Entranced as the gambler is ever by the lovely mathematics in
softest lighting,
The ballet of numbers,
The vingt-et-un, the baccarat, the chemin-de-fer,
-M'sieu, your usual,
Rum and stunning fractured ice placed at the elbow,
A balloon glass of bent rays, a crown, a coronet,
On the house, too loyal a customer of the House,
-Good evening, enchantée that you could join us tonight,
And the gambler delighted to receive the lying obeisance that is
the House,
But no rallentandi, not now begun,
Though many casino nights it takes to pour his blood coin on
coin to the river.
Faro and Napoleon, Texas Hold 'em and the obstinacy pertains,
The slope is passing steep, let 's sleigh it to the bottom, that wry
smile of his ever wishing and wishing,
Which goes where when you are not under the sky?
When you are in the icehouse and blinkered to a single view?
Doors were never locked, children played in the streets,
The inevitable joys and troubles of the world came on all in equal
measure, in sharing was their strength.
When it was Beggar my Neighbour and simple grandparents,
When it was the learning of the rules from the small stake game,
When it was parvenues King and Queen and majesty unearned,
What comes will go.
Many nights it takes, to cup the toxins out,
Many nights at rouge et noir, on impair, manque,
The gambler, many francs down by midnight and not especially
concerned,
O, and the false high spirits he must display if the bank should
lose.
He fights tonight, as every casino night, to squander,
And, in equal mode, himself, in action and character a unity,
Tell that to the whole around him,
Tell that to the sweetened psalms still in the air.
Await the stones, as Stephen buried to the thighs in Jerusalem
sand,
Seeming to the crowd that he kneels, so devout was the
gambler all along,
The gambler says: -Tell them I’m going nowhere fast,
After loss, he doubles his stake,
After gain, he halves his stake,
With a pretty little smile at their fallacy that the streak on
average continues.
Dioynsus, designated humourist in the stone drudgery laid
down by heaven,
Dionysus, casual to throw up twenty cards and have them aces
fall,
Ora pro nobis, all sleeve, all take, all drawing-in,
The croupière, crisp white sleeve with gaiter, bowtie of black,
The god made female for the day, for the opposition, now she
knows the gambler’s heart,
The broom drags the round stygian chips to their home,
Ora pro nobis, a hole in the pocket, a split in the wineskin,
The besom, the August desiccation, the subtraction,
Dionysus paid a trifle for his soul.
A vocation, says the gambler, no less,
When 't is sensuous, I 'll be your ruin,
When 't is affectionate, I 'll coddle thee now,
House odds against, the Gambler must go down,
A broken man, contented broken man,
To the Dolomites, icy range, and slip.
His house is squandered, he has succeeded,
The twin devastations, affection and seduction,
A martyr, every bit as much, vivement la destruction.
