My Bachelor Chum
O a corpulent man is my bachelor chum,
With a neck apoplectic and thick,
And 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.