A CORPULENT man is my bachelor chum, With a neck apoplectic and thick -- An abdomen on him as big as a drum, And a fist big enough for the stick; With a walk that for grace is clear out of the case, And a wobble uncertain -- as though His little bow-legs had forgotten the pace That in youth used to favor him so. He is forty, at least; and the top of his head Is a bald and a glittering thing; And his nose and his two chubby cheeks are as red As three rival roses in spring: His mouth is a grin with the corners tucked in, And his laugh is so breezy and bright That it ripples his features and dimples his chin With a billowy look of delight. He is fond of declaring he "don't care a straw" -- That "the ills of a bachelor's life Are blisses, compared with a mother-in-law, And a boarding-school miss for a wife!" So he smokes and he drinks, and he jokes and he winks, And he dines and he wines, all alone, With a thumb ever ready to snap as he thinks Of the comforts he never has known. But up in his den -- (Ah, my bachelor chum!) -- I have sat with him there in the gloom, When the laugh of his lips died away to become But a phantom of mirth in the room. And to look on him there you would love him, for all His ridiculous ways, and be dumb As the little girl-face that smiles down from the wall On the tears of my bachelor chum. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...KATHMANDU GUEST HOUSE by KAREN SWENSON NO EXEMPTION FOR TOURISTS by KAREN SWENSON BALLAD by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK: FIT 3. THE BAKER'S TALE by CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON A SONG TO MITHRAS by RUDYARD KIPLING THE POET AND HIS BOOK by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY ON THE SOUL by PUBLIUS AELIUS HADRIANUS THE PROUD MISS MACBRIDE; A LEGEND OF GOTHAM by JOHN GODFREY SAXE |