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[Aetat. 5°-53 ] / O Y C E 671Yet pick up in some Turkish bathHis quantum est of Pox Romana.While Haakon hikes up primrose way,Spreeing and gleeing while he goes,To smirk upon his latter dayWithout a pimple on his nose.I gave it up I am afraidBut if I loafed and found it funRemember how a coyclad maidKnows how to take it out of one.The more I dither on and drinkMy midnight bowl of spirit punchThe firmlier I feel and thinkFriend Manders came too off to lunchSince scuttling ship Vikings like meReck not to whom the blame is laid,Y.M.C.A., V.D., T.B.Or Harbourmaster of Port-Said.Blame all and none and take to taskThe harlot's lure, the swain's desire.Heal by all means but hardly askDid this man sin or did his sire.The shack's ablaze. That canting scamp,The carpenter, has dished the parson.Now had they kept their powder dampLike me there would have been no arson.Nay, more, were I not all I was,Weak, wanton, waster out and out,There would have been no world's applauseAnd damn all to write home about.Back in Paris Joyce prepared The Mime of Mick Nick and the Maggies(Chapter IX) for publication by the Servire Press in The Hague in June1934. It ended with the prayer which finely summed up its author's viewof life: 'Loud, heap miseries upon us yet entwine our arts with laughter'slow!' 97To assist him in completing it he had the help of Madame FranceRaphael, an intelligent woman whose duty it was to copy in large lettershis almost illegible notations. Confused by idioms in different languages,she said to him, i hope that what I have been doing makes sense, butsometimes I feel as if I were flounderingin a bog.' Joyce replied handsomely,'Oh well, you have understood better than most people will afterit is finished.'* 98Soon after his return to Paris she was thrown froman* He paid a similar compliment to Armand Petitjean, who translated some of the bookinto French. 'Why,' said Joyce with a strange look, 'you've nearly understood me.' And