RIVER-FOLK
II
THE VILLAGE MAYOR

The village mayor, in a soiled panama
With a tricolor ribbon at its crown,
Stout as Hugh Capet, in his loose eclát,
Glitters with bull-dog face across the town.

A doughty neighbor, ruddy as the tow,
His dagger's point his only signature,—
When at the night the garlic soup will flow,
He makes his girdle strap the less secure.

His wife, a nervous, pretty, little thing,
Holds him as in an iron fastening,
Cheering herself the while with Paul de Kock;

Decked in glass-beads, her eyebrows painted clear,—
The while her spouse through the backtown will steer
With stomach jewels and a face of rock.