GIFT OF 7 University of California Berkeley 3Uimflam, fltrL LIONEL JOSAPHARE and BEATRICE VAN SLOPE {Jif jfflom? VOL. I NO. 4 Sent postpaid, 25 cents a copy; subscription for six numbers, $1. Address all communications to LIONEL JOSAPHARE, 126 Post Street, San Francisco, Cal. CONTENTS. Stanzab by Lionel Josaphare , . . page 5 et seq. The Distressing Vicissitudes of a Lady in Sky-high Society, by 'Beatrice Van Slope, page 13 Love-chant, " " " " 17 Californian Hymn to the Sun, anonymous, " 21 Poets and Critics, by 'Beatrice Van Slope, " 23 LastWis!) " ^ -f " " 29 Wen It h. " ' '.* " 31 1 FLIMFLAM/ SOCIETY GIRL^ ~-rr= _jr:~jr-^----:rr.rrrrr-rrr=. ;^,J A BY 3 f\ LIONEL JOSAPHARE AND BEATRICE VAN SLOPE Published by A. M. ROBERTSON, SAN FRANCISCO. The GASKILL Press. Copyrighted, 1903, By A. M. ROBERTSON. fl SUtmtiam, owt (itrl 459869 JFUmflaut, gwtrt (Sir!. pLIMFLAM has lived. The glorious girl is dead. * The florist and the keeper of the hearse Have shrined her sleep and garlanded her head For her last function. Be none heard to curse. But the torch-bearing maker of the verse, Extol the passing ship, once fraught with sweets, That with sweet-giving earth must now commerce And bear their viewless tides with ghostly fleets. Pale friend, surviving friendship recollects The warmth which your unanswering hand rejects, Your smile's caprice, the satire in your eye, Your instant pout, the feminine effects, Your tiny voice, from which the wit would fly, And love that rued till you forsook the day, Stopped your heart's music and in silence lay. No more, in life's propinquity found equal, Shall we explain the world which gave us place; Yet shall these margins frame no weeping sequel Unto a friendship greater than love's grace. Content to die, she turned her lessening face From the rant laughters of the fools' emprise; Had laughed with them, and when she illed apace, Smiled with her lips and suffered with her eyes. Rare spirit, not in painful days I paint her, But in the spritesome life she lived acquaint her. Songs wrote she, of wee men in little ways Little, and cannot saint nor help unsaint her. Not strategic with passion's makeshift phrase, She wrote; for when with sweet occasion prest, She took her pen and quickly all confessed. 6 JPlunflaiit. &arirty (fctrl. DEATRICE Dora Flimflam G. Van Slope, *-* Daughter of J. Van Slope, the Iron King, And niece unto the Emperor of Soap, Likewise his brother of the Copper Ring, Sister of Daisy, who was wed last Spring To Cedric Alyn, who divorced her soon And married Villamain, who used to sing But left Grand Opera for her honeymoon, Well, Flimflam lived with banners on Nob Hill, Dressed so superb she made the crowd stand still, Rode in a blue barouche with swarthy horses, That cost three thousand plunks, (I saw the bill) Ne'er ate at dinner less than fifteen courses, Wrote poetry, chewed gum, golfed, slanged her caddy, And went to church on Sundays with her daddy. That name: "Beatrice" was her Proper Noun As spelt by Fame for signal and affair; "Dora" looked modish once when written down, And, liking its effect, she left it there. Her chum-girls called her "Flimflam;" "G." was bare Of record or intent save that 'twas G. Then came "Van Slope," of which, as told elsewhere, From her true sire, we trust, she was feoffee. Even as her name exceeded usual need, Her wit went wayward when she gave it speed. Freaksome in heart and hand as twenty elves, Her wealth caused women to forget the deed E'en as her words made men forget themselves. A million thrills they had in her survey, Or were dead nothings when she went away. JFlimfliUii. tSwU'Uj (trl. T Tout au contraire, the girl was never a flirt: For, privileged to mobilize her eyes, How could she help it if those glances hurt Whene'er she gave her beauty exercise? Her beauty ah! Now let the Muse arise To seemingly preposterous expressions; But let that Muse be watched by one more wise, Lest ardor trespass beauty's rare possessions. And yet 'tis author's license, nay, his duty: Dispelling the habilaments of beauty, And when false covering defeats the eye, Blow embers in the rubbish cold and sooty. And yet the blushing critic would say "Fie," Should truth usurp the fashion's false demesne And dream of beauty 'twixt the seen and unseen. Flimflam was small, (too small for melodrama) Full-dressed, full-jeweled, fit for fads and styles, Slim-hipped, but, like the coast of Alabama, She was more than could be set down in miles. It would be vain conceit to rate her smiles; And eyes, 'twere better artlessly admire Eyes that, like bluebirds in the golden files Of tress and curl, added their trembling fire. Fashion's accoutrements upon her sat, Nor standing room left one more frill thereat A hundredweight of girl and fifty pounds Of dress and jewelry, hair-pomp and hat; Which froth of style blew free from beauty's mounds, That, crushed for space, divulged Muse, give o'er: 'Twere impoliteness to describe her more. a JFUmflam. $nririu C&irl. Beholding Flimflam, I beheld it odd (Yet, turning toward the world, not strange at all) That flowers of love sprung fragrant where she trod, Save that the heart she loved she cculd not thrall. Wildly her wisdom with her love would brawl That she, since love could not find love in one Made manifest in fancy's choicest call, Should let the calf in his own meadow run. If, dreaming near the full-rigged rose, one tear. In forming, made the garden disappear, How could grief's flood have Winter every season And make Spring's animation seem not near! Therof imparting to herself no reason, And, blenching from the parlor's laughing band, In verse oft drifted out of sight of land. If, to the access of her inmost love, Beatrice let an ugly world inquire, 'Tw r as in her verses dreaming of above Being lit with what she saw not in the mire. And if 'twere asked what splendors could inspire A man to burn his heart in other places, When Flimflam's beauty was for him afire, No fitting answer the inquirement graces. With what might w r as his own love reimbursed That he blessed one and left the other curst, Smiled on one's prayer and laughed at other's wit? Perhaps 'twas that he'd loved the less heart first. Deep in what nether joy her thoughts could flit, They found no biding-place or landmark dome, But in her sorrow's vaults thev made a home. Jftimftam, wirtu (trl. 'Twas since her first sweet visit, when the Muse Had taught the maiden's poet-soul to climb, And kissed her sweeter scarlet to confuse Her brain with bliss and make her talk in rhyme, That Flimflam, pensive with the fondest crime That e'er found privilege in a woman's breast, Made wildered passion keep poetic time, And in her verse her wasteful love confessed. O love that in most noxious scorn can live, Or to our greatest feats a greater give, Why are your wishes bodily and real And your attainments dim and fugitive? On such as Flimflam, lost in the ideal Of love and poetry, pour forth thy wine, To feed the fiends that else on tears will dine. Beatrice Dora Flimflam G. Van Slope, Fine-framed, lank-armed and little to be seen, Did long with fashionable envy cope, And with good will urge through the glad routine; Had raged all trails, terrestrial and marine; But now defaced with Mirth's inclement kiss, Craved rest's dear Spring to key life's branch with green, And freshen with new sap things now amiss. Pale-mouthed from scores of teas and more cotillions, Eye-languid with their goldens and vermilions, Staled with a thousand suppers, fagged with wit, Tamed with the light in parlors and pavilions, Dancing on valor, dining on her grit, At last her hundred pounds of girl gave o'er, With scarce the will to walk across the floor. 10 JMmflam, &nwtu C&trl. Then from life's frolic Flimflam took to quiet, Was good in all things and in nothing bad, Soliloquized upon a stingy diet, Forsook the styles and waved off every fad. In foam of thready laces thinly clad, She kept her room, in whose entire seclusion, Friends might not cheer nor family make her mad, Or of the outside bring a least allusion. A cup of milk, a drouthy screed of toast Were now her lot from oysters to the roast; To say naught of the missing courses after, With which the doughty diner aye is dosed. Nor might she smile or be addressed with laughter, Or even think of that neath mistletoes Which oft before she did beneath the rose. When of her fat physician she inquired, "May I along the sun-beamed sidewalk stroll?'' He budged and, as he learnedly perspired, Shunned the idea from the depths of his soul. "May I," she larked again, "stand on parole And watch the passers at the streetside fence?" "My dear," he answered, "have some self-control: You must not move nor figure moving hence." "Oh, let me read the newspape," she entreated. "My whole plan then," said he, "would be defeated." "Some careless chat allow me," she implored. "You must have absolute rest," he repeated. "Must I not think?" she cried; and "No!" he roared. "I'd like to write," she grumbled, "some light fiction." "Oh, that you may," quoth he, "without restriction." So, in her bedroom under six months' sentence Of her prescriber, firmly to abstain From sound and color, and, in pale repentance, Bar the vocations of the heart and brain, Flimflam, becoming roomed and quite inane, Wrote, for an editor, a tale of love, Wherein the villain, Ralph, shot out his brain, And left the hero cooing with his dove. The tale was manuscripted, bought and printed: And in it much of future power hinted; The plot was dashing, from a rest-cure view, And thrillingly with local color tinted. Urged by success and by the doctor, who Wished mental truce maintained, she wrote a book, Which by the ears the reading public took. What though the public has resilient ears, Which turn to every moo or bark or boo, This genius made them jury of her peers, And for a fame among them came to sue. And so we gave our graces as we do Whenever wealth and woman's beauty claim us; And Flimflam woke one morn with cool halloo To find her nom de plume becoming famous. To what new glories was our heiress put: Praise at each hand and flatterers at each foot, Save where occasional critic chid her work, Showing a heart as black and dry as soot. Praise she would take and honest blame not shirk; But when black-hearted, heartless men reviled her, They did not pain and yet somehow they riled her. 12 JTlimflam. nrirtii (Sirl. But Flimflam was an aimless, amiable maid, Whose anger lived no longer than a laugh, And with a pious reticence obeyed Fame's law, its kisses took and eke its chaff. Yet it was woe to see some numbskull calf Pour forth his ignorance and basely hint One half her book unfit to read, and half, Though fairly readable, unfit to print. Then envious friends did reinforce the strife And give her book the bludgeon and the knife: It had no tone, its characters no air; Some said the whole book was untrue to life. Flimflam, like Caesar, thought all battles fair, And as to show how much of life she knew, Thought for a moment; then to poesy flew. One blue vein throbbed upon her lissome throat; She muttered something which I need not quote. And then, with soul from hate or grief remote, Without a memorandum, sketch or note, She sat her at her escrutaire and wrote. flimflam, 0umtu (girl. THE: DISTRESS! NO VICISSITU DEIS OF A LADY IN SKY-HIGH SOCIEITY BY BEATRICE: VAN SLOPE: A HE and a she were mock-married one Fall By a hand-me-down monk at a masquerade ball; And living adroitly a year and a quarter, Were blessed in that time with a son and a daughter. Their marital duties thus more than .fulfilled, The dame kangarooed to the stage, though unskilled In the drama or e'en in the part she was billed. But, knowing the programmers like to be thrilled, She proceeded, as her introductory course In the technic of acting, to get a divorce. But when her complaint had been heard by the judge, That proud-bellied lord of the law exclaimed "Fudge! Great gall of Galanthus! By gracious! By Jeeminy! Of causes for cutting the ties 1 don't see many, Not many, and I'll be a son of a gun If of all your base charges you've proven a one." Then, mere by mistake, plaintiff slipt a wee wink; It caught the Court's eye and it made the judge think. What followed instanter: decree of divorce And all the allowances law could enforce, Late suppers, a marriage, more scandal, some weeping, Vile rumors and fits of hysterics in keeping; And what with divorce and appeals intermingled, She hardly knew if she was married or singled. And her husband, the judge, with his hair and his wig amuss, Said, "My dear, if your case is reversed, you're polygamous." And so, to escape those annoying appeals In which she was tangled from earrings to heels. Her physician informally hinted elopement; She answered him "Yep/' for she knew not what "nope" meant. 14 Jffltmflam. (girl. From pleasure to escapade, fancy to folly, She wended, like Zaza, and finally golly! As wife of a bald-headed real-estate man, With the best of champagners now flutters her fan. And though this sad tale will affright and appal, I know, Don't think it too strong, for I have not told all I know. JMmflam, &nwtu (girl. 15 r "PHIS bright-eyed joculator then forsook * Her cure, to try effects with foe and friend, Hilariously to blot the blushes strook By her bad rhyme, and twit them to the end. Loud howled the stately dames to reprehend The rude insulter of their peccadilloes And quash the French-gilt fairy who had penned The thorny words upon their rosy pillows. Flimflam beheld the skirty tempest draw Round her poetic bang upon the jaw, And laughed from pit to dome, (rude, I admit) Lampooned their tears, and also muttered "pshaw!" And they, like cheap lead-pencils, showed their grit, Out-bawled her song and, having noised their places, Sniffed through the nostrilled air-holes of their faces. You may remember how your sire would spank At your infernal regions long ago; Then, granting habeas corpus, calmly rank His anguish more than that he did bestow. Some such reactionary, pious woe 'Gan creep in Flimflam's ever-whispering breast; For, having caused her censors' tears to flow, She downed and wept as much as all the rest. Fastidious maid, most exquisite in moving, Too dreamy for a wakeful world's reproving, Too mild for hate, too sweet for bitter quarrel; Asked the Great Witness of her soul behooving God to inquire why fame withheld the laurel; And fools who found her poems uncelestial, Were studied and found plenteously bestial. 10 JUmfiaw. fcurwtij 'Twas when the branches, visited by May. Put on their springstyle vestiture of green, That Flimflam garbed her secret soul in gray And sang a love-song to an absent mien, Great California's greatest magazine Offered a prize for a short poem found Not harmful to the state, nor yet obscene. Nor prejudicial judged on any ground. This magazine, "The Sunstroke" styled, was one Given its name in honor of the sun, Because the sun, by setting, made us great, Ne'er setting elsewhere save in jest or fun, While nobly here in this, the "Sunset State." So have the poets in their poems said it, And given California all the credit. To this fair competition Flimflam bent, For that her heart was in a mighty trance, And lacked in living all that living meant, As, dancing, lacked the spirit of the dance. Thus did her love, which found no equal glance, Take at its window-panes a baleful station, And dream that love, now lost in love's mischance Being writ, might purchase wistful approbation. The hue and composition of her heart, Made great with energies engaged apart, Had poured the crimson deluge to her ) train. And there escaped in fantasies of art. So did her stately passion humbly deign To sip the praise of fools and bid them shove A drink to match the drink <>f foolish love. JWmflaut, ftirtetg CitrL IT LOVEl-CH ANT BY BEATRICE VAN SLOPE "TWAS in the dreaming age: I sang among the flowers And walked a scenic stage Where dream-birds toned the bowers, And far-seen windows gleamed in alien towers, And love threw down its gage. 1 felt within my soul The presage of a thought, Which negligently stole Though guardedly 'twas fought Into a peril-place of songs and aught, Beyond my young control. Brightly the years bestrew The ornaments of Spring; Soft as sweet, sweet as new, (And flowers it did bring) Came the great untranslated happening Which was a dream of you. My dream was of a god; And yet the dream was you. I saw the ambrosial sod, Besprent with grass-borne dew, Bear your soft living marble veined with blue, And shimmer as you trod. IS jnunflam. &iiriH0 dirl. High-hung with beamy charms, The scene grew large and bright And echoed love's alarms, For, oh, I did invite The weird clasp of a continent of light With -superhuman arms. The apparition grew, Its brow with roses bound, Distilling attar-dew, Oh beauty stilling sound! Outshone the shining evidence around The celestial interview. Oh, black Stymphalian birds, That flutter full of sorrow And carry secret words From twilight unto morrow, Haunt not his hill nor droop above his farrow, The choicest of the herds. Farewell! The great are lonely; Go thy inferior ways. Let me consider only My vacant house of days. Or queenly sit where tragic wisdom plays To thrones whose queens are thronely. You came but to depart; So let my own soul go. Yet with your lowly art, You made the heavens glow; And with your heedless arm imposed the blow That broke a poet's heart. JFUmflam. nnrtu 0>ir I. 10 '"PHIS lacrimose lay, * Her fruition of sighs, A delight in its way, But the ruth of her eyes, Was writ in a day And despatched to the wise Referees of the fray. And that learned assize Read the poem, and they, Without guile or disguise, Allowed it entree In compete for the prize And said in a way It was hard to despise, Yet was not raisonne A la mode in their eyes, As it did not portray, With whyes and therebyes, Our State and the lay Of its mountains or bay Or its prunes or the size Of the last crop of hay. As may you surmise, Flimflam said "Good day," Wiped a beam from her eyes, And 'tis needless to say, She had not won the prize. flimflam. $umtu flrutg (girl. CALIFORNIAN HYMN TO THE SUN Q WEST-BOUND sun, I importune, ^-^ As you descend Sierra's tops, Shine on my grape and light my prune, Illuminate my growing crops. Scowl on the streams of wicked East, But smile on Sacramento's trout; And when your working hours are ceased, Set by the Southern Pacific Route. O sunset, dear to every breast, Thou'rtlike our fields of well-known poppies, Making our setting sun the best, And Eastern sunsets only copies. climate-maker of our zone, The greatest name at my behest 1 give you: henceforth be you known As Native Sun of the Golden West. 22 | J PON the morrow, when the elegant sun S^ With ready beam o'er the blue mountain blinked, Flimflam upon the day the start had won. Soon to her ink-well's curb the pen was brinked; She stirred the inky depths of Fame's precinct; Thought after thought in fancy's rhythm was linked: And she prognosticating: "I'll be kinked, If, when I've done, these chaps are not extinct." 3FUuiflam. POETS AND CRITICS BY BEATRICE VAN SLOPE r\ FAME, lift up thine eyes to this devotion, From far East where thy eastern tresses lave Upon the morning on Columbo's ocean To where thy locks droop in Balboa's wave- Where western fogs obscure the poet's flight, Glance, thou with eyes of one almighty blast of light. 1 know too many bards have coarsely fed Where the Pierian fount once filled the poet; Drained is that channel now: a maid may tread Where once it glistered and not get her toe wet. Yet critics they have lost the doge to burn us Since they, for inspiration, drank up Lake Avernus. Your busy poet in a year will yearn With ninety-nine emotions in his midst, With waxless pang, soul-quake and anguish burn For ninnygirls who never did but u didst," And throbbing part for variegated women, Or praise of pomp or pinhole, heaven or persimmon.' Whereat the critic, anxious to effuse. Sees butterfly-wings on the pallid moth; Or, moody, foams at mouth, and then shampoos His hair with all the hydrophobic froth Ere he vouchsafes to quash a little verse, And prove his own transcendant knowledge with a curse. 24 JFUmflam, gwirtg (girl. Hoarse Jacobs braying at hush lullabies And wrestling with the angels of great thought And laughing greedily when Psyche sighs, And, knowing not the meaning, call it naught, You have replaced the genius with the jack; Go to remorse's knee and take your paddywhack. A town coerced with alien ignorance, Commercial tricksters, wealth's perfidious tribe, Killers of Truth, preventers of romance, Has made its art the creature of their bribe, Depicted squash, to please their occupations, And roasts-of-beef to draw their slow imaginations. To feed these red-necked caterers with art That bears some rude resemblance to the real, Bought scribes have glorified the brokers' mart And made its commerce mean their time's ideal, Flattered the fuddled merchant at his club, Pictured his groceries and versified his grub. Foul clerks of wealth their sophistries unbowel, And mix opinions with their alcoholics; Crowned by the Trust and sceptered with a trowel, They fill the world's book with their hyperbolics, Gurgle with mirth above the winy glass, For wine lends wit to him who else would be an ass. Debased in love, ashamed at innocence, They hang the figleaf to the infant's hips, Invite the famous and revile them hence, And praise the climate round the singer's lips, Go down the line and spit in each spittoon, And raise the art of criticism at each saloon. flimflam, &ori*tg CJirl. 25 The poet scarce opines that poetry Is quite a bloodless battle, fool unwary When literary guns knock his debris Into the thirty-first of February; For on the cohorts of new song still wreak The unadmired their vengeance from their mountain pique. By these no poetry is writ by rule, No rule correct or line to be admired, Whose thread unwinds not from a classic spool Of ancient make and patent long expired. Watchers behind their low, familiar fence, To them each stranger is a peril in suspence. Not easily new law the wrong supplants; Loath is mankind relinquishing dead splendors: When men have lost the art of wearing pants, With smiles of pride they yet will wear suspenders; Yet unafraid, peculiarly, great minds Will make their laws at variance with littler kinds. One jester, surfeit in his own conceit, Cynic by trade and by the column sour, When shown a peacock, moans, ''What ugly feet!" And, with a sneer, he feels like Schopenhauer. The cat feels like the tiger: what is same Honors the cat; their difference is the tiger's fame. With scarce the flesh to keep his bones from rattling, A teardrop on the tip of his blue nose, Fond midnight rinds him with fond poesy battling, Impeaching sweet-sung words in wretched prose. He writes: (forgetting that he praised it once) "'Tuns \\-ritlen by a duffer to amuse a dunce." 26 Jfflunfiam. fcurirtg irl. From criticism to libel is no plunge: A smirk of satire he must not omit. And to the skull that clasps his mental sponge, He lifts his thumb and strikes a spark of wit; Laughs jocularly as if slopping soup; Uncorks the guffaws of a public prone to whoop. Alas poor pessimist! Sage sophomoric, That scratches his Thesaurus for a thought! Should someone pump him full of paregoric, We soon would have an optimist or naught, That would not lift from tomes of melancholy, Twist up and write a plagiarism on human folly. And many a weekly rag its critic pays, Tatterdemalions of the ink brigade, Who think their satire vitriol that slays, That satire which is weak as lemonade. Logic? They would not touch that pointed tool; For logic is an instrument to wound a fool. Discriminations nice they oft attempt, With dingy finger over greatness poking: The untamed lion is to them unkempt; Their solemn ignorance, by wisely joking, Conceals itself and simpers unconfessed Beneath a coward ambiguity of jest. They know the clouds are better than the sky; Blame the expression ere they praise the face; Too low the bottom and the top too high, Although the middle seems in proper place. So can the flippant, filibustering boozer Knock holes in cherries and steam through them in a cruiser. ifli in flam. j$nriFtti (Sirl. They say: "Too young to think, too old to learn, This poet grates upon my pia mater." Sweethearts, know that the poetry you spurn Grates on your prose because the verse is greater. Too easy to be jarred, you are too nice: There's more to virtue than the virtue shocked at vice. Now, having splintered his disgust on merit, It might be thought a cynic of some pride Attacking misbehavior, would not spare it, And when an ignoramus unsupplied With equilibrium, attempts to soar, Drag him to earth and let him live no more. Not so: see how some pumpkin-headed fop, Without the passion that might warm the chill From his cold intellect, nor, in his top, The intellect to simulate a thrill Of passion Gee! Beneath his bready novel, Reviewers, gorged with platitudinous praise, will grovel. They say: "This author knows his native ground; To him no secret is the plow-boy's mood; His knowledge of sunbonnets is profound; His characters are moral and subdued; With every page, the plot" (thick always) "thickens; Egads, he knocks the very Balzac out of Dickens!" Thus not all praise will at all greatness light: Their brains must feel at home or else are dumb, Like those peculiar matches which ignite Only against the box in which they come. Yet what their precious praise will not set fire Their lack of understanding scorches in their ire. 28 #litttflmn. &nnrt diri. To genius they prefer some Tom Thumb's terrors; The genuine they banish for the sham. A platitude set with grammatic errors Gleams to their bogus brains an epigram. A sooty chimney on a rainy night Shines to their owlish eyeballs like a ray of light. And thus the pigeon-toed archsatirist. Preparing for a long ironic frolic, Goes aching to his task and gives a twist That makes his precinct seem the country's colic. And futures find on Poesy's cheek his blame Cut black, a beauty-patch of everlasting shame. Sflimflam, g>oratB (girl. LAST" WISHES BY BEATRICE: VAN SLOPE 'THIS exquisite malady that steals my brain, The master-current of my livelong thought, Unlinks my life and breaks the spirit-chain That once with animated flesh was fraught. How I unwish the things that once I wished! And think of seasons flooded with false tides, Upon whose wave dead infamies are fished, As the lewd gondola to pleasure glides. Nay, 'tis iniquitous to ban those joys Which sped their best to make me laugh with them, Hard laughter which a nervous world employs To advertise it, stuck with gold and gem. Yet, sitting in the afterward of life O afterward of joy in forward years! I think my pleasure was with wish at strife Which now against my wishing disappears. I'd like the sunshine, were it not so bright. I'd like to ramble were I not so weary. Food I would care for had I appetite, And books endear me were they not so dreary. Artists would please me if they had more art; Old women soothe were I a gossip-monger; Wise men delight me if they had more heart; And fools would be my passion were I younger. 30 JFUmflam, gwtrtg <8irl. I'd like the scenery, were I a bird. I'd crave the rose were I a honeybee; Enjoy a spelling-match, if a long word; Dote on a dozen were I four times three. With every thrilling fool I would concur, Had I but half his inference of brains. Love for mine enemy I'd not defer, Saving for fear he'd love me for my pains. Poems allure me when they break my spell; And pictures when the painter limns with might. Music I love, when it is musicked well And the musician's face is out of sight. Birds would induce me as they wing the blue, Were I one of their airy caravan. And man would suit me, did the right one sue; And women I would love were I a man. Thus it beseems no thing is perfect for me, No person adequate to wishing power, No tempest violent when my thoughts are stormy, No lily equal when I wish a flower. Yet I have seemed enjoyable and careless, And made the light heart laugh, the fool seem great. A clown I lived, and, like a clown, die heirless Of thought or child or good to emulate. JFltmfiam, &nmtu (BtrL 31 WEALTH BY BEATRICE VAN SLOPE (~)H, why was I born on the summit of riches, With nothing above but impossible sky, While the brooklet below, in its bright-winding ditches, Goes into the woodland and leaves my hill dry. In the acres spread out as my earthy foundation, The farm-girl sings low by the lake her desire. Lost, lost to my life is that loved inspiration That flows through hope's garden to slake the soul's fire. Why have I not lived where the yearner, while praying, Comprehends that the world can reply to her prayer, And fancy can fly to the clouds overswaying While weariness sleeps at the foot of the stair. Here in my bright castle, whose implements golden Were given unasked, I am paying Hell's price. With nothing to clasp save the shapes oft beholden, And nothing to study in pleasure but vice. PS 35/9 0? F5 NUMBERS OF THE FLAME SERIES ISSUED. 1. The Divine Question, by Lionel Josaph are 2. The Humpback, the Cripple and the One-Eyed Man, by Lioml Josaphare 3. A Tale of a Town, 4. Flimflam, Society Girl, " " " and ^Beatrice l^an Slope GENERAL . BERKELEY 459869 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY