You who had the sense to choose me such a mother, you who had the indifference to create me, you who went to some pains to leave hands off me in the formative stages,-- (I thank you most for that perhaps) but you who with an iron head, first, fiercest and with strongest love brutalized me into strength, old dew-lap,-- I have reached the stage where I am teaching myself to laugh. Come on, take a walk with me. DIVERTIMIENTO Miserable little woman in a brown coat-- quit whining! My hand for you! We’ll skip down the tin cornices of Main Street flicking the dull roof-line with our toe-tips! Hop clear of the bank! A pin-wheel round the white flag-pole. And I’ll sing you the while a thing to split your sides about Johann Sebastian Bach, the father of music, who had three wives and twenty-two children. JANUARY MORNING SUITE I. I have discovered that most of the beauties of travel are due to the strange hours we keep to see them: the domes of the Church of the Paulist Fathers in Weehawken against a smoky dawn--the heart stirred-- are beautiful as Saint Peters approached after years of anticipation. II. Though the operation was postponed I saw the tall probationers in their tan uniforms hurrying to breakfast! III. --and from basement entrys neatly coiffed, middle aged gentlemen with orderly moustaches and well brushed coats IV. --and the sun, dipping into the avenues streaking the tops of the irregular red houselets, and the gay shadows dropping and dropping. V. --and a young horse with a green bed-quilt on his withers shaking his head: bared teeth and nozzle high in the air! VI. --and a semicircle of dirt colored men about a fire bursting from an old ash can, VII. --and the worn, blue car rails (like the sky!) gleaming among the cobbles! VIII. --and the rickety ferry-boat “Arden”! What an object to be called “Arden” among the great piers,--on the ever new river! “Put me a Touchstone at the wheel, white gulls, and we’ll follow the ghost of the Half Moon to the North West Passage--and through! (at Albany!) for all that!” IX. Exquisite brown waves--long circlets of silver moving over you! enough with crumbling ice-crusts among you! The sky has come down to you, lighter than tiny bubbles, face to face with you! His spirit is a white gull with delicate pink feet and a snowy breast for you to hold to your lips delicately! X.