Page:Maryland, my Maryland, and other poems - Randall - 1908.pdf/95



My friend, the young artist, is clever and kind,
 * With a broad Roman forehead and deep German heart;

And though but a tyro, I cannot be blind
 * To his whimsical skill and his exquisite art.

I laugh at his quips, as I lounge in his room,
 * Where we gin the grum world with its duns and its debts,

Till spun by philosophy out of the gloom,
 * And Calle Obispo’s divine cigarettes.

Anon we play chess, with the odds of a pawn,
 * On an arabesque baize full of goblins and Circes;

You should see how he strangles a masculine yawn
 * As I gasp out my last little spasm of verses.

’Tis the game of my life, this game of the squares,
 * For my Queen of White Chessmen is coy as the stars;

When a bishop, like Dunstan, snakes up unawares
 * And soon there is nothing but death—or cigars!