O Jill, my peerless, perfumed, powdered darling; Quintessence of all fairies I’ve adored In London’s lanes, by Devon Budleigh’s farling, At Berkeley’s, Kettner’s, Ritz’s, Carlton’s board; Jill whose white hands ne’er knew roughhouse-work’s gnarling; Whose clothes not twenty Coxes could afford! How shall man sing the seasoned cee-sprung carriage In which you rolled from that first kiss to marriage? What days they were! What noon-times and what twilights! The whole wide earth seemed fashioned for your pleasure; Its very heavens, gold-and-crystal skylights Whereunder you picked orchid blooms at leisure. For others, shadowed gloom; for you, the high lights-- The pomp, the pride, the dance’s twanging measure ... And if one begged: “Take coin,” you’d say, “and toss it her. Poor thing! That skirt was never cut by Rossiter.” Dear, _rotten_ days! And yet, a Jack grows wistful At thoughts of all the Jills whom he remembers, In times when he had boodle by the fist-full And fires of youth--where now are only embers. Jack’s Jills! Why, Muse possesses quite a list full, May’s Jill, and June’s Jill, August’s, and September’s ... Yet dares no more than skim each light adventure Which followed on flirtationship’s indenture. For there’s a tide in the affairs of flappers, Of those, at least, that West End mothers breed-- (Your Wapping matron’s more inclined to slap _hers_: A vulgar trick--yet one which serves some need!)-- A spring-time blood-tide, mounting to young nappers, Heady as wine, a mischief-making mead, Which--though a man find every known excuse for ’em-- To put it mildly, does the very deuce for ’em. And shall my sweetest Muse, than whom none chaster E’er fluttered to console the middle-age-time Of any neurasthenic poetaster, Ope her full throat to sing Jill’s ’prentice rage-time?-- The unnerving doubts, the certainties which braced her, The follied moments and the ensuing sage time, The major and the minor bards who sung to her, The men who knelt, the “little friends” who clung to her; The last strange morning-dreams, the tea-tray’s rattle, The letters--opened, skimmed, and tossed aside; The leisured getting-up, the breakfast-prattle, The summoning ’phone-bell and the mid-day ride; The lunch; the afternoons of tittle-tattle-- Town’s latest scandal, dance, divorce or bride; The “dear boys,” climbers, _partis_, portion-stalkers; The furtive teas at Charbonnel and Walker’s;