Fifty-fifty by Franklin P. Adams

Fifty-fifty
by Franklin P. Adams

[We think about the feminine faces we meet in the streets, and experience a passing melancholy because we are unacquainted with some of the girls we see.--From "The Erotic Motive in Literature," by ALBERT MORDELL.]

Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many girls I see
Whose form and features I applaud
With well-concealéd glee!

I'd speak to many a sonsie maid,
Or willowy or obese,
Were I not fearful, and afraid
She'd yell for the police.

And Melancholy, bittersweet,
Marks me then as her own,
Because I lack the nerve to greet
The girls I might have known.

Yet though with sadness I am fraught,
(As I remarked before),
There is one sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er:

For every shadow cloud of woe
Hath argentine alloy;
I see some girls I do not know
And feel a passing joy.