Ballade
[To A Son, on his Entering a World where Culture and Fashion arc so charmingly intertwined.] So let me summarize all I've said : Darling, if you the world would woo, Spectacle-rims are worn dark-red, Socks should be crepe-de-Chine and blue, A mottled suede's the favourite shoe, Trousers are'pink, and amply hipped, Hats are of baby peau-de-loup You must be properly equipped.
Acquire, if you'd appear well-bred A vapid face of corpse-like hue.
The foot should move with languid tread, The voice should be the trembling moo Of an exhausted aesthete, who All life's strange poisonous wines has sipped, And found them rather tedious, too . . .
You must be properly equipped.
Be frank in some ways ; call a bed A Bed, and if you'd form a view Of any saint or hero dead, Study the monkeys at the Zoo, Sexually quite a human crew Though not so bogus—Time has ripped The Good, the Beautiful, the True You must be properly equipped.
Envoi, My boy, I love you bone and thew, You're young Leander when you're stripped, But do in Rome as Romans do „ You must be properly equipped. J. C. SQUIRE. ,
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