Written by
Eugene Field |
Of all the opry-houses then obtaining in the West
The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best;
Milt, being rich, was much too proud to run the thing alone,
So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone--
A stern, commanding man with piercing eyes and flowing beard,
And his voice assumed a thunderous tone when Jack and I appeared;
He said that Julius Caesar had been billed a week or so,
And would have to have some armies by the time he reached St. Jo!
O happy days, when Tragedy still winged an upward flight,
When actors wore tin helmets and cambric robes at night!
O happy days, when sounded in the public's rapturous ears
The creak of pasteboard armor and the clash of wooden spears!
O happy times for Jack and me and that one other supe
That then and there did constitute the noblest Roman's troop!
With togas, battle axes, shields, we made a dazzling show,
When we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
We wheeled and filed and double-quicked wherever Brutus led,
The folks applauding what we did as much as what he said;
'T was work, indeed; yet Jack and I were willing to allow
'T was easier following Brutus than following father's plough;
And at each burst of cheering, our valor would increase--
We tramped a thousand miles that night, at fifty cents apiece!
For love of Art--not lust for gold--consumed us years ago,
When we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
To-day, while walking in the Square, Jack Langrish says to me:
"My friend, the drama nowadays ain't what it used to be!
These farces and these comedies--how feebly they compare
With that mantle of the tragic art which Forrest used to wear!
My soul is warped with bitterness to think that you and I--
Co-heirs to immortality in seasons long gone by--
Now draw a paltry stipend from a Boston comic show,
We, who were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!"
And so we talked and so we mused upon the whims of Fate
That had degraded Tragedy from its old, supreme estate;
And duly, at the Morton bar, we stigmatized the age
As sinfully subversive of the interests of the Stage!
For Jack and I were actors in the halcyon, palmy days
Long, long before the Hoyt school of farce became the craze;
Yet, as I now recall it, it was twenty years ago
That we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
We were by birth descended from a race of farmer kings
Who had done eternal battle with grasshoppers and things;
But the Kansas farms grew tedious--we pined for that delight
We read of in the Clipper in the barber's shop by night!
We would be actors--Jack and I--and so we stole away
From our native spot, Wathena, one dull September day,
And started for Missouri--ah, little did we know
We were going to train as soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
Our army numbered three in all--Marc Antony's was four;
Our army hankered after fame, but Marc's was after gore!
And when we reached Philippi, at the outset we were met
With an inartistic gusto I can never quite forget.
For Antony's overwhelming force of thumpers seemed to be
Resolved to do "them Kansas jays"--and that meant Jack and me!
My lips were sealed but that it seems quite proper you should know
That Rome was nowhere in it at Philippi in St. Jo!
I've known the slow-consuming grief and ostentatious pain
Accruing from McKean Buchanan's melancholy Dane;
Away out West I've witnessed Bandmann's peerless hardihood,
With Arthur Cambridge have I wrought where walking was not good;
In every phase of horror have I bravely borne my part,
And even on my uppers have I proudly stood for Art!
And, after all my suffering, it were not hard to show
That I got my allopathic dose with Brutus at St. Jo!
That army fell upon me in a most bewildering rage
And scattered me and mine upon that histrionic stage;
My toga rent, my helmet gone and smashed to smithereens,
They picked me up and hove me through whole centuries of scenes!
I sailed through Christian eras and mediæval gloom
And fell from Arden forest into Juliet's painted tomb!
Oh, yes, I travelled far and fast that night, and I can show
The scars of honest wounds I got with Brutus in St. Jo!
Ah me, old Davenport is gone, of fickle fame forgot,
And Barrett sleeps forever in a much neglected spot;
Fred Warde, the papers tell me, in far woolly western lands
Still flaunts the banner of high Tragic Art at one-night stands;
And Jack and I, in Charley Hoyt's Bostonian dramas wreak
Our vengeance on creation at some eensty dolls per week.
By which you see that public taste has fallen mighty low
Since we fought as Roman soldiers with Brutus in St. Jo!
|
Written by
John Lindley |
A misprint in a newspaper reported: ‘Auden stepped from the train and was greeted by a small but enthusiastic crow.’
‘Hmm,’ Auden thought when first he saw
the bird, as train came to a stop,
‘I’ll make this image mine before
some Yorkshire upstart snaps it up.’
He drew a notebook from his mac’,
unclipped a biro from his tweed,
stared at the crow, the crow stared back
then recognising him indeed
began to stun the platform crowd,
began to flap, began to sing,
and the poet wrote about its loud
and flattering beak, applauding wings.
Reporters, fans all stood amazed.
It seemed as if all clocks had stopped.
Only Auden stood unfazed.
Only his chin hadn’t dropped.
He pulled a Woodbine from its pack,
pulled out a match and struck a light,
stared at the crow, the crow stared back.
The night mail train pulled into sight.
John Lindley
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Till midnight her needle she plied
To finish her pretty pink dress;
"Oh, bless you, my darling," she sighed;
"I hope you will be a success."
As she entered the Oddfellow's Hall
With the shy thrill of maiden romance
She felt like the belle of the Ball,
But . . . nobody asked her to dance.
Her programme was clutched in her hand;
Her smile was a tiny bit wan;
She listened, applauding the band,
Pretending she liked to look on.
Each girl had her favourite swain,
She watched them retreat and advance;
She waited and waited in vain,
but nobody asked her to dance.
Said Mother to me: "You'll agree
That any young girl who wears specs,
however so clever she be,
Is lacking in glamour of sex."
Said I: "There is one by the wall
Who doesn't seem having a chance.
She's ready to weep - Dash it all,
I'm going to ask her to dance."
I caught her just slipping away
So quietly no one would know;
But bravely she tried to seem gay,
Though her heart might be aching with woe.
Poor kid! She looked only sixteen,
And she gave me a half frightened glance
When I bowed as if she were a Queen,
And I begged: "May I please have this dance?"
She gave me her card: what a bluff!
She'd written "Sir G." and "Sir G."
So I cut out that Galahad stuff,
And I scribbled "M.E" and "M.E.";
She looked so forlorn and so frail,
Submitting like one in a trance,
So I acted the conquering male,
And guided her into the dance.
Then lo! to my joy and surprise
Her waltzing I found was divine;
And she took those damn specs from her eyes,
And behold they were jewels a-shine;
No lipstick nor rouge she had on,
But no powder or paint could enhance
On her cheeks the twin roses shone
As I had with her dance after dance.
Then all of a sudden I knew
As we waltzed and reversed round the hall
That all eyes were watching us two,
And that she was the Belle of the Ball.
The fellows came buzzing like bees,
With swagger and posture and prance,
But her programme was full of "M.E."s,
So she couldn't afford them a dance.
Said mother: "You've been a nice boy,
But had a good time I suppose.
You've filled that poor kid's heart with joy,
From now she'll have plenty of beaus." . . .
So fellows, please listen to me:
Don't look at a wallflower askance;
If a girl sitting lonely you see,
Just bow, smile and beg for a dance.
|
Written by
Edwin Arlington Robinson |
(WASHINGTON SQUARE)
I met him, as one meets a ghost or two,
Between the gray Arch and the old Hotel.
“King Solomon was right, there’s nothing new,”
Said he. “Behold a ruin who meant well.”
He led me down familiar steps again,
Appealingly, and set me in a chair.
“My dreams have all come true to other men,”
Said he; “God lives, however, and why care?
“An hour among the ghosts will do no harm.”
He laughed, and something glad within me sank.
I may have eyed him with a faint alarm,
For now his laugh was lost in what he drank.
“They chill things here with ice from hell,” he said;
“I might have known it.” And he made a face
That showed again how much of him was dead,
And how much was alive and out of place.
And out of reach. He knew as well as I
That all the words of wise men who are skilled
In using them are not much to defy
What comes when memory meets the unfulfilled.
What evil and infirm perversity
Had been at work with him to bring him back?
Never among the ghosts, assuredly,
Would he originate a new attack;
Never among the ghosts, or anywhere,
Till what was dead of him was put away,
Would he attain to his offended share
Of honor among others of his day.
“You ponder like an owl,” he said at last;
“You always did, and here you have a cause.
For I’m a confirmation of the past,
A vengeance, and a flowering of what was.
“Sorry? Of course you are, though you compress,
With even your most impenetrable fears,
A placid and a proper consciousness
Of anxious angels over my arrears.
“I see them there against me in a book
As large as hope, in ink that shines by night
Surely I see; but now I’d rather look
At you, and you are not a pleasant sight.
“Forbear, forgive. Ten years are on my soul,
And on my conscience. I’ve an incubus:
My one distinction, and a parlous toll
To glory; but hope lives on clamorous.
“’Twas hope, though heaven I grant you knows of what—
The kind that blinks and rises when it falls,
Whether it sees a reason why or not—
That heard Broadway’s hard-throated siren-calls;
“’Twas hope that brought me through December storms,
To shores again where I’ll not have to be
A lonely man with only foreign worms
To cheer him in his last obscurity.
“But what it was that hurried me down here
To be among the ghosts, I leave to you.
My thanks are yours, no less, for one thing clear:
Though you are silent, what you say is true.
“There may have been the devil in my feet,
For down I blundered, like a fugitive,
To find the old room in Eleventh Street.
God save us!—I came here again to live.”
We rose at that, and all the ghosts rose then,
And followed us unseen to his old room.
No longer a good place for living men
We found it, and we shivered in the gloom.
The goods he took away from there were few,
And soon we found ourselves outside once more,
Where now the lamps along the Avenue
Bloomed white for miles above an iron floor.
“Now lead me to the newest of hotels,”
He said, “and let your spleen be undeceived:
This ruin is not myself, but some one else;
I haven’t failed; I’ve merely not achieved.”
Whether he knew or not, he laughed and dined
With more of an immune regardlessness
Of pits before him and of sands behind
Than many a child at forty would confess;
And after, when the bells in Boris rang
Their tumult at the Metropolitan,
He rocked himself, and I believe he sang.
“God lives,” he crooned aloud, “and I’m the man!”
He was. And even though the creature spoiled
All prophecies, I cherish his acclaim.
Three weeks he fattened; and five years he toiled
In Yonkers,—and then sauntered into fame.
And he may go now to what streets he will—
Eleventh, or the last, and little care;
But he would find the old room very still
Of evenings, and the ghosts would all be there.
I doubt if he goes after them; I doubt
If many of them ever come to him.
His memories are like lamps, and they go out;
Or if they burn, they flicker and are dim.
A light of other gleams he has to-day
And adulations of applauding hosts;
A famous danger, but a safer way
Than growing old alone among the ghosts.
But we may still be glad that we were wrong:
He fooled us, and we’d shrivel to deny it;
Though sometimes when old echoes ring too long,
I wish the bells in Boris would be quiet.
|
Written by
Anne Killigrew |
LOng my dull Muse in heavy slumbers lay,
Indulging Sloth, and to soft Ease gave way,
Her Fill of Rest resolving to enjoy,
Or fancying little worthy her employ.
When Noble Cleanors obliging Strains
Her, the neglected Lyre to tune, constrains.
Confus'd at first, she rais'd her drowsie Head,
Ponder'd a while, then pleas'd, forsook her Bed.
Survey'd each Line with Fancy richly fraught,
Re-read, and then revolv'd them in her Thought.
And can it be ? she said, and can it be ?
That 'mong the Great Ones I a Poet see ?
The Great Ones? who their Ill-spent time devide,
'Twixt dang'rous Politicks, and formal Pride,
Destructive Vice, expensive Vanity,
In worse Ways yet, if Worse there any be:
Leave to Inferiours the despised Arts,
Let their Retainers be the Men of Parts.
But here with Wonder and with Joy I find,
I'th'Noble Born, a no less Noble Mind;
One, who on Ancestors, does not rely
For Fame, in Merit, as in Title, high!
The Severe Goddess thus approv'd the Laies:
Yet too much pleas'd, alas, with her own Praise.
But to vain Pride, My Muse, cease to give place,
Virgils immortal Numbers once did grace
A Smother'd Gnat: By high Applause is shown,
If undeserv'd, the Praisers worth alone:
Nor that you should believ't, is't always meant,
'Tis often for Instruction only sent,
To praise men to Amendment, and display,
By its Perfection, where their Weakness lay.
This Use of these Applauding Numbers make
Them for Example, not Encomium, take.
|
Written by
Claude McKay |
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
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