'Twas in the Crescent City not long ago befell
The tear-compelling incident I now propose to tell;
So come, my sweet collector friends, and listen while I sing
Unto your delectation this brief, pathetic thing--
No lyric pitched in vaunting key, but just a requiem
Of blowing twenty dollars in by nine o'clock a.m.

Let critic folk the poet's use of vulgar slang upbraid,
But, when I'm speaking by the card, I call a spade a spade;
And I, who have been touched of that same mania, myself,
Am well aware that, when it comes to parting with his pelf,
The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin
That he doesn't spend his money--he simply blows it in!

In Royal street (near Conti) there's a lovely curio-shop,
And there, one balmy, fateful morn, it was my chance to stop;
To stop was hesitation--in a moment I was lost--
That kind of hesitation does not hesitate at cost!
I spied a pewter tankard there, and, my! it was a gem--
And the clock in old St. Louis told the hour of eight a.m.!

Three quaint Bohemian bottles, too, of yellow and of green,
Cut in archaic fashion that I ne'er before had seen;
A lovely, hideous platter wreathed about with pink and rose,
With its curious depression into which the gravy flows;
Two dainty silver salts--oh, there was no resisting them--
And I'd blown in twenty dollars by nine o'clock a.m.

With twenty dollars, one who is a prudent man, indeed,
Can buy the wealth of useful things his wife and children need;
Shoes, stockings, knickerbockers, gloves, bibs, nursing-bottles, caps,
A gown--the gown for which his spouse too long has pined, perhaps!
These and ten thousand other spectres harrow and condemn
The man who's blown in twenty by nine o'clock a.m.

Oh, mean advantage conscience takes (and one that I abhor!)
In asking one this question: "What did you buy it for?"
Why doesn't conscience ply its blessed trade before the act,
Before one's cussedness becomes a bald, accomplished fact--
Before one's fallen victim to the Tempter's stratagem
And blown in twenty dollars by nine o'clock a.m.?

Ah me! now that the deed is done, how penitent I am!
I was a roaring lion--behold a bleating lamb!
I've packed and shipped those precious things to that more precious wife
Who shares with our sweet babes the strange vicissitudes of life,
While he who, in his folly, gave up his store of wealth
Is far away, and means to keep his distance--for his health!

The old farm-home is Mother's yet and mine,
   And filled it is with plenty and to spare,--
But we are lonely here in life's decline,
   Though fortune smiles around us everywhere:
        We look across the gold
        Of the harvests, as of old--
   The corn, the fragrant clover, and the hay
        But most we turn our gaze,
        As with eyes of other days,
   To the orchard where the children used to play.

O from our life's full measure
And rich hoard of worldly treasure
    We often turn our weary eyes away,
And hand in hand we wander
Down the old path winding yonder
   To the orchard where the children used to play

Our sloping pasture-lands are filled with herds;
   The barn and granary-bins are bulging o'er:
The grove's a paradise of singing birds-
   The woodland brook leaps laughing by the door
        Yet lonely, lonely still,
        Let us prosper as we will,
   Our old hearts seem so empty everyway--
        We can only through a mist
        See the faces we have kissed
   In the orchard where the children used to play.

O from our life's full measure
And rich hoard of worldly treasure
   We often turn our weary eyes away,
And hand in hand we wander
Down the old path winding yonder
   To the orchard where the children used to play.