June 30th, 1919

Notably fond of music, I dote on a 
clearer tone 
Than ever was blared by a bugle or zoomed 
by a saxophone; 
And the sound that opens the gates for me of 
a Paradise revealed 
Is something akin to the note revered by the 
blesséd Eugene Field, 
Who sang in pellucid phrasing that I perfectly 
will recall 
Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher that the 
boy brings up the hall. 
But sweeter to me than the sparrow's song or 
the goose's autumn honks 
Is the sound of the ice in the shaker as the 
barkeeper mixes a Bronx.

Between the dark and the daylight, when I'm 
worried about The Tower, 
Comes a pause in the day's tribulations that 
is known as the cocktail hour; 
And my soul is sad and jaded, and my heart 
is a thing forlorn, 
And I view the things I have written with a 
sickening, scathing scorn. 
Oh, it's then I fare with some other slave who 
is hired for the things he writes 
To a Den of Sin where they mingle gin--such 
as Lipton's, Mouquin's or Whyte's, 
And my spirit thrills to a music sweeter than 
Sullivan or Puccini-- 
The swash of the ice in the shaker as he mixes 
a Dry martini.

The drys will assert that metallic sound is the 
selfsame canon made 
By the ice in a shaker that holds a drink 
like orange or lemonade; 
But on the word of a traveled man and a 
bard who has been around, 
The sound of tin on ice and gin is a snappier, 
happier sound. 
And I mean to hymn, as soon as I have a 
moment of leisure time, 
The chill susurrus of cocktail ice in an adequae 
piece of rhyme. 
But I've just had an invitation to hark, at a 
beckoning bar, 
To the sound of the ice in the shaker as the 
barkeeper mixes a Star.