you can purchase the lost algonquin roundtable and kevin's other book, a journey into dorothy parker's new york, on amazon...
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here's a little ms. parker for you and me:
love song
suppose we two were cast away
on some deserted strand.
where in the breeze
the palm trees sway--
a sunlit wonderland:
where never human footstep fell
where tropic love-birds woo.
like eve and adam we could dwell,
in paradise, for two.
would you, i wonder, tire of me
as sunny days went by,
and would you welcome joyously,
a steamer?...so would i.
suppose we sought bucolic ways
and led the simple life
away--as runs the happy phrase--
from cities' toil and strife.
there you and i could live alone,
and share our hopes and fears,
a small-town darby and his joan,
we'd face the quiet years.
i wonder would you ever learn
my charms could pall on you,
and would you let your fancy turn
to others? ...i would too.
between us two (suppose once more)
had rolled the boundary deep;
you journeyed to a foreign shore,
and left me here to weep.
i wonder if you'd be the same,
though we were far apart,
and if you'd always bear my name
engraved upon your heart.
or would you bask in other smiles,
and, charmed by novelty,
forget the one so many miles
away?...that goes for me.
suppose we two were cast away
on some deserted strand.
where in the breeze
the palm trees sway--
a sunlit wonderland:
where never human footstep fell
where tropic love-birds woo.
like eve and adam we could dwell,
in paradise, for two.
would you, i wonder, tire of me
as sunny days went by,
and would you welcome joyously,
a steamer?...so would i.
suppose we sought bucolic ways
and led the simple life
away--as runs the happy phrase--
from cities' toil and strife.
there you and i could live alone,
and share our hopes and fears,
a small-town darby and his joan,
we'd face the quiet years.
i wonder would you ever learn
my charms could pall on you,
and would you let your fancy turn
to others? ...i would too.
between us two (suppose once more)
had rolled the boundary deep;
you journeyed to a foreign shore,
and left me here to weep.
i wonder if you'd be the same,
though we were far apart,
and if you'd always bear my name
engraved upon your heart.
or would you bask in other smiles,
and, charmed by novelty,
forget the one so many miles
away?...that goes for me.
--dorothy parker (1921)
from "the lost algonquin round table
copyright © 2009 edited by nat benchley and kevin c. fitzpatrick
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