d'Antin's verse:
Pas de caïque, pas de caïque,1
bécasse,2 mâne,3
Bec ami est coquille4
à ce vaste Assise ou Cannes.5
Roulette6 et n'épate7
éden8marcou9 y débit.10
Aîné petit inédit, oh vaine!11
fort bébé ennemi.12
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"strangely familiar" homophone:
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L. d'A. van Rooten's illuminating notes:
1. Caïque. A long narrow boat commonly used in the Levant.
2. A shore bird, the snipe.
3. Mâne. In Roman mythology, the soul after death, i.e., a ghost.
4. "The beak is friendly to shells." Birds have been the subject of many poems, and here tribute is paid to a ghostly snipe which does its own wading and swimming and feeds on shellfish.
5. Its range is from Cannes on the Riviera to Assisi in Italy, shrine of St.Francis, patron of birds.
6. A gambling game made famous by the Casinos of Monte Carlo and the Riviera.
7, 8. Comment that such an attraction (roulette) is unnecessary in this astonishing earthly paradise.
9. This refers to a man with a magic symbol on his body who is believed to have supernatural powers, but note that . . .
10. . . . even he suffers losses.
11. From the eldest to the yet unborn – All is Vanity.
12. I don't know what child psychologists would have to say on this subject, but this bears out a suspicion I have long harbored. Babies hate people! It would be interesting to know at what age this hatred turns to dependence and affection, or whether it persists in the subconscious, subject to reawakening by the pressures and tensions of our age.
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