This is that dubious hero of the press Whose slangy tongue and insolent address Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed and dozed, then roused and read again, And vowed O. Henry funniest of men.
He always worked a triple-hinged surprise To end the scene and make one rub his eyes.
He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer.
He comes with megaphone and specious cheer.
His troupe, too fat or short or long or lean, Step from the pages of the magazine With slapstick or sombrero or with cane: The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain.
They over-act each part. But at the height Of banter and of canter and delight The masks fall off for one queer instant there And show real faces: faces full of care And desperate longing: love that"s hot or cold; And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold.
The masks go back. "Tis one more joke. Laugh on!
The goodly grown-up company is gone.
No doubt had he occasion to address The brilliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess, He would have wrought for them the best he knew And led more loftily his actor-crew.
How coolly he misquoted. "Twas his art-- Slave-scholar, who misquoted--from the heart.
So when we slapped his back with friendly roar Aesop awaited him without the door,-- Aesop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh With little tales of FOX and DOG and CALF.
And be it said, mid these his pranks so odd With something nigh to chivalry he trod And oft the drear and driven would defend-- The little shopgirls" knight unto the end.
Yea, he had pa.s.sed, ere we could understand The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand.
Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip"s sword was drawn With valiant cut and thrust, and he was gone.
The Wizard in the Street
[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]
Who now will praise the Wizard in the street With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet-- This Jingle-man, of strolling players born, Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn, This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good, With melancholy bells upon his hood?
The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven"s croak, And well may mock his mystifying cloak Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read To make the ignoramus turn his head.
The artificial glitter of his eyes Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise.
Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep, Soothed by his steady wand"s mesmeric sweep.
The little lacquered boxes in his hands Somehow suggest old times and reverenced lands.
From them doll-monsters come, we know not how: Puppets, with Cain"s black rubric on the brow.
Some pa.s.sing jugglers, smiling, now concede That his best cabinet-work is made, indeed By bleeding his right arm, day after day, Triumphantly to seal and to inlay.
They praise his little act of shedding tears; A trick, well learned, with patience, thro" the years.
I love him in this blatant, well-fed place.
Of all the faces, his the only face Beautiful, tho" painted for the stage, Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage, Shames that are living, loves and hopes long dead, Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.
Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep: "What Nations sow, they must expect to reap,"
Or haste to clothe the race with truth and power, With hymns and shouts increasing every hour.
Useful are you. There stands the useless one Who builds the Haunted Palace in the sun.
Good tailors, can you dress a doll for me With silks that whisper of the sounding sea?
One moment, citizens,--the weary tramp Unveileth Psyche with the agate lamp.
Which one of you can spread a spotted cloak And raise an unaccounted incense smoke Until within the twilight of the day Stands dark Ligeia in her disarray, Witchcraft and desperate pa.s.sion in her breath And battling will, that conquers even death?
And now the evening goes. No man has thrown The weary dog his well-earned crust or bone.
We grin and hie us home and go to sleep, Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep.
He drank alone, for sorrow, and then slept, And few there were that watched him, few that wept.
He found the gutter, lost to love and man.
Too slowly came the good Samaritan.
The Eagle that is Forgotten
[John P. Altgeld. Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]
Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.
Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.
"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day, Now you were ended. They praised you, * * * and laid you away.
The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth, The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth, The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor That should have remembered forever, * * * remember no more.
Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?
They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones, A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons, The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.
Sleep softly, * * * eagle forgotten, * * * under the stone, Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own.
Sleep on, O brave hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame-- To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name, To live in mankind, far, far more * * * than to live in a name.
Shakespeare
Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came Visible emperor of the deeds of Time, With Justice still the genius of his rhyme, Giving each man his due, each pa.s.sion grace, Impartial as the rain from Heaven"s face Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun.
Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again.
Teach us to write, and writing, to be men.
Michelangelo
Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone Could draw the face of G.o.d, the t.i.tan high Whose genius smote like lightning from the sky-- And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?
Nay he is in us! Let us dare and dare.
G.o.d help us to be brave.
t.i.tian