June 30th, 1919 <br /> <br />Notably fond of music, I dote on a <br />clearer tone <br />Than ever was blared by a bugle or zoomed <br />by a saxophone; <br />And the sound that opens the gates for me of <br />a Paradise revealed <br />Is something akin to the note revered by the <br />blesséd Eugene Field, <br />Who sang in pellucid phrasing that I perfectly <br />will recall <br />Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher that the <br />boy brings up the hall. <br />But sweeter to me than the sparrow's song or <br />the goose's autumn honks <br />Is the sound of the ice in the shaker as the <br />barkeeper mixes a Bronx. <br /> <br />Between the dark and the daylight, when I'm <br />worried about The Tower, <br />Comes a pause in the day's tribulations that <br />is known as the cocktail hour; <br />And my soul is sad and jaded, and my heart <br />is a thing forlorn, <br />And I view the things I have written with a <br />sickening, scathing scorn. <br />Oh, it's then I fare with some other slave who <br />is hired for the things he writes <br />To a Den of Sin where they mingle gin--such <br />as Lipton's, Mouquin's or Whyte's, <br />And my spirit thrills to a music sweeter than <br />Sullivan or Puccini-- <br />The swash of the ice in the shaker as he mixes <br />a Dry martini. <br /> <br />The drys will assert that metallic sound is the <br />selfsame canon made <br />By the ice in a shaker that holds a drink <br />like orange or lemonade; <br />But on the word of a traveled man and a <br />bard who has been around, <br />The sound of tin on ice and gin is a snappier, <br />happier sound. <br />And I mean to hymn, as soon as I have a <br />moment of leisure time, <br />The chill susurrus of cocktail ice in an adequae <br />piece of rhyme. <br />But I've just had an invitation to hark, at a <br />beckoning bar, <br />To the sound of the ice in the shaker as the <br />barkeeper mixes a Star.<br /><br />Franklin P. Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/variation-on-a-theme/
