Home ⇒ 📌Robert William Service ⇒ Babette
Babette
My Lady is dancing so lightly,
The belle of the Embassy Ball;
I lied as I kissed her politely,
And hurried away from it all.
I’m taxiing up to Montmartre,
With never a pang of regret,
To toy for awhile with the garter
Of her whom I know as Babette.
My Lady’s an exquisite creature,
As rare as a queen on a throne;
She’s faultless in form and in feature,
But oh, she is cold as a stone.
And so from her presence I hurry,
Her iciness quick to forget
In sensuous joy as I bury
My face in the breast of Babette.
She’s only a flower of the pavement;
With Paris and Spring in her eyes;
Yet I who foresaw what the grave meant
Of passion behold with surprise,
When she greets me as gay as a linnet,
Afar from life’s fever and fret
I’m twenty years younger the minute
I enter the room of Babette.
The poor little supper she offers
Is more than a banquet to me;
A different bif-tik she proffers,
Pommes frit and a morsel of Brie;
We finish with coffee and kisses,
Then sit on the sofa and pet. . .
At the Embassy Mumm never misses,
But pinard’s my drink with Babette.
Somehow and somewhere to my thinking,
There’s a bit of apache in us all;
In bistros I’d rather be drinking,
Than dance at the Embassy Ball.
How often I feel I would barter
My place in the social set,
To roam in a moonlit Montmartre,
Alone with my little Babette.
I’m no longer young and I’m greying;
I’m tailored, top-hatted, kid-gloved,
And though in dark ways i be straying,
It’s heaven to love and beloved;
The passion of youth to re-capture. . . .
My Lady’s perfection and yet
When I kiss her I think of the rapture
I find in the charms of Babette –
Entwined in the arms of Babettte.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- The Little Workgirl Three gentlemen live close beside me A painter of pictures bizarre, A poet whose virtues might guide me, A singer who plays the guitar; And there on my lintel is Cupid; I leave my door open, and yet These gentlemen, aren’t they stupid! They never make love to Babette. I go to the shop every […]...
- A man saw a ball of gold in the sky A man saw a ball of gold in the sky; He climbed for it, And eventually he achieved it It was clay. Now this is the strange part: When the man went to the earth And looked again, Lo, there was the ball of gold. Now this is the strange part: It was a ball […]...
- Empty I have let her, the kid unstopper me Thinking she would drink me up and part of her I’d be; I am now an empty bottle all right The rest of me your crippled dog instead...
- The Silent Lover ii WRONG not, sweet empress of my heart, The merit of true passion, With thinking that he feels no smart, That sues for no compassion. Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne’er so witty: A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity. Then wrong not, dearest to my heart, My […]...
- To Life O life with the sad seared face, I weary of seeing thee, And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace, And thy too-forced pleasantry! I know what thou would’st tell Of Death, Time, Destiny – I have known it long, and know, too, well What it all means for me. But canst thou not array […]...
- The Haymakers' Song HERE’S to him that grows it, Drink, lads, drink! That lays it in and mows it, Clink, jugs, clink! To him that mows and makes it, That scatters it and shakes it, That turns, and teds, and rakes it, Clink, jugs, clink! Now here ‘s to him that stacks it, Drink, lads, drink! That thrashes […]...
- Interregnum Butcher the evil millionaire, peasant, And leave him stinking in the square. Torture the chancellor. Leave the ambassador Strung by his thumbs from the pleasant Embassy wall, where the vines were. Then drill your hogs and sons for another war. Fire on the screaming crowd, ambassador, Sick chancellor, brave millionaire, And name them by the […]...
- The Ball Poem What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over-there it is in the water! No use to say ‘O there are other balls’: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, […]...
- Parable Of The Four-Poster Because she wants to touch him, She moves away. Because she wants to talk to him, She keeps silent. Because she wants to kiss him, She turns away & kisses a man she does not want to kiss. He watches Thinking she does not want him. He listens Hearing her silence. He turns away Thinking […]...
- The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar 1 The children of the Czar Played with a bouncing ball In the May morning, in the Czar’s garden, Tossing it back and forth. It fell among the flowerbeds Or fled to the north gate. A daylight moon hung up In the Western sky, bald white. Like Papa’s face, said Sister, Hurling the white ball […]...
- S. I. W “I will to the King, And offer him consolation in his trouble, For that man there has set his teeth to die, And being one that hates obedience, Discipline, and orderliness of life, I cannot mourn him.” W. B. Yeats. Patting goodbye, doubtless they told the lad He’d always show the Hun a brave man’s […]...
- Room 4: The Painter Chap He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He’ll make no “document” of me. I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . . Pictures, just […]...
- Wine Bibber I would rather drink than eat, And though I superbly sup, Food, I feel, can never beat Delectation of the cup. Wine it is that crowns the feast; Fish and fowl and fancy meat Are of my delight the least: I would rather drink than eat. Though no Puritan I be, And have doubts of […]...
- The Widower Oh I have worn my mourning out, And on her grave the green grass grows; So I will hang each sorry clout High in the corn to scare the crows. And I will buy a peacock tie, And coat of cloth of Donegal; Then to the Farmer’s Fair I’ll hie And peek in at the […]...
- Mystery Now I am all One bowl of kisses, Such as the tall Slim votaresses Of Egypt filled For a God’s excesses. I lift to you My bowl of kisses, And through the temple’s Blue recesses Cry out to you In wild caresses. And to my lips’ Bright crimson rim The passion slips, And down my […]...
- MORNINGS LIKE THIS Mornings like this I awaken and wonder How I have moved so far, how I have moved so little And yet in essence stayed the same Always passionate for the unattainable For Joan Baez to make me her analyst, To tour Ireland with Eddie and Finbar Furey To be made a Chevalier des Palmes for […]...
- Said Death to Passion Said Death to Passion “Give of thine an Acre unto me.” Said Passion, through contracting Breaths “A Thousand Times Thee Nay.” Bore Death from Passion All His East He sovereign as the Sun Resituated in the West And the Debate was done....
- Which misses most Which misses most, The hand that tends, Or heart so gently borne, ‘Tis twice as heavy as it was Because the hand is gone? Which blesses most, The lip that can, Or that that went to sleep With “if I could” endeavoring Without the strength to shape?...
- If any sink, assure that this, now standing If any sink, assure that this, now standing Failed like Themselves and conscious that it rose Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding How Weakness passed or Force arose Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball When the Ball enters, enters Silence Dying annuls the […]...
- Walter Simmons My parents thought that I would be As great as Edison or greater: For as a boy I made balloons And wondrous kites and toys with clocks And little engines with tracks to run on And telephones of cans and thread. I played the cornet and painted pictures, Modeled in clay and took the part […]...
- Do you know who is thinking of you? If you start out every day in the same old gloomy way It’s little wonder what other people think of you, but The ones who matter most are the ones who hold you close In their hearts, who’re always thinking of you; Do you know, do you know, Do you know who is thinking of […]...
- Three times we parted Breath and I Three times we parted Breath and I Three times He would not go But strove to stir the lifeless Fan The Waters strove to stay. Three Times the Billows tossed me up Then caught me like a Ball Then made Blue faces in my face And pushed away a sail That crawled Leagues off I […]...
- The Absinthe Drinkers He’s yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix, The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day. He’s sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair; He’s staring at the passers with his customary stare. He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng, That current cosmopolitan meandering along: […]...
- Triumph Why am I full of joy although It drizzles on the links? Why am I buying Veuve Cliquot, And setting up the drinks? Why stand I like a prince amid My pals and envy none? Ye gods of golf! Today I did A Hole in One. I drove my ball to heaven high, It over-topped […]...
- Bessie's Boil Says I to my Missis: “Ba goom, lass! you’ve something I see, on your mind.” Says she: “You are right, Sam, I’ve something. It ‘appens it’s on me be’ind. A Boil as ‘ud make Job jealous. It ‘urts me no end when I sit.” Says I: “Go to ‘ospittel, Missis. They might ‘ave to coot […]...
- Delilah cIn the midnight of darkness and terror, When I would grope nearer to God, With my back to a record of error And the highway of sin I have trod, There comes to me shapes I would banish – The shapes of the deeds I have done; And I pray and I plead till they […]...
- A True Story, for Jeremy Jeremy hit the ball today, Over the fence and far away. So very, very far away A neighbor had to toss it back. (She thought it was an air attack!) Jeremy hit the ball so hard It flew across his neighbor’s yard. So very hard across her yard The bat that boomed a mighty “THWACK!” […]...
- XVII (Thinking, Tangling Shadows…) Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude. You are far away too, oh farther than anyone. Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images, Burying lamps. Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there! Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes, Taciturn miller, Night falls on you face downward, far from the city. Your presence is foreign, as strange to […]...
- Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to […]...
- Sonnet XLV The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to […]...
- Words For A Trumpet Chorale Celebrating The Autumn “The trumpet is a brilliant instrument.” – Dietrich Buxtehude Come and come forth and come up from the cup of Your dumbness, stunned and numb, come with The statues and believed in, Thinking this is nothing, deceived. Come to the summer and sun, Come see upon that height, and that sum In the seedtime of […]...
- Two In The Campagna I wonder how you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May? For me, I touched a thought, I know, Has tantalized me many times, (Like turns of thread the spiders throw Mocking […]...
- Garden Wireless HOW many feet ran with sunlight, water, and air? What little devils shaken of laughter, cramming their little ribs with chuckles, Fixed this lone red tulip, a woman’s mouth of passion kisses, a nun’s mouth of sweet thinking, here topping a straight line of green, a pillar stem? Who hurled this bomb of red caresses?-nodding […]...
- Reason and Passion XV And the priestess spoke again and said: “Speak to us of Reason and Passion.” And he answered saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and […]...
- Hymn To Life The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold. Far off where we can’t see, the moon must be rising. It hasn’t reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know […]...
- Juggler A ball will bounce; but less and less. It’s not A light-hearted thing, resents its own resilience. Falling is what it loves, and the earth falls So in our hearts from brilliance, Settles and is forgot. It takes a sky-blue juggler with five red balls To shake our gravity up. Whee, in the air The […]...
- The Tide of Sorrow ON the twilight-burnished hills I lie and long and gaze Where below the grey-lipped sands drink in the flowing tides, Drink, and fade and disappear: interpreting their ways A seer in my heart abides. Once the diamond dancing day-waves laved thy thirsty lips: Now they drink the dusky night-tide running cold and fleet, Drink, and […]...
- EPIPHANIAS THE three holy kings with their star’s bright ray, They eat and they drink, but had rather not pay; They like to eat and drink away, They eat and drink, but had rather not pay. The three holy kings have all come here, In number not four, but three they appear; And if a fourth […]...
- The Moon is distant from the Sea The Moon is distant from the Sea And yet, with Amber Hands She leads Him docile as a Boy Along appointed Sands He never misses a Degree Obedient to Her Eye He comes just so far toward the Town Just so far goes away Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand And mine the distant Sea […]...
- At Melville's Tomb Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath An embassy. Their numbers as he watched, Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured. And wrecks passed without sound of bells, The calyx of death’s bounty giving back A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph, The portent wound in […]...