Oh, quietly mad I’d like to be —
I can’t keep calm to save my life —
When at the cinema I see
A one - armed man with pregnant wife.
To me a harp will angels bring,
The world grows limpid as a pool —
But open-mouthed he’ll sit and grin
While Charlie Chaplin plays the fool.
This harmless man, unmarked by fate,
With empty sleeve and swelling wife,
For what, in such lopsided state,
Does he drag out his modest life?
Oh, quietly mad I’d like to go
When afterwards out in the street —
Still with his pregnant wife in tow —
The one-armed man again I meet.
I go and get a leather whip
And then, with long-drawn warning cry,
I give the angels just one flip,
And upwards through the wires they fly
To perch high up above the street.
So pigeons once in every square
Of Venice scattered at our feet
To see my love come walking there.
Politely taking off my hat,
Up to the one-armed man I go.
His empty sleeve I lightly tap,
And thereupon address him so:
“Mon dieu, monsieur, when I in hell
Am served the way my haughty life
Has merited so richly well,
And you in heaven with your wife
Your shining snow-white wings array
And on them peacefully upsway,
And wondrous melodies assay,
And this sad vale of tears survey —
Then from those chilly heights remote,
I beg you, let one feather go,
That it may like a snowflake float
Down on my burning breast below.”
The one-armed man he smiles slightly,
And ventures no reply to that.
Goes off, rather impolitely,
Not bothering to raise his hat.