For when you chuck a coin his way
He’ll let some street-boy thieve it.
I fear he freezes in the night;
My praise I’ve long repented,
Yet look! his face is all alight…
Blind Peter seems contented.
On the terrace of the Closerle de Lilas I came on Saxon Dane. He was smoking his big briar and drinking a huge glass of brown beer. The tree gave a pleasant shade, and he had thrown his sombrero on a chair. I noted how his high brow was bronzed by the sun and there were golden lights in his broad beard. There was something massive and imposing in the man as he sat there in brooding thought.
MacBean, he told me, was sick and unable to leave his room. Rheumatism. So I bought a cooked chicken and a bottle of Barsac, and mounting to the apartment of the invalid, I made him eat and drink. MacBean was very despondent, but cheered up greatly.
I think he rather dreads the future. He cannot save money, and all he makes he spends. He has always been a rover, often tried to settle down but could not. Now I think he wishes for security. I fear, however. It is too late.
THE WISTFUL ONE
I sought the trails of South and North,
I wandered East and West;
But pride and passion drove me forth
And would not let me rest.
