blade.
In time of feast and dance and ballad,
I am for cutting chicken salad.
A Retort
As vicious women think all men are knaves,
And shrew-bound gentlemen discourse of slaves;
As reeling drunkards judge the world unsteady,
And idlers swear employers ne’er get ready—
Thieves that the constable stole all they had,
The mad that all except themselves are mad;
So, in another’s clear escutcheon shown,
Barnes rails at stains reflected from his own;
Prates of “docility,” nor feels the dark
Ring round his neck—the Ralston collar mark.
Back, man, to studies interrupted once,
Ere yet the rogue had merged into the dunce—
Back, back to Yale! and, grown with years discreet,
The course a virgin’s lust cut short, complete.
Go drink again at the Pierian pool,
And learn at least better to play the fool.
No longer scorn the draught, although the font
Unlike Pactolus, waters not Belmont.
A Vision of Resurrection
I had a dream. The habitable earth—
Its continents and islands—all was bare
Of cities and of forests. Naught remained
Of its old aspect, and I only knew
(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)
That this was earth and that all men were dead.
On every side I saw the barren land,
Even to the distant sky’s inclosing blue,
Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves
Save one were open—not as newly dug,
But rather as by some internal force
Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split
And wide agape, and in their iron decay
The massive mausoleums stood in halves.
With mildewed linen all the ground was white.
Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones
Hung without motion in the soulless air.
While greatly marveling how this should be
I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,
Low like an angel’s, delicately strong,
And sweet as music.
“Spirit,” it said, “behold
The burial place of universal Man!
A million years have rolled away since here
His sheeted multitudes (save only some
Whose dark misdeeds required a separate
And individual arraigning) rose
To judgment at the trumpet’s summoning
And passed into the sky for their award,
Leaving behind these perishable things
Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure
Till all are up. Then they and all of earth,
Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,
River and wilderness and sites of dead
And vanished capitals of men, shall spring
To flame, and naught shall be forevermore!
When all are risen that wonder will occur.
’Twas but ten centuries ago the last
But one came forth—a soul so black with sin,
Against whose name so many crimes were set
That only now his trial is at end.
But one remains.”
Straight, as the voice was stilled—
That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise
And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space
He stood and gazed about him with a smile
Superior; then laying off his shroud
Disclosed his two attenuated legs
Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly
As by the weight of saintliness above,
And so sprang upward and was lost to view.
Noting his headstone overthrown, I read:
“Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,
Deacon and Editor—a holy man
Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years
And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first.”
Master of Three Arts
Your various talents, Goldenson, command
Respect: you are a poet and can draw.
It is a pity that your gifted hand
Should ever have been raised against the law.
If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture,
You would have saved your throttle from a stricture.
About your poetry I’m not so sure:
’Tis certain we have much that’s quite as bad,
Whose hardy writers have not to endure
The hangman’s fondling. It is said they’re mad:
Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet)
Looked well, and if demented didn’t show it.
Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too—
Taught by the muses how to smite the harp
And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you
And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp.
But let me say, with no desire to taunt you,
I never murder even the girls I want to.
I hold it one of the poetic laws
To sing of life, not take it. I have shown
A high regard for human life because
I have such trouble to support my own.
And you—well, you’ll find trouble soon in blowing
Your private coal to keep it red and glowing.
I fancy now I see you at the Gate
Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly.
You cry: “Good sir, take pity on my state—
Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly!”
And Peter says: “O, that’s all right—but, mister,
You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I’ll make you blister!”
Thersites
So, in the Sunday papers you, Del Mar,
Damn, all great Englishmen in English speech?
I am no Englishman, but in my reach
A rogue shall never rail where heroes are.
You are the man, if I mistake you not,
Who lately with a supplicating twitch
Plucked at the pockets of the London rich,
And paid your share-engraver all you got.
Because that you have greatly lied, because
You libel nations, and because no hand
Of officer is raised to bid you stand,
And falsehood is unpunished of the laws,
I stand here in a public place to mark
With level finger where you part the crowd—
I stand to name you and to cry aloud:
“Behold mendacity’s great hierarch!”
A Society Leader
“The Social World”! O what a world it is—
Where full-grown men cut capers in the German,
Cotillion, waltz, or what you will, and whizz
And spin and hop and sprawl about like mermen!
I wonder if our future Grant or Sherman,
As these youths pass their time, is passing his—
If eagles ever come from painted eggs,
Or deeds of arms succeed to deeds of legs.
I know they tell us about Waterloo:
How, “foremost fighting,” fell the evening’s dancers.
I don’t believe it: I regard it true
That soldiers who are skillful in the Lancers
Less often die of cannon than of cancers.
Moreover, I am half-persuaded, too,
That David when he danced before the Ark
Had the reporter’s word to keep it dark.
Ed Greenway, you fatigue. Your hateful name
Like maiden’s curls, is in the papers daily.
You think it, doubtless, honorable fame,
And contemplate the cheap distinction gaily,
As does the monkey the blue-painted tail he
Believes becoming to him. ’Tis the same
With men as other monkeys: all their souls
Crave eminence on any kind of poles.
But cynics (barking tribe!) are all agreed
That monkeys
