Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A SEASIDE INCIDENT, by MARC EUGENE COOK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SEASIDE INCIDENT, by                    
First Line: Why, bob, you dear old fellow'
Last Line: "is the one I married last year."
Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, Vandyke
Subject(s): Egypt; India; Sea; Travel; Ocean; Journeys; Trips


"WHY, Bob, you dear old fellow,
Where have you been these years?
In Egypt, India, Khiva,
With the Khan's own volunteers?
Have you scaled the Alps or Andes,
Sailed to Isles of Amazons?
What climate, Bob, has wrought the change
Your face from brown to bronze?"

She placed a dimpled hand in mine,
In the same frank, friendly way;
We stood once more on the dear old beach,
And it seemed but yesterday
Since, standing on this same white shore,
She said, with eyelids wet,
"Good-by. You may remember, Bob,
But I shall not forget."

I held her hand and whispered low,
"Madge, darling, what of the years --
The ten long years that have intervened
Since, through the mist of tears,
We looked good-by on this same white beach
Here by the murmuring sea?
You, Madge, were then just twenty,
And I was twenty-three."

A crimson blush came to her cheek,
"Hush, Bob," she quickly said;
"Let's look at the bathers in the surf --
There's Nellie and Cousin Ned."
"And who's that portly gentleman
On the shady side of life?"
"Oh, he belongs to our party, too --
In fact, Bob, I'm his wife!

"And I tell you, Bob, it's an awful thing,
The way he does behave;
Flirts with that girl in steel-gray silk --
Bob, why do you look so grave?"
"The fact is, Madge -- I -- well, ahem!
Oh, nothing at all, my dear --
Except that she of the steel-gray silk
Is the one I married last year."





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