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Show THE BIGAMIST EXPLAINS Experience always more experience! exper-ience! experience of life in all its phases, is the cry of the modern realist in art. From a literary review. When I was young and full of life Art seemed an earnest thing to me, In every town I had a wife And In some cities two or three. I did not marry them for pelf I'd scorn to play a sordid part! I sought to educate myself Concerning matters of the heart. For who can be a bard (I said) And paint the tender passion true If he has only gone and wed Merely a casual wife or two? To flirt with girls, and then to jilt The active conscience ne'er allows ,. No tear has ever yet been spilt Because I broke bethrothal vows! From every wife I got a song, With every song new wives I won, My lyric life, it flowed along Like a brook that babbles in the sun Sincere devotion to my Art At last was bringing fame to me! They dubbed me "Poet of the Heart," And said, "Where does he get it? -GeP Could I have wed a thousand times The critics would have called me great I put such reverence In my rhymes When singing of the married state. I i i But my eight hundredth wedding day . . . Alas! the tale I have to tell! . . . They led me from my brldd away, They put love's pilgrim in a cell! The crude world called me blga- mist . . . What does it know of love or art? You see the shackle on my wrist, You cannot see my broken heart! New York Sun. |