a mite of training, to strum the lyric lyre. And usually the poet, self-deceived self-worshiper, Thanks one time less than once the heroic editor. But Katharyn was different: meeting Lucius on the street, She paid him with a smile that was so maddening-sweet, It seemed (in terms poetic) instantaneously to refine A dollar's worth of sugar into pure saccharine. She smiled. And so, with Lucius, Cupid had his way; Also, in homely phrase, the devil was to pay. For he who once had inked a pen almost inspired, Now, drunk with love, made readers sigh in tired, Disgusted boredom. Side by side and hand in glove Go senseless frenzy and the storm called love, And no man lives that can, with heartstrings all athrob With cardiac passion, concentrate upon his job. As on a summer night swift falls a shimmering star, So Lucius fell, though not, of course, so far; And while, with foot half-raised, grim Nemesis lay in wait, He penned his platitudes — and dreamed of law, and Kate. And she, the dreamed of, dawned upon his waking sight In one brief interview replete with blissful fright; And at its close he faintly gasped "I'll do it!" While she — again the smile — replied "I knew it!" And that is why one more quotation's briefly made From the now gemless columns of the Greenville Daily Blade: "COMING Local Talent Presentation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice With following cast of characters: The Duke of Venice J. Powhatan Smith Antonio, a merchant of Venice . . . . R. Don Overware