The poem
Deeming that I were better dead, "How shall I kill myself?" I said. Thus mooning by the river Seine I sought extinction without pain, When on a bridge I saw a flash Of lingerie and heard a splash . . . So as I am a swimmer stout I plunged and pulled the poor wretch out.
The female that I saved? Ah yes, To yield the Morgue of one corpse the less, Apart from all heroic action, Gave me a moral satisfaction. was she an old and withered hag, Too tired of life to long to lag? Ah no, she was so young and fair I fell in love with her right there.
And when she took me to her attic Her gratitude was most emphatic. A sweet and simple girl she proved, Distraught because the man she loved In battle his life-blood had shed . . . So I, too, told her of my dead, The girl who in a garret grey Had coughed and coughed her life away.
Thus as we sought our griefs to smother, With kisses we consoled each other . . . And there's the ending of my story; It wasn't grim, it wasn't gory. For comforted were hearts forlorn, And from black sorrow joy was born: So may our dead dears be forgiving, And bless the rapture of the living.