'Twas my comrade, Sir Alister Knox, said, "Noo, dinna ye fash wi'
Apollo, mon;
Gang to Jewry for wives and for concubines, lad--look at David and
Solomon.
And it gives an erotico-scriptural twang," said that high-born young
man, "--tickles
The lug" (he meant ear) "of the reader--to throw in a touch of the
Canticles."
So I versified half of The Preacher--it took me a week, working slowly.
Bah!
You don't half know the sex, Bill--they like it. And what if her name
was Aholibah?
I recited her charms, in conjunction with those of a girl at the _cafe_,
In a poem I published in collaboration with Templeton (Taffy).
There are prudes in a world full of envy--and some of them thought it
too strong
To compare an earl's daughter by name with a girl at a French _restaurant_.
I regarded her, though, with the chivalrous eyes of a knight-errant on
quest;
I may say I don't know that I ever felt prouder, old friend, of a conquest.
And when _I_'ve been made happy, I never have cared a brass farthing who
knew it; I
Thank my stars I'm as free from mock-modesty, friend, as from vulgar
fatuity.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43