fifty years,
Cruel, insatiable Old World,
You have punched me over the heart
Till you made me cough blood.
The few paltry things I gathered
You snatched out of my hands.
You have knocked the cup from my thirsty lips.
You have laughed at my hunger of body and soul.

You look at me now and think,
"He is still strong,
There ought to be twenty more years of good punching there.
At the end of that time he will be old and broken,
Not able to strike back,
But cringing and crying for leave
To live a little longer."

Those twenty, pitiful, extra years
Would please you more than the fifty past,
Would they not, Old World?
Well, I hold them up before your greedy eyes,
And snatch them away as I laugh in your face,
Ha! Ha!
Bang--!

DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA

I

_Sunrise in the Tropics_

Sol, Sol, mighty lord of the tropic zone,
Here I wait with the trembling stars
To see thee once more take thy throne.

There the patient palm tree watching
Waits to say, "Good morn" to thee,
And a throb of expectation
Pulses through the earth and me.

Now, o'er nature falls a hush,
Look! the East is all a-blush;
And a growing crimson crest
Dims the late stars in the west;
Now, a flood of golden light
Sweeps across the silver night,
Swift the pale moon fades away
Before the light-girt King of Day,
See! the miracle is done!
Once more behold! The Sun!

II

_Los Cigarillos_

This is the land of the dark-eyed _gente_,
Of the _dolce far niente_,
Where we dream away
Both the night and day,
At night-time in sleep our dreams we invoke,
Our dreams come by day through the redolent smoke,
As it lazily curls,
And slowly unfurls
From our lips,
And the tips
Of our fragrant _cigarillos_.
For life in the tropics is only a joke,
So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke,
Smoke--smoke--smoke.

Tropical constitutions
Call for occasional revolutions;
But after that's through,
Why there's nothing to do
But smoke--smoke;

For life in the tropics is only a joke,
So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke,
Smoke--smoke--smoke.

III

_Teestay_

Of tropic sensations, the worst
Is, _sin duda_, the tropical thirst.

When it starts in your throat and constant