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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:00:10 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33770-8.txt b/33770-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b21179 --- /dev/null +++ b/33770-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3016 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Impertinent Poems, by Edmund Vance Cooke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Impertinent Poems + +Author: Edmund Vance Cooke + +Illustrator: Gordon Ross + +Release Date: September 20, 2010 [EBook #33770] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPERTINENT POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + +[Illustration: There's one you must get next to + +_Page 57._] + + + + +Impertinent Poems + +By + +Edmund Vance Cooke + +Author of + +"Chronicles of the Little Tot" +"Told to the Little Tot" +"Rimes to Be Read" +Etc. + +With Illustrations by + +Gordon Ross + + _Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, + And whether he's slow, or spry, + It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts + But only--how did you die?_ + +New York +Dodge Publishing Company +220 East 23rd Street + +Copyright, 1903, by +Edmund Vance Cooke + +Copyright, 1907, by +Dodge Publishing Company + + + + +A PRE-IMPERTINENCE. + + +Anticipating the intelligent critic of "Impertinent Poems," it may well +be remarked that the chief impertinence is in calling them poems. Be +that as it may, the editors and publishers of "The Saturday Evening +Post," "Success" and "Ainslee's," and, in a lesser degree, +"Metropolitan," "Independent," "Booklovers'" and "New York Herald" share +with the author the reproach of first promoting their publicity. That +they are now willing to further reduce their share of the burden by +dividing it with the present publishers entitles them to the thanks of +the author and the gratitude of the book-buying public. + + E. V. C. + +[Illustration] + + + + +INDEX. + + + PAGE + +Are You You? 59 + +Better 83 + +Between Two Thieves 71 + +Blood is Red 33 + +Bubble-Flies, The 61 + +Choice, The 68 + +Conscience Pianissimo 47 + +Conservative, The 40 + +Critics, The 89 + +Dead Men's Dust 11 + +Desire 99 + +Diagnosis 35 + +Dilettant, The 38 + +Distance and Disenchantment 77 + +Don't Take Your Troubles to Bed 22 + +Don't You? 16 + +Eternal Everyday, The 21 + +Failure 23 + +Familiarity Breeds Contempt 95 + +Family Resemblance 79 + +First Person Singular, The 66 + +Forget What the Other Man Hath 85 + +Get Next 57 + +Good 24 + +Grill, The 30 + +How Did You Die? 103 + +Humbler Heroes 45 + +Hush 41 + +In Nineteen Hundred and Now 14 + +Island, The 43 + +Let's Be Glad We're Living 26 + +Move 55 + +Need 81 + +Pass 51 + +Plug 92 + +Price, The 60 + +Publicity 53 + +Qualified 63 + +Saving Clause, The 70 + +Song of Rest, A 97 + +Spectator, The 73 + +Spread Out 37 + +Squealer, The 75 + +Success 28 + +There Is, Oh, So Much 101 + +Vision, The 32 + +What Are You Doing? 65 + +What Sort Are You? 87 + +Whet, The 86 + +World Runs On, The 49 + +You Too 18 + + + + +IMPERTINENT POEMS + +[Illustration] + + + + +DEAD MEN'S DUST. + + + You don't buy poetry. (Neither do I.) + Why? + You cannot afford it? Bosh! you spend + _Editions de luxe_ on a thirsty friend. + You can buy any one of the poetry bunch + For the price you pay for a business lunch. + Don't you suppose that a hungry head, + Like an empty stomach, ought to be fed? + Looking into myself, I find this true, + So I hardly can figure it false in you. + + And you don't _read_ poetry very much. + (Such + Is my own case also.) "But," you cry, + "I haven't the time." Beloved, you lie. + When a scandal happens in Buffalo, + You ponder the details, con and pro; + If poets were pugilists, couldn't you tell + Which of the poets licked John L.? + If poets were counts, could your wife be fooled + As to which of the poets married a Gould? + And even _my_ books might have some hope + If poetry books were books of dope. + + "You're a little bit swift," you say to me, + "See!" + You open your library. There you show + Your "favorite poets," row on row, + Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, + A Homer unread, an uncut Horace, + A wholly forgotten William Morris. + My friend, my friend, can it be you thought + That these were poets whom you had bought? + These are dead men's bones. You bought their mummies + To display your style, like clothing dummies. + But when do they talk to you? Some one said + That these were poets which should be read, + So here they stand. But tell me, pray, + How many poets who live to-day + Have you, of your own volition, sought, + Discovered and tested, proved and _bought_, + With a grateful glow that the dollar you spent + Netted the poet his ten per cent.? + + "But hold on," you say, "I am reading _you_." + True, + And pitying, too, the sorry end + Of the dog I tried this on. My friend, + I _can_ write poetry--good enough + So you wouldn't look at the worthy stuff. + But knowing what you prefer to read + I'm setting the pace at about your speed, + Being rather convinced these truths will hold you + A little bit better than if I'd told you + A genuine poem and forgotten to scold you. + Besides, when I open my little room + And see _my_ poets, each in his tomb, + With his mouth dust-stopped, I turn from the shelf + And I must scold you, or scold myself. + + + + +IN NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NOW. + + + Thomas Moore, at the present date, + Is chiefly known as "a ten-cent straight." + Walter, the Scot, is forgiven his rimes + Because of his tales of stirring times. + William Morris's fame will wear + As a practical man who made a chair. + And even Shakespere's memory's green + Less because he's read than because he's seen. + Then why should a poet make his bow + In the year of nineteen hundred and now? + + + Homer himself, if he could but speak, + Would admit that most of his stuff is Greek. + Chaucer would no doubt own his tongue + Was the broken speech of the land when young. + Shelley's a sealed-up book, and Byron + Is chiefly recalled as a masculine siren. + Poe has a perch on the chamber door, + But the populace read him "Nevermore." + Spenser fitted his day, as all allow, + But this is nineteen hundred and now. + + + Tennyson's chiefly given away + To callow girls on commencement day. + Alfred Austin, entirely solemn, + Is quoted most in the funny column. + Riley's Hoosiers have made their pile + And moved to the city to live in style. + Kipling's compared to "The Man Who Was," + And the rest of us write with little cause, + Till publishers shy at talk of per cents., + But offer to print "at author's expense." + + O, once the "celestial fire" burned bright, + But the world now calls for electric light! + And Pegasus, too, is run by meter, + Being trolleyized to make him fleeter. + So I throw the stylus away and set + Myself at the typewriter alphabet + To spell some message I find within + Which shall also scratch your rawhide skin, + For you must read it, if I learn how + To write for nineteen hundred and now. + +[Illustration] + + + + +DON'T YOU? + + + When the plan which I have, to grow suddenly rich + Grows weary of leg and drops into the ditch, + And scheme follows scheme + Like the web of a dream + To glamor and glimmer and shimmer and seem,... + Only seem; + And then, when the world looks unfadably blue, + If my rival sails by + With his head in the sky, + And sings "How is business?" why, what do I do? + Well, I claim that I aim to be honest and true, + But I sometimes lie. Don't you? + + When something at home is decidedly wrong, + When somebody sings a false note in the song, + Too low or too high, + And, you hardly know why, + But it wrangles and jangles and runs all awry,... + Aye, awry! + And then, at the moment when things are askew, + Some cousin sails in + With a face all a-grin, + And a "Do I intrude? Oh, I see that I do!" + Well, then, though I aim to be honest and true, + Still I sometimes lie. Don't you? + + When a man whom I need has some foible or fad, + Not very commendable, not very bad; + Perhaps it's his daughter, + And some one has taught her + To daub up an "oil" or to streak up a "water"; + What a "water"! + And her grass is green green and her sky is blue blue, + But her father, with pride, + In a stagey aside + Asks my "candid opinion." Then what do I do? + Well, I claim that I aim to be honest and true, + But I sometimes lie. Don't you? + + + + +YOU TOO. + + + Did you ever make some small success + And brag your little brag, + As if your breathing would impress + The world and fix your tag + Upon it, so that all might see + The label loudly reading, "ME!" + And when you thought you'd gained the height + And, sunning in your own delight, + You preened your plumes and crowed "All right!" + Did something wipe you out of sight? + Unless you did this many a time + You needn't stop to read this rime. + + When I was mamma's little joy + And not the least bit tough, + I'd sometimes whop some other boy + (If he were small enough), + And for a week I'd wear a chip, + And at the uplift of a lip + I'd lord it like a pigmy pope, + Until, when I had run my rope, + Some bullet-headed little Swope + Would clean me out as slick as soap. + No doubt you were as bad, or worse, + Or else you had not read this verse. + +[Illustration: "Me!" + +_Page 18._] + + All women were like pica print + When I was young and wise; + I'd read their very souls by dint + Of looking in their eyes. + And in those limpid souls I'd see + A very fierce regard for me. + And then--my, my, it makes me faint!-- + Peroxide and a pinkish paint + Gave me the hard, hard heart complaint, + I saw the sham, I felt the taint, + Yet if she'd pat me once or twice, + I'd follow like a little fyce. + + I never played a little game + And won a five or ten, + But, presto! I was not the same + As common makes of men. + Not Solomon and all his kind + Held half the wisdom of my mind. + And so I'd swell to twice my size, + And throw my hat across my eyes, + And chew a quill, and wear red ties, + And tip you off the stock to rise-- + Until, at last, I'd have to steal + The baby's bank to buy a meal. + + I speak as if these things remained + All in the perfect tense, + And yet I don't suppose I've gained + A single ounce of sense. + I scoff these tales of yesterday + In quite a supercilious way, + But by to-morrow I may bump + Into some newer game and jump! + You'll think I am the only trump + In all the deck until--kerslump! + Unless you'll do the same some time, + Of course you haven't read this rime. + +[Illustration: The Eternal Everyday + +_Page 21._] + + + + +THE ETERNAL EVERYDAY. + + + O, one might be like Socrates + And lift the hemlock up, + Pledge death with philosophic ease, + And drain the untrembling cup;-- + But to be barefoot and be great, + Most in desert and least in state, + Servant of truth and lord of fate! + I own I falter at the peak + Trod daily by the steadfast Greek. + + O, one might nerve himself to climb + His cross and cruelly die, + Forgiving his betrayer's crime, + With pity in his eye;-- + But day by day and week by week + To feel his power and yet be meek, + Endure the curse and turn the cheek, + I scarce dare trust even you to be + As was the Jew of Galilee. + + O, one might reach heroic heights + By one strong burst of power. + He might endure the whitest lights + Of heaven for an hour;-- + But harder is the daily drag, + To smile at trials which fret and fag, + And not to murmur--nor to lag. + The test of greatness is the way + One meets the eternal Everyday. + + + + +DON'T TAKE YOUR TROUBLES TO BED. + + + You may labor your fill, friend of mine, if you will; + You may worry a bit, if you must; + You may treat your affairs as a series of cares, + You may live on a scrap and a crust; + But when the day's done, put it out of your head; + Don't take your troubles to bed. + + You may batter your way through the thick of the fray, + You may sweat, you may swear, you may grunt; + You may be a jack-fool if you must, but this rule + Should ever be kept at the front:-- + Don't fight with your pillow, but lay down your head + And kick every worriment out of the bed. + + That friend or that foe (which he is, I don't know), + Whose name we have spoken as Death, + Hovers close to your side, while you run or you ride, + And he envies the warmth of your breath; + But he turns him away, with a shake of his head, + When he finds that you don't take your troubles to bed. + + + + +FAILURE. + + + What is a failure? It's only a spur + To a man who receives it right, + And it makes the spirit within him stir + To go in once more and fight. + If you never have failed, it's an even guess + You never have won a high success. + + What is a miss? It's a practice shot + Which a man must make to enter + The list of those who can hit the spot + Of the bull's-eye in the centre. + If you never have sent your bullet wide, + You never have put a mark inside. + + What is a knock-down? A count of ten + Which a man may take for a rest. + It will give him a chance to come up again + And do his particular best. + If you never have more than met your match, + I guess you never have toed the scratch. + +[Illustration] + + + + +GOOD. + + + You look at yourself in the glass and say: + "Really, I'm rather _distingué_. + To be sure my eyes + Are assorted in size, + And my mouth is a crack + Running too far back, + And I hardly suppose + An unclassified nose + Is a mark of beauty, as beauty goes; + But still there's something about the whole + Suggesting a beauty of--well, say soul." + And this is the reason that photograph-galleries + Are able to pay employees' salaries. + Now, this little mark of our brotherhood, + By which each thinks that his looks are good, + Is laudable quite in you and me, + Provided we not only look, but be. + + I look at my poem and you hear me say: + "Really, it's clever in its way. + The theme is old + And the style is cold. + These words run rude; + That line is crude; + And here is a rhyme + Which fails to chime, + And the metre dances out of time. + +[Illustration: Look at Yourself + +_Page 24._] + + Oh, it isn't so bright it'll blind the sun, + But it's better than that by Such-a-one." + And this is the reason I and my creditors + Curse the "unreasoning whims" of editors, + And yet, if one writes for a livelihood, + He ought to believe that his work is good, + Provided the form that his vanity takes + Not only believes, but also makes. + + And there is our neighbor. We've heard him say: + "Really, I'm not the commonest clay. + Brown got his dust + By betraying a trust; + And Jones's wife + Leads a terrible life; + While I _have_ heard + That Robinson's word + Isn't quite so good as Gas preferred. + And Smith has a soul with seamy cracks, + For he talks of people behind their backs!" + And these are the reasons the penitentiary + Holds open house for another century. + True, we want no man in our neighborhood + Who doesn't consider his character good, + But then it ought to be also true + He not only knows to consider, but do. + + + + +LET'S BE GLAD WE'RE LIVING. + + + I. + + Oh, let's be glad that we're living yet; you bet! + The sun runs round and the rain is wet + And the bird flip-flops its wing; + Tennis and toil bring an equal sweat; + It's so much trouble to frown and fret, + So easy to laugh and sing, + Ting ling! + So easy to laugh and sing! + (And yet, sometimes, when I sing my song, + I'm almost afraid my method is wrong.) + + + II. + + Many have money which I have not, God wot! + But victual and keep are all they've got, + And the stars still dot the sky. + Heaven be praised that they shine so bright, + Heaven be praised for an appetite, + So who is richer than I? + Hi yi! + Say, who is richer than I? + (And yet I'm hoping to sell this screed + For several dollars I hardly need.) + + + III. + + Ducats and dividends, stocks and shares, who cares? + Worry and property travel in pairs, + While the green grows on the tree. + A banquet's nothing more than a meal; + A trolley's much like an automobile, + With a transfer sometimes free, + Tra lee! + With a transfer sometimes free! + (And yet you're unwilling, I plainly see, + To leave the automobile to me.) + + + IV. + + A note you give and a note you get; don't fret, + For they both may go to protest yet, + And the roses blow perfume. + Fortune is only a Dun report; + The Homestead Law and the Bankrupt Court + Have fostered many a boom, + Boom, boom! + Have fostered many a boom. + (But I see you smile in a rapturous way + On the man who is rated double A.) + + + V. + + Life is a show for you and me; it's free! + And what you look for is what you see; + A hill is a humped-up hollow. + Riches are yours with a dollar bill; + A million's the same little digit still, + With nothing but naughts to follow, + So hollo! + There's nothing but naughts to follow. + (But you and I, as I've said before, + Could get along with a trifle more.) + + + + +SUCCESS. + + + It's little the difference where you arrive; + The serious question is how you strive. + Are you up to your eyes in a wild romance? + Does your lady lead you a dallying dance? + Do you question if love be fate, or chance? + Oh, the world will ask: "Did he get the girl?" + Though gentleman, coxcomb, clown or churl, + Master or menial of passion's whirl. + But it _isn't_ that. The world will run + Though you never bequeath it daughter or son, + But what, O lover, will come to you + If you be not chivalrous, honest, true? + As far ahead as a man may think, + You can see your little soul shrivel and shrink. + It's not, "Do you win?" + It is, "What have you been?" + + Are you stripped for the world-old, world-wide race + For the metal which shines like the sun's own face + Till it dazzles us blind to the mean and base? + Do you say to yourself, "When I have my hoard, + I will give of the plenty which I have stored, + If the Lord bless me, I will bless the Lord"? + And do you forget, as you pile your pelf, + What is the gift you are giving yourself? + Though your mountain of gold may dazzle the day, + Can you climb its height with your feet of clay? + Oh, it isn't the stamp on the metal you win; + It's the stamp on the metal you coin within. + It's not what you give; + It is "What do you live?" + + Are you going to sail the polar seas + To the point of ninety-and-north degrees, + Where the very words in your larynx freeze? + Well, the mob may ask "Did he reach the pole? + Though fair, or foul, did he touch the goal?" + But if that be the spirit which stirs your soul, + Off, off from the land below the zeroes; + For you are not of the stuff of heroes. + Ho! many a man can lead men forth + To the fearsome end of the Farthest North, + But can you be faithful for woe or weal + In a land where nothing but self is leal? + Oh, it isn't "How far?" + It is what you are. + And it isn't your lookout where you arrive, + But it's up to you as to how you strive. + + + + +THE GRILL. + + + Why do you? + What's it to you? + I know you do, for I've seen the gruesome feeling simmer through you. + I've seen it rise behind your eyes + And take your features by surprise. + I've seen it in your half-hid grin + And the tilting-upness of your chin. + Good-natured though you are and fair, as you have often boasted, + Still you like to hear the other man artistically roasted. + + Whenever the star secures the stage with the spotlight in the centre, + Why should the anvil chorus think it has the cue to enter? + Whenever the prima donna trills the E above the clef, + Why should the brasses orchestrate the bass in double f? + + It's funny, + But it's even money, + You like to spy the buzzing fly in the other fellow's honey. + Though you have said that honest bread + Demands no honey on it spread, + +[Illustration: Why do You? + +_Page 30._] + + And if we eat the crusty wheat + With appetite, it needs no sweet, + Still I have noticed you were not at all inclined to cry + Because the man the bees had blest was bothered with the fly. + + Whenever the chef concocts a dish which sets the world to tasting, + Why does the cooking-school get out its recipes for basting? + Whenever a sprinter beats the bunch from the pistol-shot, why is it + The heavy hammer throwers get together for a visit? + + Excuse me! + Did you accuse me + Of turning the spit a little bit myself? Why, you amuse me! + Didn't I scratch the sulphurous match + And blow the flame to make it catch? + Didn't you trot to get the pot + To heat the water good and hot? + Then, seizing on our victim, if we found no greater sin, + Didn't we call him "a lobster," and cheerfully chuck him in? + + + + +THE VISION. + + + At the door of Success, I've been tempted to knock + Both the door and the man who went through it, + But I find that the fellow was greasing the lock + All the time that he strove to undo it, + So I either stay out, or must look for the key + Which slipped back the bolt which impeded, + And I'm certain to find it, as soon as I see + The reason my rival succeeded. + + Yes, I own when the man is a rank also-ran + That I feel quite pish-tushy and pooh-y, + And exclaim if he ever knew saw-dust from bran, + Well--I come from just west of St. Louis! + But then, in the winning he's made, there's a hope + That I may do even as he did, + So I swallow my sneer and I study his dope + To discover just why he succeeded. + + I've been up in the air, I've been down in the hole, + (But always, let's hope, on the level,) + And I've been on my uppers--so meagre my sole + 'Twould scarcely have tempted the devil! + But it's nothing to you what I am, or I was, + And no whit of your sympathy's needed, + For I'm certain to win in the long run, because + I shall see how my rival succeeded. + + + + +BLOOD IS RED. + + + Some of us don't drink, some of us do; + Some of us use a word or two. + Most of us, maybe, are half-way ripe + For deeds that would't look well in type. + All of us have done things, no doubt, + We don't very often brag about. + We are timidly good, we are badly bold, + But there's hope for the worst of us, I hold, + If there be a few things we didn't do, + For the reason that we so wanted to. + + Some of us sin on a smaller scale. + (We don't mind minnows, we shy at a whale.) + We speak of a woman with half a sneer, + We sit on our hands when we ought to cheer. + The salad we mix in the bowl of the heart + We sometimes make a little too tart + For home consumption. We growl, we nag, + But we're not quite lost if we sometimes drag + The hot words back and make them mild + At the moment they fret to be running wild. + + Don't pin your faith on the man or woman + Who never is tempted. We're mostly human. + And whoever he be who never has felt + The red blood sing in the veins and melt + The ice of convention, caste and creed, + To the very last barrier, has no need + To raise his brows at the rest of us. + It bides its time in the best of us, + And well for him if he do not do + That which the strength of him wants him to. + + + + +DIAGNOSIS. + + + You have a grudge against the man + Who did the thing you couldn't do. + You hatched the scheme, you laid the plan, + And yet you couldn't push it through. + You strained your soul and couldn't win; + He gave a breath and it was easy. + You smile and swallow your chagrin, + But, oh, the swallow makes you queasy. + + I know your illness, for, you see, + The diet never pleases me. + + Your dearest friend has made a strike, + Has placed his mark above the crowd, + Has won the thing which _you_ would like + And you are glad for him, and proud. + Your tongue is swift, your cheek is red, + If some one speak to his detraction, + And yet, the fact the thing is said + Affords you half a satisfaction. + + I see the workings of your mind + Because my own is so inclined. + + You tell me fame is hollow squeak, + You say that wealth is carking care; + And to live care-free a single week + Is more than years of work and wear. + Alexander weeps his highest place, + Diogenes is happy sunning! + What matters it who wins the race + So you have had the joy of running? + + And yet, you covet prize and pelf. + I know it, for I do, myself. + + + + +SPREAD OUT. + + + In politics I'm a--never mind, + And you are a--I don't care, + But, anyway, I am rather inclined + To suspect we are both unfair; + For I have called you a coward and slave + And you have dubbed me a fool and knave. + + (Yet, perhaps I was right, for you surely abused + The right of free speech in the names you used!) + + In business you figure--a profit, I guess, + And I charge you--as much as I dare, + And I grumble that you ought to do it for less, + And you ask if my price is fair. + But if _I_ sold your goods and _you_ sold mine, + I doubt if the prices would much decline. + + (Though I must insist that I think I see + Where you'd still have a little advantage of me!) + + In religion you are a--who cares what? + And I am a--what's the odds? + So why have I sneered at your holiest thought, + And why have you jeered at my gods? + For, thinking it over, I'm sure we two + Were doing the best that we honestly knew. + + (Though, of course, I cannot escape a touch + Of suspicion that _you_ never knew too much!) + + + + +THE DILETTANT. + + + To lie outright in the light of day + I'm not sufficiently skilful, + But I practice a bit, in an amateur way, + The lie which is hardly wilful; + The society lie and the business lie + And the lie I have had to double, + And the lie that I lie when I don't know why + And the truth is too much trouble. + + For this I am willing to take your blame + Unless you have sometimes done the same. + + To be a fool of an A1 brand + I'm not sufficiently clever, + But I often have tried my 'prentice hand + In a callow and crude endeavor; + A fool with the money for which I've toiled, + A fool with the word I've spoken, + And the foolish fool who is fooled and foiled + On a maiden's finger broken. + + If you never yourself have made a slip, + I'm willing to watch you curl your lip. + + And yet my blood and my bone resist + If you dub me fool and liar. + I set my teeth and double my fist + And my brow is flushed with fire. + + You I deny and you I defy + And I vow I will make you rue it; + And I lie when I say that I never lie, + Which proves me a fool to do it! + + You may jerk your thumb at me and grin + If liar and fool you never have been. + + + + +THE CONSERVATIVE. + + + At twenty, as you proudly stood + And read your thesis, "Brotherhood," + If I remember right, you saw + The fatuous faults of social law. + + At twenty-five you braved the storm + And dug the trenches of Reform, + Stung by some gadfly in your breast + Which would not let your spirit rest. + + At thirty-five you made a pause + To sum the columns of The Cause; + You noted, with unwilling eye, + The heedless world had passed you by. + + At forty you had always known + Man owes a duty to His Own. + Man's life is as man's life is made; + The game is fair, if fairly played. + + At fifty, after years of stress + You bore the banner of Success. + All men have virtues, all have sins, + And God is with the man who wins. + + At sixty, from your captured heights + You fly the flag of Vested Rights, + Bounded by bonds collectable, + And hopelessly respectable! + + + + +HUSH. + + + What's the best thing that you ever have done? + The whitest day, + The cleverest play + That ever you set in the shine of the sun? + The time that you felt just a wee bit proud + Of defying the cry of the cowardly crowd + And stood back to back with God? + Aye, I notice you nod, + But silence yourself, lest you bring me shame + That I have no answering deed to name. + + What's the worst thing that ever you did? + The darkest spot, + The blackest blot + On the page you have pasted together and hid? + Ah, sometimes you think you've forgotten it quite, + Till it crawls in your bed in the dead of the night + And brands you its own with a blush. + What was it? Nay, hush! + Don't tell it to me, for fear it be known + That I have an answering blush of my own. + + But whenever you notice a clean hit made, + Sing high and clear + The sounding cheer + You would gladly have heard for the play you played, + And when a man walks in the way forbidden, + Think you of the thing you have happily hidden + And spare him the sting of your tongue. + Do I do that which I've sung? + Well, it may be I don't and it may be I do, + But I'm telling the thing which is good for _you_! + + + + +THE ISLAND. + + + You, my friend, in your long-tailed coat, + With your white cravat at your withered throat, + Praying by proxy of him you hire, + Worshiping God with a quartet choir, + Bumping your head on the pew in front, + Assenting "Amen!" with an unctuous grunt, + Are you sure it is you + In the pew? + + Look! + You're away on a lonely isle, + Where the scant breech-clout is the only style, + Where the day of the week forgets its name, + Where god and devil are all the same. + Look at yourself in your careless clout, + And tell me, then, would you be devout? + + One on the island, one in the pew-- + How do you know which is you? + + You, dear maiden, with eyes askance + At the little soubrette and her daring dance, + Thanking God that His ways are wide + To allow you to pass on the other side, + You, as you ask, "Will the world approve?" + At the hint of a wabble out of the groove, + + Look! + On that isle of the lonely sea + Are you, the saucy soubrette and _he_. + And the little grooves that you circle in + Are forever as though they never had been. + Now you are naked of soul and limb: + Will you say what you will not dare--for him? + + Which of the women is real? + The one you appear, or the one you feel? + + You, good sir, with your neck a-stretch, + As the van goes by with the prison wretch, + Asking naught of his ills or hurts, + Judging "he's getting his just deserts," + Pluming yourself that the moral laws + Are centred in you as effect and cause. + + Look! + At the island, and there you are + With the long, strong arm which reaches far, + And there are the natives who kneel and bow, + And where are your _meum et tuum_ now? + Are you sure that the balance swings quite true? + Or does it a little incline to you? + + Answer or not as you will, but oh, + I have an island, too, and so + I know, I know. + + + + +HUMBLER HEROES. + + + It might not be so difficult to lead the light brigade, + While the army cheered behind you, and the fifes and bugles played; + It might be rather easy, with the war-shriek in your ears, + To forget the bite of bullets and the taste of blood and tears. + But to be a scrubwoman, with four + Babies, or more, + Every day, every day setting your back + On the rack, + And all your reward forever not quite + A full bite + Of bread for your babies. Say! + In the heat of the day + You might be a hero to head a brigade, + But a hero like her? I'm afraid! I'm afraid! + + It might be very feasible to force a great reform, + To saddle public passion and to ride upon the storm; + It might be somewhat simple to ignore the roar of wrath, + Because a second shout broke out to cheer you on your path. + But he who, alone and unknown, is true + To his view, + Unswerved by the crush of the mutton-browed, + Blatting crowd, + Unwon by the flabby-brained, blinking ease + Which he sees + Throned and anointed. Say! + At the height of the fray, + You might be the chosen to captain the throng: + But to stand all alone? How long? How long? + + + + +CONSCIENCE PIANISSIMO. + + + You are honest as daylight. You're often assured + That your word is as good as your note--unsecured. + We could trust you with millions unaudited, but---- + (Tut, tut! + There is always a "but," + So don't get excited,) I'm pained to perceive + It is seldom I notice you grumble or grieve + When the custom-house officer pockets your tip + And passes the contraband goods in your grip. + You would scorn to be shy on your ante, I'm certain, + But skinning your Uncle you're rather expert in. + + Well, I'm proud that no taint of the sort touches me. + (For I've never been over the water, you see.) + + Your yardstick's a yard and your goods are all wool; + Your bushel's four pecks and you measure it full. + You are proud of your business integrity, yet-- + (Don't fret! + There is always a "yet,") + I never have noticed a sign of distress, or + Disturbance in you, when the upright assessor + Has listed your property somewhere about + Half what you would take were you selling it out. + You're as true to the world as the world to its axis, + But you chuckle to swear off your personal taxes. + As for me, I would scorn to do any such thing, + (Though I may have considered the question last spring.) + + You have notions of right. You would count it a sin + To cheat a blind billionaire out of a pin. + You have a contempt for a pettiness, still-- + (Don't chill! + There is always a "still,") + I never have noticed you storm with neglect + Because the conductor had failed to collect, + Or growl that the game wasn't run on the square + When your boy in the high school paid only half fare. + The voice of your conscience is lusty and audible, + But a railroad--good heavens! why, that's only laudable. + + Of course, _I_ am quite in a different class; + For me, it is painful to ride on a pass! + + + + +THE WORLD RUNS ON. + + + So many good people find fault with God, + Tho' admitting He's doing the best He can, + But still they consider it somewhat odd + That He doesn't consult them concerning his plan, + But the sun sinks down and the sun climbs back, + And the world runs round and round its track. + + Or they say God doesn't precisely steer + This world in the way they think is best, + And if He would listen to them, He'd veer + A hair to the sou', sou'west by west. + But the world sails on and it never turns back + And the Mariner never makes a tack. + + Or the same folk pray "O, if Thou please, + Dear God, be a little more circumspect; + Thou knowest Thy worm who is on his knees + Would not willingly charge thee with neglect, + But O, if indeed Thou knowest all things, + Why fittest Thou not Thy worm with wings?" + + So many good people are quite inclined + To favor God with their best advices, + And consider they're something more than kind + In helping Him out of critical crises. + But the world runs on, as it ran before, + And eternally shall run evermore. + + So many good people, like you and me, + Are deeply concerned for the sins of others + And conceive it their duty that God should be + Apprised of the lack in erring brothers. + And the myriad sun-stars seed the skies + And look at us out of their calm, clear eyes. + + + + +PASS. + + + Did somebody give you a pat on the back? + Pass it on! + Let somebody else have a taste of the snack, + Pass it on! + If it heightens your courage, or lightens your pack, + If it kisses your soul, with a song in the smack, + Maybe somebody else has been dressing in black; + Pass it on! + God gives you a smile, not to make it a yawn; + Pass it on! + + Did somebody show you a slanderous mess? + Pass it by! + When a brook's flowing by, will you drink at the cess? + Pass it by! + Dame Gossip's a wanton, whatever her dress; + Her sire was a lie and her dam was a guess, + And a poison is in her polluting caress; + Pass it by! + Unless you're a porker, keep out of the sty. + Pass it by! + + Did somebody give you an insolent word? + Pass it up! + 'T is the creak of a cricket, the pwit of a bird; + Pass it up! + Shake your fist at the sea! Is its majesty blurred? + Blow your breath at the sky! Is its purity slurred? + But the shallowest puddle, how easily stirred! + Pass it up! + Does the puddle invite you to dip in your cup? + Pass it up! + + + + +PUBLICITY. + + + There's nothing like publicity + To further that lubricity + Which minted cartwheels need + To maximize their speed + In your direction. + True, some hydropathist of stocks, + Or one whose trade is picking locks, + May make objection: + Yet even those gentry always lurk + Where booming first has done its work. + + Observe how oft some foreigner, + About the size of coroner, + Can sell L O R D + (Four letters, as you see,) + For seven numbers, + Because his trade-mark, thus devised, + Is advertised and advertised + Till it encumbers + The mental view, as though 't were some + Bald-headed brand of chewing-gum. + + Study your own psychology! + See how some mere tautology + Of picture, or of print, + Has realized the glint + Of your good money. + How often have persistent views + Of one bare head sold you your shoes! + Which does seem funny; + And yet 'twas head-work, after all, + Which helped the shoe-man make his haul. + + There's some obscure locality + In every man's mentality + Which, I am free to state, + I'd like to penetrate + For my felicity. + For now who gives a second look + When he perceives a POEM by Cooke? + But come publicity! + And then a poem by COOKE were seen + The first thing in the magazine! + +[Illustration: _Page 55._] + + + + +MOVE! + + + We are on the main line of a crowded track; + We've got to go forward; we can't go back + And run the risk of colliding: + We must make schedule, not now and again, + But always, forever and ever, amen! + Or else switch off on a siding. + If ever we loaf, like a car in the yard, + Doesn't somebody bump us, and bump us hard, + I wonder? + + You've succeeded in building a pretty fair trade, + But can you sit down in the grateful shade + And kill time cutting up capers? + Or must you hustle and scheme and sweat, + Though the shine be fine or the weather be wet, + And keep your page in the papers? + If ever you fail to be pulling the strings, + Aren't some of your rivals around doing things, + I wonder? + + You're a first-class salesman. You know your line; + Your house is good and your goods are fine, + So you fill your book with orders, + But can you get quit of the ball and chain, + Or are you in jail on a railroad train, + With blue-coated men for warders? + If you sent your samples and cut out the trip, + Wouldn't somebody else soon be lugging your grip, + I wonder? + + You are starred on the bills and are chummy with fame; + The man on the corner could tell you your name + At three o'clock in the morning, + But can you depend on the mind of the mob? + Can you tell your press-agent to look for a job, + Or give your manager warning? + Should you lie down to sleep, with your laurels beneath, + Wouldn't somebody else soon be wearing your wreath, + I wonder? + + Oh, I'm willing to work, but I wish I could lag, + Not feeling as if I were "it" for tag, + Or last in follow-my-leader; + There is only one spot where, I haven't a doubt, + Nobody will try to be crowding me out, + And that is under the cedar. + And even in that place, will Gabriel's trump + Come nagging along and be making me jump? + I wonder. + + + + +GET NEXT. + + + Chap. I., verse 1, is where you'll find + The text of what is in my mind + If, haply, you are so inclined. + Chap. I., verse 1--the primal rule + For saint or sinner, sage or fool, + No matter what his church or school. + Though you may call it slangy solely, + Though you may term it flippant wholly, + Truth still is truth and is not vexed; + I write this rhyme to prove the text-- + Get Next. + + Suppose I sought some lonely height + And dipped a stylus in the light + Of welding worlds and sought to write + Upon the highest, deepest blue + My message to Sam Smith and you. + The chances are it would not do. + You would not risk your neck to read + My much too altitudinous screed, + And I, chagrined and half-perplexed, + Had missed you when I missed my text-- + Get Next. + + Suppose you have a breakfast food + Which you conceive I should include + Within my lat-and-longitude. + 'T is not enough to have the stuff, + But you must post, and praise, and puff, + Until I memo. on my cuff, + Among my most important notes-- + Be sure to bring home Oatless Oats. + And then you know that I'm annexed, + Because you followed out the text-- + Get Next. + + Get next! get next! and hold it true + There's one you must get nextest to, + And that important one is you. + Be not of those who, uncommuned + With their own skins, have all but swooned + From some imaginary wound, + But strip the rags from off your soul + And find you are not maimed, but whole! + 'T is but a flea-bite which has vexed + As soon as you've applied the text-- + Get Next. + +[Illustration: "Post, and praise, and puff" + +_Page 58._] + +[Illustration: Are You You? + +_Page 59._] + + + + +ARE YOU YOU? + + + Are you a trailer, or are you a trolley? + Are you tagged to a leader through wisdom and folly? + Are you Somebody Else, or You? + Do you vote by the symbol and swallow it "straight"? + Do you pray by the book, do you pay by the rate? + Do you tie your cravat by the calendar's date? + Do you follow a cue? + + Are you a writer, or that which is worded? + Are you a shepherd, or one of the herded? + Which are you--a What or a Who? + It sounds well to call yourself "one of the flock," + But a sheep is a sheep after all. At the block + You're nothing but mutton, or possibly stock. + Would you flavor a stew? + + Are you a being and boss of your soul? + Or are you a mummy to carry a scroll? + Are you Somebody Else, or You? + When you finally pass to the heavenly wicket + Where Peter the Scrutinous stands on his picket, + Are you going to give him _a blank_ for a ticket? + Do you think it will do? + + + + +THE PRICE. + + + In, or under, or over the earth, + What will fill you, and what suffice? + No matter how mean, or much its worth, + It is yours if you pay the price. + Never a thing may a man attain, + But gain pays loss, or loss pays gain. + + Lady of riches, riot and rout, + Fair of flesh and sated of sense, + Nothing in life you need do without + Except the trifle of innocence. + Counterfeit kisses you paid, and got + Just what you paid for--which is what? + + Man of adroitness, place and power, + Trampled above and torn below; + Set in the light of your noonday hour, + Playing a part in the public show; + Fooling the mob that the mob be ruled: + You know which is the greater fooled. + + Artist of pencil, or paint, or pen, + Reed, or string, or the vocal note, + Making the soul to suffer again + And the wild heart clutch the throat; + Ever your fancy has paid in fact; + You rack my soul, as yours was racked. + +[Illustration: "The Trifle of Innocence" + +_Page 60._] + + + + +THE BUBBLE-FLIES. + + + Let me read a homily + Concerning an anomaly + I view + In you. + Whatever you are striving for, + Whatever you are driving for, + 'T is not alone because you crave + To be successful that you slave + To swim upon the topmost wave. + You care less what your station is, + But more what your relation is. + To be a bit above the rest! + To be upon, or of, the crest! + Ah! that is where the trouble lies + Which stirs you little bubble-flies. + + (I sneer these sneers, but just the same + I keep my fingers in the game.) + See! you have eat-and-drinkables + And portables and thinkables + And yet + You fret. + For what? Let's reach the heart of you + And see the funny part of you. + For what? I find the soul and seed + Of it is not your lack or need, + Or even merely vulgar greed. + Gold? You may have a store of it, + But someone else has more of it. + Fame? Pretty things are said of you, + But--some one is ahead of you. + Place? You disprize your easy one + For some one's high and breezy one. + + (I smile these smiles to soothe my soul, + But squint one eye upon the goal.) + + Tell me! what's your capacity + Compared to your voracity? + _I_ guess + 'T is less. + And so I strike these attitudes + And tender you these platitudes;-- + Not wishing wealth, or spurning it, + Not hoarding it, or burning it + Is equal to the earning it. + Life's race is in the riding it, + Not in the word deciding it. + And after all is said and uttered + The keenest taste is bread-and-buttered. + + (And yet--and yet--my palate aches + For pallid pie and pasty cakes!) + +[Illustration: The Bubble-Flies + +_Page 61._] + + + + +QUALIFIED. + + + I love to see my friend succeed; + I love to praise him; yes, indeed! + And so, no doubt, do you. + But will you tell me why it is + The praise we parcel out as his + So often goes askew, + And ends by running in the rut + Of "if," "except" or "but"? + + "Boggs is a clever chap. His trade + Is doubling yearly, and he's made + A fortune all right, but----" + "Sharp is elected. Well, I say! + He'll hit a high mark yet, some day, + If----" (here one eye is shut). + "Such acting! Why, I laughed and wept! + Fobb's art is great--except." + + "Miss Hautton has such queenly grace. + And then her figure and her face! + She'd be a beauty if----" + "And Mrs. Follol entertains + With so much taste and so much pains; + But----" (here a little sniff). + "And Mrs. Caste has ever kept + The narrow path--except." + + I wish some man were great and good + That I might praise him all I could + And never add a "but." + I would that some would value me + And never hint what I would be + "If"--but why cavil? Tut! + Eternal justice still is kept + And Heaven is good--except! + +[Illustration: Yesterday's laurels are dry and dead + +_Page 65._] + + + + +WHAT ARE YOU DOING? + + + Do you lazily nurse your knee and muse? + Do you contemplate your conquering thews + With a critical satisfaction? + But yesterday's laurels are dry and dead + And to-morrow's triumph is still ahead; + To-day is the day for action. + + Yesterday's sun: is it shining still? + To-morrow's dawn: will its coming fill + To-day, if to-day's light fail us? + Not so. The past is forever past; + To-day's is the hand which holds us fast, + And to-morrow may never hail us. + + The present and only the present endures, + So it's hey for to-day! for to-day is yours + For the goal you are still pursuing. + What you have done is a little amount; + What you will do is of lesser account, + But the test is, what are you doing? + + + + +THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR. + + + McUmphrey's a fellow who's lengthy on lungs. + Backed up by the smoothest of ball-bearing tongues, + And his topic--himself--is worth talking about, + But he works it so much he has frazzled it out. + He never will give me my half of a chance + To chip in my own little, clever romance + In the first person singular. Yes, and they say, + He offended you, too, in a similar way. + + Cousin Maud tells her illnesses, ancient and recent, + In a most minute way which is almost indecent! + Vivisecting herself, with some medical chatter, + She serves us her portions--as if on a platter, + Never noting how I am but waiting to stir + My dregs of diseases to offer to her. + And I hear (such a joke!) that your chronic gastritis + Stands silent forever before her nephritis. + + Mrs. Henderson's Annie goes out every night, + And Bertha, before her, was simply a fright, + While Agnes broke more than the worth of her head, + And Maggie--well, some things are better unsaid. + Such manners to talk of her help--when she knows + My wife's simply aching to tell of _our_ woes! + And I hear that she never lets you get a start + On your story of Rosy we all know by heart. + + You'd hardly believe that I've heard Bunson tell + The Flea-Powder Frenchman and Razors to Sell, + The One-Legged Goose and that old What You Please-- + And even, I swear it, The Crow and the Cheese. + And he sprang that old yarn of He Said 't was His Leg, + When you wanted to tell him Columbus's Egg, + While I wanted to tell my own whimsical tale + (Which I recently wrote) of The Man in the Whale! + + + + +THE CHOICE. + + + The little it takes to make life bright, + If we open our eyes to get it! + And the trifle which makes it black as night, + If we close our lids and let it! + Behold, as the world goes whirling by, + It is gloomy, or glad, as it fits your eye. + + As it fits your eye, and I mean by that + You find what you look for mostly; + You can feed your happiness full and fat, + You can make your miseries ghostly, + Or you can forget every joy you own + By coveting something beyond your zone. + + In the storms of life we can fret the eye + Where the guttering mud is drifted, + Or we can look to the world-wide sky + Where the Artist's scenes are shifted. + Puddles are oceans in miniatures, + Or merely puddles; the choice is yours. + + We can strip our niggardly souls so bare + That we haggle a penny between us; + Or we can be rich in a common share + Of the Pleiades and Venus. + You can lift your soul to its outermost look, + Or can keep it packed in a pocketbook. + + We may follow a phantom the arid miles + To a mountain of cankered treasure, + Or we can find, in a baby's smiles, + The pulse of a living pleasure. + We may drink of the sea until we burst, + While the trickling spring would have quenched our thirst. + + + + +THE SAVING CLAUSE. + + + Kerr wrote a book, and a good book, too; + At least I[A] managed to read it through + Without finding very much room for blame, + And a good many other folks did the same. + But when any one asked me[A]: "Have you read?" + Or: "How do you like?" I[A] only said: + "Very good, very good! and I'm glad enough; + For his other writings are horrible stuff." + + Banks wrote a play, and it had a run. + (That's a good deal more than ever I've[A] done.) + The interest held with hardly a lag + From the overture to the final tag. + But when any one asked me[A]: "Have you seen?" + Or: "What do you think?" I[A] looked serene + And remarked: "Oh, a pretty good thing of its kind, + But I guess Mr. Shakespeare needn't mind!" + + Phelps made a machine; 't was smooth as grease. + (I[A] couldn't invent its smallest piece + In a thousand years.) It was tried and tried, + Until everybody was satisfied. + But when any one asked me[A]: "Will it pay?"-- + "Is it really good?"--I[A] could only say: + "It's a marvelous thing! Why, it almost thinks! + And Phelps is a wonder--too bad he drinks!" + +[Footnote A: (Errata: On scanning the verses through I find these +pronouns should all read "You.")] + +[Illustration: Mr. Shakespeare needn't mind + +_Page 70._] + + + + +BETWEEN TWO THIEVES. + + + Sure! I am one who disbelieves + In thieves; + At which you interrupt to cry + "Aye, aye, and I." + Hmf! you're so sudden to agree. + Suppose we see. + + I know a thief. No matter whether + I ought to know a thief, or not. + Perhaps "we went to school together;" + That old excuse is worked a lot. + One day he "copped a rummy's leather," + Which means--I hate to tell you what. + It's such a vulgar thing to steal + A drunkard's purse to buy a meal. + "Hey, pal," said he, "come help me dine; + I've hit a pit and got the swag; + To-day, Delmonico's is mine; + To-morrow once again a vag. + Come on and tell me all the stunts + Of all the boys who knew me--once." + + "Did I go with him?" I did not. + Would you have gone? Could you be bought + By dinners--when the trail was hot + And any hour he might be caught? + I know a thief, whose operations + Are colored by a kindly law. + Your income and a beggar's rations + Contribute to his cunning claw; + Cities and counties, courts and nations + Pay portion to his monstrous maw. + + He gave a dinner not long since + In honor of some played-out Prince. + The decorations, ah, how chaste! + And how delicious was the wine! + For Mrs. Thief has perfect taste + And Mr. Thief knows how to dine. + And so the world has long agreed + Quite to forgive, forget--and feed. + But really I was shocked to see + How many decent folks could be + Induced to come and bow the knee; + I think you were my _vis-a-vis_. + + Yes, yes, I quite despise him, too, + Like you; + And (though it's not a thing to brag) + I somehow like the vag. + But, oh, the difference one perceives + Between two thieves! + + + + +THE SPECTATOR. + + + Look at the man with the crown + Weighing him down. + Plumed and petted, + Galled and fretted! + Why do you eye him askance + With a quiver of hate in your glance? + Why not conceive him as human, + Nursed at the breast of a woman, + Growing, mayhap, as he could, + Not as he would? + How are you sure you would be + Better and wiser than he? + + Look at the woman whose eye + Follows you by. + Silked and satined, + Scented, fattened! + Why does the half smile slip + Into a sneer on your lip? + You pity her? Ah, but the fashion + Of your complacent compassion. + Pity her! yet you have said, + "Better the creature were dead. + What is there left here for her + But to err?" + Thus would you make the world right, + Hiding its ills from your sight. + + Look at the man with the pack + Breaking his back. + Ragged, squalid, + Wretched, stolid. + And you are sorry, you say, + (Much as you are at a play.) + But do you say to him, "Brother, + Twin-born son of our mother + What were the word, or the deed + Fitting your need?" + Or, as he slouches by, + Do you breathe "God be praised, I am I?" + +[Illustration: "God be praised, I am I!" + +_Page 74._] + + + + +THE SQUEALER. + + + Of course some people are born so bright + That no matter what one may say, or write, + The theme is old and the lesson is trite, + Which is what you may say, as these lines unreel + And I mildly suggest it is better to feel + Than to squeal. + + Everybody knows that? Yes, it's certain they do, + Everybody, that is, with exception of two, + Of whom I am one and the other is you. + But for us the lesson is still remote, + Although we commit it and cite it and quote + It by rote. + + But still when you thrill with the thudding thump + From the fist of the fellow you tried to bump + And the world looks hard at the swelling lump, + There's a strong temptation to open your door + And invite the public to hear you roar + That you're sore. + + And again, tho' 'tis plain as the printed page:-- + "Keep your hand on the lever and watch the gauge + When the fire-pot's full and the boilers rage," + How often the steam-pressure grows and grows + And before the engineer cares or knows, + Up she goes. + + So why should you fret if I send you to school + Again to consider the sapient rule + That Wisdom is Silence and Speech is a Fool. + Close up! and a year from to-day you will kneel + And thank the good Lord that you knew how to feel + And not squeal. + + + + +DISTANCE AND DISENCHANTMENT. + + + He was playing New York, and on Broadway at that; + I was playing in stock, in Chicago. + I heard that his Hamlet fell fearfully flat; + He heard I was fierce, as Iago. + Each looked to the other exceedingly small; + We were too far apart, that is all. + You, too, if your vision is ever reflective, + Have noticed your rival is small in perspective. + + I heard him in Memphis (a chance matinée); + He heard me (one Sunday) in Dallas. + His critics, I swore, never witnessed the play; + He vowed mine were prompted by malice. + A pleasanter fellow I cannot recall. + We were closer together; that's all. + And your rival, too, if you once see him clearly, + Is clever, or how could he rival you, nearly? + + In Seattle they said he was greater than Booth, + (Or in Portland, perhaps; I've forgotten); + I said 'twas ungracious to speak the plain truth, + But his work in the first act was rotten. + I had only intended to speak of the thrall + Of his wonderful fifth act; that's all. + But when a man's praised far ahead of his talents, + I guess you say something to even the balance. + + In Atlanta I heard a remark that he made + And again in Mobile, Alabama;-- + That he hardly thought Shakespeare was meant to be played + Like a ten-twenty-thirt' melodrama. + Oh, well, there was one honey-drop in the gall; + The fellow was jealous; that's all. + And you, too, have found, when a friendship is broken, + That his words are worse than the ones you have spoken. + +[Illustration: To even the balance + +_Page 77._] + + + + +FAMILY RESEMBLANCE. + + + I used to boost the P. and P., + Designed to run from sea to sea, + From Portland, Ore., to Portland, Me., + But which, as all the maps agree, + Begins somewhere in Minnesota + And peters out in North Dakota. + You gibed because I used to mock + Its streaks of rust and rolling-stock, + Its schedule and its G. P. A. + (Who took your Annual away,) + But lately you seem much inclined + To own a sudden change of mind. + Ah, me, + You're much like other folks, I see. + + I much admired the book reviews + Of Quillip of the Daily News. + I laughed to see him put the screws + On some sprig of the late Who's-Whos, + Tear off his verbiage and skin him + To show the little there was in him. + You said the book he wrote himself + Lay stranded on the dealer's shelf + And wasn't worthy a critique; + (Just what he said of mine last week). + Perhaps your reasoning was strong + And you were right and I was wrong. + Heigho! + I'm very much like you, I know. + + O'Brien's zeal ran almost daft + In its antipathy to graft. + He raked the practice fore and aft; + Lord! how his sulphurous breath would waft + "Eternal and infernal tarmint + To ivery grasping, grafting, varmint." + The worst of these upon the planet, + He said, were those who wanted granite + In public buildings,--"yis, begorry!" + (O'Brien owns a sandstone quarry.) + Of course I'd hate to see it tested, + But would he be less interested + In civic virtue--uninvested? + Oh, dear! + O'Brien's much like us, I fear. + + + + +NEED. + + + Don't you remember how you and I + Held a property nobody wanted to buy + In San José, + Until one day + A man came along from Franklin, Pa.? + And didn't we jump till we happened to find + The chap wasn't going it wholly blind, + But all the rest of the block was bought + And he simply had to have our lot. + Well, didn't our land go up in price + Till double the figures would scarce suffice? + + And don't we sometimes figure and fret + How he got the best of us, even yet? + + Don't you remember the perfect plan + You had, which needed another man + To make it win, + To jump right in + And everlasting make things spin? + And you said I had the requisite dash + And also the trifle of hoarded cash. + Was I glad to get in? Well, yes, indeed! + Until I saw the compelling need + Which had brought you to me, and then, "Ho! ho! + None of that for me, nay, not for Joe." + + And I'm always provoked when I think you made + The plan get along without my aid. + + Don't you remember the time we met + At Des Moines, or was it at Winterset? + But anyway, you + Were feeling blue + And tickled to see me through and through. + And "Come, let's open a bottle of--ink," + Said you, "and see if it's good to drink." + But weren't you sorry because you spoke + When I had to tell you I was "broke"? + Oh, you lent me the saw-buck, I know, but still + I fancied your ardor had taken a chill. + + And you've never been able to quite forget + That once I was "broke," and in your debt. + + + + +BETTER. + + + There's only one motto you need + To succeed: + "Better." + To other man's winning? Then you + Must do + Better. + From the baking of bread + To the breaking a head, + From rhyming a ballad + To sliming a salad, + From mending of ditches + To spending of riches, + Follow the rule to the uttermost letter: + "Better!" + + Of course you may say but a few + Can do + Better; + And you're going to strive + So that all may thrive + Better. + And it's right you are + To follow the star, + Set in the heavens, afar, afar; + But still with your eyes + On the skies + It is wise + To be riding a mule, + Or guiding a school, + Thatching a hovel + Or hatching a novel, + Foretelling weather, + Or selling shoe-leather; + And remember you must + Be doing it just + A wee dust + Better. + + And 'tis quite + As right + For you to cite + That the author might, + Or ought, to write + A heavenly sight + Better! + For which sharp word I am much your debtor, + Knowing none other could file my fetter + Better. + +[Illustration: "Saving repairs and wrath" + +_Page 85._] + + + + +FORGET WHAT THE OTHER MAN HATH. + + + What do I care for your four-track line? + I have a country path; + And this is the message I've taken for mine:-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care for your giant trees? + I'd rather whittle a lath, + And my motto helps me to take my ease;-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care for your Newport beach? + A tub's as good for a bath. + And I keep my solace in constant reach:-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care for your automobile? + I'm saving repairs and wrath, + My proverb goes well with an old style wheel;-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care if you scorn my rime? + For this is its aftermath;-- + It sounds so well I shall try, (sometime,) + To "forget what the other man hath!" + + + + +THE WHET. + + + The day that I loaf when I ought to employ it + Has, somehow, the flavor which makes me enjoy it. + So the man with no work + He may joyously shirk + I envy no more than I do the Grand Turk. + He most is in need of a holiday, who, + In this workaday world, has no duty to do. + + The dollar you waste when you ought not to spend it + Buys something no plutocrat's millions could lend it, + For if once you exhaust + All your care of the cost, + Full half of the pleasure of purchase is lost, + So I trust you are one who is wise in discerning + The value of spending is most in the earning. + + My little success which was nearest complete + Was that which I tore from the teeth of defeat, + And the man who can hit + With his wisdom and wit + Without any effort, I envy no whit. + The genius whose laurels grow always the greenest + Finds pleasure in plenty, but misses the keenest. + + + + +WHAT SORT ARE YOU? + + + "How much do you want for your A. Street lot?" + Said a real estate man to me. + I looked as if I were lost in thought + And then I replied: "Let's see;-- + Black's sold last year at fifty the foot + And without using algebra that should put + My figure at sixty now, I guess, + Or a trifle more, or a trifle less." + I was anxious to sell at fifty straight, + Or I might have been glad of forty-eight. + Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, it's true; + What sort of a bluff are you? + + "And what do you think of these railroad rates?" + The man with a bald brow said, + "For you have travelled through all the states + And have heard a good deal and read." + "The railroad lines," I wisely replied + "Are the lines with which our trade is tied, + And the wretches who take their rebates set + New knots in the bonds under which we fret." + But, now I remember, I once rode free + And forgot that the road rebated me! + Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, its true; + How much of a bluff are you? + + "You've been to hear 'Siegfried' and found it fine?" + Cried a classical friend one day. + "I'm sure your impressions accord with mine, + But I want your own words and way. + And, oh, "the tone-color beats belief," + And, oh, "dynamics," and oh, "motif," + And "chiar-oscura, how finely abstruse," + And oh, la-la-la, and oh, well, what's the use? + For the only thing I understood in the play + Was that dippy, old dragon of _papier-maché_. + Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, it's true; + What style of a bluff are you? + + "And the senator should, you believe, be returned?" + Said a newspaper-man to me. + "He's as rotten a rascal as ever burned," + I said. "May I quote?" asked he. + "Oh, no," I replied, "if you're going to quote, + Just remark that his friends are regretting to note + That the exigencies of the party case + Indicate that he shouldn't re-enter the race." + For the senator sometime may possibly be + Interviewed by a newspaper-man about me. + No, none of these cases may quite fit you, + But what sort of a bluff _are_ you? + +[Illustration: "And, oh, the tone color beats belief" + +_Page 88._] + + + + +THE CRITICS. + + + As a matter of fact, + I am sure I can act, + And so, + When I go, + To the show, + Not the art of an Irving + Seems wholly deserving, + And though Booth were the star + He'd have many a jar, + If he heard the critique + Which I frequently speak, + As you + Do, + Too. + + Written deep in my heart + Is a knowledge of art, + For why? + I've an eye + Like a die. + And where Raphael's paint + Has bedizened some saint, + I note his perspective + Is sadly defective, + And you? O, I know + When you've looked on Corot + The same + Blame + Came. + + And the world would have gained + If my voice had been trained, + For my ear + Is severe, + As I hear + De Reszke and Patti. + (I've heard 'em sing "ratty!") + And the crowd has yelled "Bis!" + When a call for police + Should have shortened the score. + Was there ever a more + Absurd + Word + Heard? + + And I feel, now and then, + I could handle a pen, + For indeed, + As I heed + What I read, + I observe many faults; + Homer nods, Shakespere halts, + Dante's sad, Pope is trite, + Poe's mechanic, Holmes light, + Yet so easy to do + Is the thing, even you + Might + Write + Quite + Bright! + + + + +PLUG. + + + As you haven't asked me for advice, I'll give it to you now: + Plug! + No matter who or what you are, or where you are, the how + Is plug. + You may take your dictionary, unabridged, and con it through, + You may swallow the Britannica and all its retinue, + But here I lay it f. o. b.--the only word for you + Is plug. + + Are you in the big procession, but away behind the band? + Plug! + On the cobble, or asphaltum, in the mud or in the sand, + Plug! + Oh, you'll hear the story frequently of how some clever man + Cut clean across the country, so that now he's in the van; + You may think that you will do it, but I don't believe you can, + So plug! + +[Illustration: Do you want to reach the heights? + +_Page 92._] + + Are you singing in the chorus? Do you want to be a star? + Plug! + You may think that you're a genius, but I don't believe you are, + So plug! + Oh, you'll hear of this or that one who was born without a name, + Who slept eleven hours a day and dreamed the way to fame, + Who simply couldn't push it off, so rapidly it came! + But plug. + + Are you living in the valley? Do you want to reach the height? + Plug! + Where the hottest sun of day is and the coldest stars of night? + Plug! + Oh, it may be you're a fool, but if a fool you want to be, + If you want to climb above the crowd so every one can see + Just how a fool may look when he is at his apogee, + Why, plug! + + Can you make a mile a minute? Do you want to make it two? + Plug! + Are you good and up against it? Well, the only thing to do + Is plug. + Oh, you'll find some marshy places, where the crust is pretty thin, + And when you think you're gliding out, you're only sliding in, + But the only thing for you to do is think of this and grin, + And plug. + + There's many a word that's prettier that hasn't half the cheer + Of plug. + It may not save you in a day, but try it for a year. + Plug! + And to show you I am competent to tell you what is what, + I assure you that I never yet have made a centre shot, + Which surely is an ample demonstration that I ought + To plug. + + + + +FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT. + + + I. + + You sometimes think you'd like to be + John D.? + And not a man you know would dare + To josh you on your handsome hair, + Or say, "Hey, John, it's rather rude + To boost refined and jump on crude, + To help Chicago University, + Or bull the doctrine of--immersity." + + + II. + + You wouldn't care to be the Pope, + I hope? + With not a chum to call your own, + To hale you up by telephone, + With, "Say, old man, I hope you're free + To-night. Bring Mrs. Pope to tea. + Let some one else lock up the pearly + Gateway to-night and get here early!" + + + III. + + Perhaps you sometimes deem the Czar + A star? + With not a palm in all the land + To strike his fairly, hand to hand, + With not a man in all the pack + To fetch a hand against his back + And cry, "Well met, Old Nick, come out + And let us trot the kids about. + Tut, man! you needn't look so pale, + A red flag means an auction sale." + + + IV. + + I'll bet even Shakespeare's name was "Will," + Until + He was so dead that he was great, + For fame can only isolate. + And better than "The Immortal Bard" + Were "Hello, Bill," and "Howdy, pard!" + Would he have swapped his comrades' laughter + For all the praise of ages after? + + + + +A SONG OF REST. + + + I have sung the song of striving, + Of the struggling, of arriving, + Of making of one's self a horse and mounting him and driving! + But now, let's cease; + Let's look for peace. + Let's forget the mark of money, + Let's forget the love of fame. + Life is ours and skies are sunny; + What is worry but a name? + Let's sit down and whiff and whittle, + Let us loaf and laugh a little. + + (Here the youngest spoiled the rime + By running to me for a dime.) + + I have sung the joy of doing, + Of the pleasure of pursuing, + And how life is like a woman and our role and rule is wooing, + But now, O let + Us cease to fret! + Let us cease our vain desiring; + Water's better than Cliquot; + What is honor but perspiring? + Wealth's another name for woe. + Let us spread out in the clover, + Just too lazy to turn over,-- + + (Here my wife brought in the news: + All the children need new shoes.) + + I have sung the song of action, + Of the sweet of satisfaction + Of pounding, pounding, pounding opposition to a fraction, + But now, let's quit; + Let's rest a bit. + Money only makes us greedy, + Life's success is but a taunt. + He alone is never needy + Who has learned to laugh at want. + Let us loaf and laugh and wallow; + Too much work to even swallow-- + + (Here's the mail and bills are curses; + I must try to sell these verses.) + + + + +DESIRE. + + + Oh, the ripe, red apple which handily hung + And flaunted and taunted and swayed and swung, + Till it itched your fingers and tickled your tongue, + For it was juicy and you were young! + But you held your hands and you turned your head, + And you thought of the switch which hung in the shed, + And you didn't take it (or so you said), + But tell me--didn't you want to? + + Oh, the rounded maiden who passed you by, + Whose cheek was dimpled, whose glance was shy, + But who looked at you out of the tail of her eye, + And flirted her skirt just a trifle high! + Oh, you were human and not sedate, + But you thought of the narrow way and straight, + And you didn't follow (or so you state), + But tell me--didn't you want to? + + Oh, the golden chink and the sibilant sign + Which sang of honey and love and wine, + Of pleasure and power when the sun's a-shine + And plenty and peace in the day's decline! + Oh, the dream was schemed and the play was planned; + You had nothing to do but to reach your hand, + But you didn't (or so I understand), + But tell me--didn't you want to? + + Oh, you wanted to, yes; and hence you crow + That the Want To within you found its foe + Which wanted you not to want to, and so + You were able to answer always "No." + So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay + To have tricked temptation and turned it away; + But wait, my friend, for a different day! + Wait till you want to want to! + +[Illustration: "Desire" + +_Page 99._] + + + + +THERE IS, OH, SO MUCH. + + + There is oh, so much for a man to be + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may cover the world like the searching sea + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may be of the rush of the city's roar + And his song may sing where the condors soar, + Or may dip to the dark of Labrador, + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to do + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may sort the suns of Andromeda through + In nineteen hundred and now. + Or he may strive, as a good man must, + For the wretch at his feet who licks the dust, + And never learn how to be even just + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to learn + In nineteen hundred and now: + The least and the most he should trouble to earn + In nineteen hundred and now, + The message burned bright on the heavenly scroll, + The little he needs that his stomach be whole, + The vastness of vision to sate his soul, + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to get + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may drench the earth in vicarious sweat + In nineteen hundred and now. + And his wealth may be but a lifelong itch, + While the lowliest digger within his ditch + May have gained the little to make him rich + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to try + In nineteen hundred and now. + The sea is so deep and the hill so high + In nineteen hundred and now. + But sometimes we look at our little ball + Where the smallest is great and the greatest small + And wonder the why and the what of it all + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much, so we work as we may + In nineteen hundred and now, + And loiter a little along the way + In nineteen hundred and now. + O, the honeybee works, but the honeybee clings + To the flowers of life and the honeybee sings! + Let us eat the sweet and forget the stings + In nineteen hundred and now! + + + + +HOW DID YOU DIE? + + + Did you tackle that trouble that came your way + With a resolute heart and cheerful? + Or hide your face from the light of day + With a craven soul and fearful? + Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce, + Or a trouble is what you make it, + And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts, + But only how did you take it? + + You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that? + Come up with a smiling face. + It's nothing against you to fall down flat, + But to lie there--that's disgrace. + The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce; + Be proud of your blackened eye! + It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts, + It's how did you fight--and why? + + And though you be done to the death, what then? + If you battled the best you could, + If you played your part in the world of men, + Why, the Critic will call it good. + Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, + And whether he's slow or spry, + It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, + But only how did you die? + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Impertinent Poems, by Edmund Vance Cooke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPERTINENT POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 33770-8.txt or 33770-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/7/33770/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Impertinent Poems + +Author: Edmund Vance Cooke + +Illustrator: Gordon Ross + +Release Date: September 20, 2010 [EBook #33770] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPERTINENT POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 417px;"> +<img src="images/fig001.jpg" width="417" height="650" alt="Page 57." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 57.</i></span> +</div> + + + + +<h1>Impertinent Poems</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h2>Edmund Vance Cooke</h2> + +<h4>Author of</h4> + +<p class="center"> +"Chronicles of the Little Tot"<br /> +"Told to the Little Tot"<br /> +"Rimes to Be Read"<br /> +Etc.<br /> +</p> + +<h4>With Illustrations by</h4> + +<h3>Gordon Ross</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><i>Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i10"><i>And whether he's slow, or spry,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i10"><i>It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts</i><br /></span> +<span class="i10"><i>But only—how did you die?</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="center"> +New York<br /> +Dodge Publishing Company<br /> +220 East 23rd Street<br /> +<br /> +Copyright, 1903, by<br /> +Edmund Vance Cooke<br /> +<br /> +Copyright, 1907, by<br /> +Dodge Publishing Company<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A PRE-IMPERTINENCE.</h2> + + +<p>Anticipating the intelligent critic of "Impertinent Poems," it may well +be remarked that the chief impertinence is in calling them poems. Be +that as it may, the editors and publishers of "The Saturday Evening +Post," "Success" and "Ainslee's," and, in a lesser degree, +"Metropolitan," "Independent," "Booklovers'" and "New York Herald" share +with the author the reproach of first promoting their publicity. That +they are now willing to further reduce their share of the burden by +dividing it with the present publishers entitles them to the thanks of +the author and the gratitude of the book-buying public.</p> + +<p class="right"> +E. V. C. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 212px;"> +<img src="images/fig004.jpg" width="212" height="250" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>INDEX.</h2> + + +<p> +<span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +Are You You? <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_59'>59</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Better <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_83'>83</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Between Two Thieves <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_71'>71</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Blood is Red <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_33'>33</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Bubble-Flies, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_61'>61</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Choice, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Conscience Pianissimo <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_47'>47</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Conservative, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_40'>40</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Critics, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_89'>89</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Dead Men's Dust <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Desire <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_99'>99</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Diagnosis <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_35'>35</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Dilettant, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_38'>38</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Distance and Disenchantment <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_77'>77</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Don't Take Your Troubles to Bed <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Don't You? <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_16'>16</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Eternal Everyday, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Failure <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Familiarity Breeds Contempt <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Family Resemblance <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_79'>79</a></span><br /> +<br /> +First Person Singular, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Forget What the Other Man Hath <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Get Next <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_57'>57</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Good <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_24'>24</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Grill, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_30'>30</a></span><br /> +<br /> +How Did You Die? <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_103'>103</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Humbler Heroes <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Hush <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_41'>41</a></span><br /> +<br /> +In Nineteen Hundred and Now <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_14'>14</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Island, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Let's Be Glad We're Living <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_26'>26</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Move <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_55'>55</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Need <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_81'>81</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Pass <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Plug <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_92'>92</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Price, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_60'>60</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Publicity <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_53'>53</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Qualified <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_63'>63</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Saving Clause, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_70'>70</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Song of Rest, A <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Spectator, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_73'>73</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Spread Out <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_37'>37</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Squealer, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_75'>75</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Success <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_28'>28</a></span><br /> +<br /> +There Is, Oh, So Much <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_101'>101</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Vision, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_32'>32</a></span><br /> +<br /> +What Are You Doing? <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_65'>65</a></span><br /> +<br /> +What Sort Are You? <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_87'>87</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Whet, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_86'>86</a></span><br /> +<br /> +World Runs On, The <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_49'>49</a></span><br /> +<br /> +You Too <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_18'>18</a></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>IMPERTINENT POEMS</h2> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/fig010.jpg" width="650" height="360" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2>DEAD MEN'S DUST.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You don't buy poetry. (Neither do I.)<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Why?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You cannot afford it? Bosh! you spend<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Editions de luxe</i> on a thirsty friend.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You can buy any one of the poetry bunch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the price you pay for a business lunch.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't you suppose that a hungry head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like an empty stomach, ought to be fed?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looking into myself, I find this true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I hardly can figure it false in you.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And you don't <i>read</i> poetry very much.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">(Such<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is my own case also.) "But," you cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I haven't the time." Beloved, you lie.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a scandal happens in Buffalo,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You ponder the details, con and pro;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If poets were pugilists, couldn't you tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which of the poets licked John L.?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If poets were counts, could your wife be fooled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As to which of the poets married a Gould?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And even <i>my</i> books might have some hope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If poetry books were books of dope.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"You're a little bit swift," you say to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">"See!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You open your library. There you show<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your "favorite poets," row on row,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Homer unread, an uncut Horace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wholly forgotten William Morris.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My friend, my friend, can it be you thought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That these were poets whom you had bought?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These are dead men's bones. You bought their mummies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To display your style, like clothing dummies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when do they talk to you? Some one said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That these were poets which should be read,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So here they stand. But tell me, pray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How many poets who live to-day<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Have you, of your own volition, sought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Discovered and tested, proved and <i>bought</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a grateful glow that the dollar you spent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Netted the poet his ten per cent.?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But hold on," you say, "I am reading <i>you</i>."<br /></span> +<span class="i8">True,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pitying, too, the sorry end<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the dog I tried this on. My friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I <i>can</i> write poetry—good enough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So you wouldn't look at the worthy stuff.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But knowing what you prefer to read<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm setting the pace at about your speed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being rather convinced these truths will hold you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little bit better than if I'd told you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A genuine poem and forgotten to scold you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Besides, when I open my little room<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And see <i>my</i> poets, each in his tomb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his mouth dust-stopped, I turn from the shelf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I must scold you, or scold myself.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> +<h2>IN NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NOW.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thomas Moore, at the present date,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is chiefly known as "a ten-cent straight."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Walter, the Scot, is forgiven his rimes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because of his tales of stirring times.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">William Morris's fame will wear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a practical man who made a chair.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And even Shakespere's memory's green<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Less because he's read than because he's seen.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then why should a poet make his bow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the year of nineteen hundred and now?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Homer himself, if he could but speak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would admit that most of his stuff is Greek.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chaucer would no doubt own his tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was the broken speech of the land when young.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shelley's a sealed-up book, and Byron<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is chiefly recalled as a masculine siren.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poe has a perch on the chamber door,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the populace read him "Nevermore."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spenser fitted his day, as all allow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But this is nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tennyson's chiefly given away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To callow girls on commencement day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alfred Austin, entirely solemn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is quoted most in the funny column.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Riley's Hoosiers have made their pile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And moved to the city to live in style.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Kipling's compared to "The Man Who Was,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the rest of us write with little cause,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till publishers shy at talk of per cents.,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But offer to print "at author's expense."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O, once the "celestial fire" burned bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the world now calls for electric light!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Pegasus, too, is run by meter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being trolleyized to make him fleeter.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I throw the stylus away and set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Myself at the typewriter alphabet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To spell some message I find within<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which shall also scratch your rawhide skin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For you must read it, if I learn how<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To write for nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> +<h2>DON'T YOU?</h2> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/fig015.jpg" width="650" height="342" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When the plan which I have, to grow suddenly rich<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grows weary of leg and drops into the ditch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And scheme follows scheme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the web of a dream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To glamor and glimmer and shimmer and seem,...<br /></span> +<span class="i14">Only seem;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then, when the world looks unfadably blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If my rival sails by<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With his head in the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sings "How is business?" why, what do I do?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, I claim that I aim to be honest and true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I sometimes lie. Don't you?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When something at home is decidedly wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When somebody sings a false note in the song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too low or too high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, you hardly know why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it wrangles and jangles and runs all awry,...<br /></span> +<span class="i14">Aye, awry!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then, at the moment when things are askew,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some cousin sails in<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a face all a-grin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a "Do I intrude? Oh, I see that I do!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, then, though I aim to be honest and true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still I sometimes lie. Don't you?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When a man whom I need has some foible or fad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not very commendable, not very bad;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perhaps it's his daughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some one has taught her<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To daub up an "oil" or to streak up a "water";<br /></span> +<span class="i14">What a "water"!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And her grass is green green and her sky is blue blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But her father, with pride,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In a stagey aside<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Asks my "candid opinion." Then what do I do?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, I claim that I aim to be honest and true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I sometimes lie. Don't you?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> +<h2>YOU TOO.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did you ever make some small success<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And brag your little brag,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if your breathing would impress<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The world and fix your tag<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon it, so that all might see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The label loudly reading, "ME!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when you thought you'd gained the height<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, sunning in your own delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You preened your plumes and crowed "All right!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did something wipe you out of sight?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unless you did this many a time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You needn't stop to read this rime.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When I was mamma's little joy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And not the least bit tough,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd sometimes whop some other boy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(If he were small enough),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for a week I'd wear a chip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And at the uplift of a lip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd lord it like a pigmy pope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until, when I had run my rope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some bullet-headed little Swope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would clean me out as slick as soap.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No doubt you were as bad, or worse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or else you had not read this verse.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 494px;"> +<img src="images/fig018.jpg" width="494" height="650" alt="Page 18." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 18.</i></span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All women were like pica print<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When I was young and wise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd read their very souls by dint<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of looking in their eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in those limpid souls I'd see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A very fierce regard for me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then—my, my, it makes me faint!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peroxide and a pinkish paint<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gave me the hard, hard heart complaint,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the sham, I felt the taint,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet if she'd pat me once or twice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd follow like a little fyce.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I never played a little game<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And won a five or ten,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, presto! I was not the same<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As common makes of men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not Solomon and all his kind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Held half the wisdom of my mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so I'd swell to twice my size,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And throw my hat across my eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And chew a quill, and wear red ties,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tip you off the stock to rise—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until, at last, I'd have to steal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The baby's bank to buy a meal.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I speak as if these things remained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All in the perfect tense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet I don't suppose I've gained<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A single ounce of sense.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +<span class="i0">I scoff these tales of yesterday<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In quite a supercilious way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But by to-morrow I may bump<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into some newer game and jump!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You'll think I am the only trump<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all the deck until—kerslump!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unless you'll do the same some time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of course you haven't read this rime.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 454px;"> +<img src="images/fig022.jpg" width="454" height="650" alt="Page 21." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 21.</i></span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE ETERNAL EVERYDAY.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O, one might be like Socrates<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And lift the hemlock up,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pledge death with philosophic ease,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And drain the untrembling cup;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to be barefoot and be great,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Most in desert and least in state,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Servant of truth and lord of fate!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I own I falter at the peak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trod daily by the steadfast Greek.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O, one might nerve himself to climb<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His cross and cruelly die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgiving his betrayer's crime,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With pity in his eye;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But day by day and week by week<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feel his power and yet be meek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Endure the curse and turn the cheek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I scarce dare trust even you to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As was the Jew of Galilee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O, one might reach heroic heights<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By one strong burst of power.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He might endure the whitest lights<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of heaven for an hour;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But harder is the daily drag,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To smile at trials which fret and fag,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not to murmur—nor to lag.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The test of greatness is the way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One meets the eternal Everyday.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> +<h2>DON'T TAKE YOUR TROUBLES TO BED.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You may labor your fill, friend of mine, if you will;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You may worry a bit, if you must;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You may treat your affairs as a series of cares,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You may live on a scrap and a crust;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when the day's done, put it out of your head;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't take your troubles to bed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You may batter your way through the thick of the fray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You may sweat, you may swear, you may grunt;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You may be a jack-fool if you must, but this rule<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Should ever be kept at the front:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't fight with your pillow, but lay down your head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And kick every worriment out of the bed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That friend or that foe (which he is, I don't know),<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose name we have spoken as Death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hovers close to your side, while you run or you ride,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And he envies the warmth of your breath;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he turns him away, with a shake of his head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he finds that you don't take your troubles to bed.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> +<h2>FAILURE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What is a failure? It's only a spur<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To a man who receives it right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it makes the spirit within him stir<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To go in once more and fight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you never have failed, it's an even guess<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You never have won a high success.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What is a miss? It's a practice shot<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which a man must make to enter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The list of those who can hit the spot<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the bull's-eye in the centre.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you never have sent your bullet wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You never have put a mark inside.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What is a knock-down? A count of ten<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which a man may take for a rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It will give him a chance to come up again<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And do his particular best.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you never have more than met your match,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I guess you never have toed the scratch.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>GOOD.</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/fig026.jpg" width="650" height="279" alt="" title="" /> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You look at yourself in the glass and say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Really, I'm rather <i>distingué</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be sure my eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are assorted in size,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my mouth is a crack<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Running too far back,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I hardly suppose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An unclassified nose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is a mark of beauty, as beauty goes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still there's something about the whole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suggesting a beauty of—well, say soul."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this is the reason that photograph-galleries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are able to pay employees' salaries.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, this little mark of our brotherhood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By which each thinks that his looks are good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is laudable quite in you and me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Provided we not only look, but be.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I look at my poem and you hear me say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Really, it's clever in its way.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The theme is old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the style is cold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These words run rude;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That line is crude;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here is a rhyme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which fails to chime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the metre dances out of time.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 453px;"> +<img src="images/fig028.jpg" width="453" height="650" alt="Page 24." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 24.</i></span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, it isn't so bright it'll blind the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it's better than that by Such-a-one."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this is the reason I and my creditors<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Curse the "unreasoning whims" of editors,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, if one writes for a livelihood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He ought to believe that his work is good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Provided the form that his vanity takes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not only believes, but also makes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And there is our neighbor. We've heard him say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Really, I'm not the commonest clay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brown got his dust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By betraying a trust;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Jones's wife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leads a terrible life;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While I <i>have</i> heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Robinson's word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Isn't quite so good as Gas preferred.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Smith has a soul with seamy cracks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For he talks of people behind their backs!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And these are the reasons the penitentiary<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Holds open house for another century.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True, we want no man in our neighborhood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who doesn't consider his character good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But then it ought to be also true<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He not only knows to consider, but do.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> +<h2>LET'S BE GLAD WE'RE LIVING.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">I.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, let's be glad that we're living yet; you bet!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun runs round and the rain is wet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the bird flip-flops its wing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tennis and toil bring an equal sweat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's so much trouble to frown and fret,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So easy to laugh and sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Ting ling!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So easy to laugh and sing!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">(And yet, sometimes, when I sing my song,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I'm almost afraid my method is wrong.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">II.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Many have money which I have not, God wot!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But victual and keep are all they've got,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the stars still dot the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven be praised that they shine so bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven be praised for an appetite,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So who is richer than I?<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Hi yi!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Say, who is richer than I?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">(And yet I'm hoping to sell this screed<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For several dollars I hardly need.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">III.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ducats and dividends, stocks and shares, who cares?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worry and property travel in pairs,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While the green grows on the tree.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A banquet's nothing more than a meal;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +<span class="i0">A trolley's much like an automobile,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a transfer sometimes free,<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Tra lee!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a transfer sometimes free!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">(And yet you're unwilling, I plainly see,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To leave the automobile to me.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">IV.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A note you give and a note you get; don't fret,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For they both may go to protest yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the roses blow perfume.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fortune is only a Dun report;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Homestead Law and the Bankrupt Court<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Have fostered many a boom,<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Boom, boom!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Have fostered many a boom.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">(But I see you smile in a rapturous way<br /></span> +<span class="i4">On the man who is rated double A.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">V.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Life is a show for you and me; it's free!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what you look for is what you see;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A hill is a humped-up hollow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Riches are yours with a dollar bill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A million's the same little digit still,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With nothing but naughts to follow,<br /></span> +<span class="i18">So hollo!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There's nothing but naughts to follow.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">(But you and I, as I've said before,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Could get along with a trifle more.)<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> +<h2>SUCCESS.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It's little the difference where you arrive;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The serious question is how you strive.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you up to your eyes in a wild romance?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does your lady lead you a dallying dance?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you question if love be fate, or chance?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, the world will ask: "Did he get the girl?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though gentleman, coxcomb, clown or churl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Master or menial of passion's whirl.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it <i>isn't</i> that. The world will run<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though you never bequeath it daughter or son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But what, O lover, will come to you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you be not chivalrous, honest, true?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As far ahead as a man may think,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You can see your little soul shrivel and shrink.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">It's not, "Do you win?"<br /></span> +<span class="i12">It is, "What have you been?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you stripped for the world-old, world-wide race<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the metal which shines like the sun's own face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till it dazzles us blind to the mean and base?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you say to yourself, "When I have my hoard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will give of the plenty which I have stored,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If the Lord bless me, I will bless the Lord"?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And do you forget, as you pile your pelf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is the gift you are giving yourself?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though your mountain of gold may dazzle the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can you climb its height with your feet of clay?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, it isn't the stamp on the metal you win;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's the stamp on the metal you coin within.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">It's not what you give;<br /></span> +<span class="i12">It is "What do you live?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you going to sail the polar seas<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the point of ninety-and-north degrees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the very words in your larynx freeze?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, the mob may ask "Did he reach the pole?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though fair, or foul, did he touch the goal?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But if that be the spirit which stirs your soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Off, off from the land below the zeroes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For you are not of the stuff of heroes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ho! many a man can lead men forth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the fearsome end of the Farthest North,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But can you be faithful for woe or weal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a land where nothing but self is leal?<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Oh, it isn't "How far?"<br /></span> +<span class="i12">It is what you are.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it isn't your lookout where you arrive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it's up to you as to how you strive.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE GRILL.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Why do you?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What's it to you?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know you do, for I've seen the gruesome feeling simmer through you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I've seen it rise behind your eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And take your features by surprise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I've seen it in your half-hid grin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the tilting-upness of your chin.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good-natured though you are and fair, as you have often boasted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still you like to hear the other man artistically roasted.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whenever the star secures the stage with the spotlight in the centre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why should the anvil chorus think it has the cue to enter?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whenever the prima donna trills the E above the clef,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why should the brasses orchestrate the bass in double f?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It's funny,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it's even money,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You like to spy the buzzing fly in the other fellow's honey.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though you have said that honest bread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Demands no honey on it spread,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 362px;"> +<img src="images/fig036.jpg" width="362" height="650" alt="Page 30." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 30.</i></span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And if we eat the crusty wheat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With appetite, it needs no sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still I have noticed you were not at all inclined to cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because the man the bees had blest was bothered with the fly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whenever the chef concocts a dish which sets the world to tasting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why does the cooking-school get out its recipes for basting?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whenever a sprinter beats the bunch from the pistol-shot, why is it<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heavy hammer throwers get together for a visit?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Excuse me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did you accuse me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of turning the spit a little bit myself? Why, you amuse me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Didn't I scratch the sulphurous match<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And blow the flame to make it catch?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Didn't you trot to get the pot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To heat the water good and hot?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, seizing on our victim, if we found no greater sin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Didn't we call him "a lobster," and cheerfully chuck him in?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE VISION.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At the door of Success, I've been tempted to knock<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Both the door and the man who went through it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I find that the fellow was greasing the lock<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All the time that he strove to undo it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I either stay out, or must look for the key<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which slipped back the bolt which impeded,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I'm certain to find it, as soon as I see<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The reason my rival succeeded.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yes, I own when the man is a rank also-ran<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That I feel quite pish-tushy and pooh-y,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And exclaim if he ever knew saw-dust from bran,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Well—I come from just west of St. Louis!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But then, in the winning he's made, there's a hope<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That I may do even as he did,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I swallow my sneer and I study his dope<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To discover just why he succeeded.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I've been up in the air, I've been down in the hole,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(But always, let's hope, on the level,)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I've been on my uppers—so meagre my sole<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Twould scarcely have tempted the devil!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it's nothing to you what I am, or I was,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And no whit of your sympathy's needed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For I'm certain to win in the long run, because<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I shall see how my rival succeeded.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> +<h2>BLOOD IS RED.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some of us don't drink, some of us do;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some of us use a word or two.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Most of us, maybe, are half-way ripe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For deeds that would't look well in type.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All of us have done things, no doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We don't very often brag about.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are timidly good, we are badly bold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But there's hope for the worst of us, I hold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If there be a few things we didn't do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the reason that we so wanted to.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some of us sin on a smaller scale.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(We don't mind minnows, we shy at a whale.)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We speak of a woman with half a sneer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We sit on our hands when we ought to cheer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The salad we mix in the bowl of the heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We sometimes make a little too tart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For home consumption. We growl, we nag,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But we're not quite lost if we sometimes drag<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hot words back and make them mild<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the moment they fret to be running wild.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Don't pin your faith on the man or woman<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who never is tempted. We're mostly human.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whoever he be who never has felt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The red blood sing in the veins and melt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ice of convention, caste and creed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the very last barrier, has no need<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +<span class="i0">To raise his brows at the rest of us.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It bides its time in the best of us,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And well for him if he do not do<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That which the strength of him wants him to.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> +<h2>DIAGNOSIS.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You have a grudge against the man<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who did the thing you couldn't do.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You hatched the scheme, you laid the plan,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And yet you couldn't push it through.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You strained your soul and couldn't win;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He gave a breath and it was easy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You smile and swallow your chagrin,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But, oh, the swallow makes you queasy.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I know your illness, for, you see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The diet never pleases me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Your dearest friend has made a strike,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Has placed his mark above the crowd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has won the thing which <i>you</i> would like<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And you are glad for him, and proud.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your tongue is swift, your cheek is red,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If some one speak to his detraction,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, the fact the thing is said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Affords you half a satisfaction.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see the workings of your mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because my own is so inclined.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You tell me fame is hollow squeak,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You say that wealth is carking care;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to live care-free a single week<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is more than years of work and wear.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Alexander weeps his highest place,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Diogenes is happy sunning!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What matters it who wins the race<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So you have had the joy of running?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And yet, you covet prize and pelf.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know it, for I do, myself.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> +<h2>SPREAD OUT.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In politics I'm a—never mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And you are a—I don't care,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, anyway, I am rather inclined<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To suspect we are both unfair;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For I have called you a coward and slave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you have dubbed me a fool and knave.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(Yet, perhaps I was right, for you surely abused<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The right of free speech in the names you used!)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In business you figure—a profit, I guess,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I charge you—as much as I dare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I grumble that you ought to do it for less,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And you ask if my price is fair.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But if <i>I</i> sold your goods and <i>you</i> sold mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I doubt if the prices would much decline.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(Though I must insist that I think I see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where you'd still have a little advantage of me!)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In religion you are a—who cares what?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I am a—what's the odds?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So why have I sneered at your holiest thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And why have you jeered at my gods?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For, thinking it over, I'm sure we two<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were doing the best that we honestly knew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(Though, of course, I cannot escape a touch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of suspicion that <i>you</i> never knew too much!)<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE DILETTANT.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To lie outright in the light of day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm not sufficiently skilful,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I practice a bit, in an amateur way,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The lie which is hardly wilful;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The society lie and the business lie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the lie I have had to double,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the lie that I lie when I don't know why<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the truth is too much trouble.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For this I am willing to take your blame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unless you have sometimes done the same.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To be a fool of an A1 brand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm not sufficiently clever,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I often have tried my 'prentice hand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In a callow and crude endeavor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fool with the money for which I've toiled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A fool with the word I've spoken,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the foolish fool who is fooled and foiled<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On a maiden's finger broken.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If you never yourself have made a slip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm willing to watch you curl your lip.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And yet my blood and my bone resist<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If you dub me fool and liar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I set my teeth and double my fist<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And my brow is flushed with fire.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You I deny and you I defy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I vow I will make you rue it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I lie when I say that I never lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which proves me a fool to do it!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You may jerk your thumb at me and grin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If liar and fool you never have been.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE CONSERVATIVE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At twenty, as you proudly stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And read your thesis, "Brotherhood,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I remember right, you saw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fatuous faults of social law.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At twenty-five you braved the storm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dug the trenches of Reform,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stung by some gadfly in your breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which would not let your spirit rest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At thirty-five you made a pause<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To sum the columns of The Cause;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You noted, with unwilling eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heedless world had passed you by.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At forty you had always known<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man owes a duty to His Own.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man's life is as man's life is made;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The game is fair, if fairly played.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At fifty, after years of stress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You bore the banner of Success.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All men have virtues, all have sins,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And God is with the man who wins.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At sixty, from your captured heights<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You fly the flag of Vested Rights,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bounded by bonds collectable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hopelessly respectable!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> +<h2>HUSH.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What's the best thing that you ever have done?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whitest day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cleverest play<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ever you set in the shine of the sun?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The time that you felt just a wee bit proud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of defying the cry of the cowardly crowd<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stood back to back with God?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aye, I notice you nod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But silence yourself, lest you bring me shame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I have no answering deed to name.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What's the worst thing that ever you did?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The darkest spot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blackest blot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the page you have pasted together and hid?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, sometimes you think you've forgotten it quite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till it crawls in your bed in the dead of the night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And brands you its own with a blush.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What was it? Nay, hush!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't tell it to me, for fear it be known<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I have an answering blush of my own.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But whenever you notice a clean hit made,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sing high and clear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sounding cheer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You would gladly have heard for the play you played,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And when a man walks in the way forbidden,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Think you of the thing you have happily hidden<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And spare him the sting of your tongue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do I do that which I've sung?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, it may be I don't and it may be I do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I'm telling the thing which is good for <i>you</i>!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE ISLAND.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You, my friend, in your long-tailed coat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With your white cravat at your withered throat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Praying by proxy of him you hire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worshiping God with a quartet choir,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bumping your head on the pew in front,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Assenting "Amen!" with an unctuous grunt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you sure it is you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the pew?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Look!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">You're away on a lonely isle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the scant breech-clout is the only style,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the day of the week forgets its name,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where god and devil are all the same.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look at yourself in your careless clout,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tell me, then, would you be devout?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One on the island, one in the pew—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How do you know which is you?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You, dear maiden, with eyes askance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the little soubrette and her daring dance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thanking God that His ways are wide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To allow you to pass on the other side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You, as you ask, "Will the world approve?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the hint of a wabble out of the groove,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Look!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">On that isle of the lonely sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you, the saucy soubrette and <i>he</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the little grooves that you circle in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are forever as though they never had been.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now you are naked of soul and limb:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will you say what you will not dare—for him?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Which of the women is real?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The one you appear, or the one you feel?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You, good sir, with your neck a-stretch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the van goes by with the prison wretch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Asking naught of his ills or hurts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Judging "he's getting his just deserts,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pluming yourself that the moral laws<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are centred in you as effect and cause.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Look!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">At the island, and there you are<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the long, strong arm which reaches far,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there are the natives who kneel and bow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where are your <i>meum et tuum</i> now?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you sure that the balance swings quite true?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or does it a little incline to you?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Answer or not as you will, but oh,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have an island, too, and so<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know, I know.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> +<h2>HUMBLER HEROES.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It might not be so difficult to lead the light brigade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the army cheered behind you, and the fifes and bugles played;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It might be rather easy, with the war-shriek in your ears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To forget the bite of bullets and the taste of blood and tears.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But to be a scrubwoman, with four<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Babies, or more,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Every day, every day setting your back<br /></span> +<span class="i6">On the rack,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all your reward forever not quite<br /></span> +<span class="i6">A full bite<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of bread for your babies. Say!<br /></span> +<span class="i6">In the heat of the day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You might be a hero to head a brigade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But a hero like her? I'm afraid! I'm afraid!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It might be very feasible to force a great reform,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To saddle public passion and to ride upon the storm;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It might be somewhat simple to ignore the roar of wrath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because a second shout broke out to cheer you on your path.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But he who, alone and unknown, is true<br /></span> +<span class="i6">To his view,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +<span class="i2">Unswerved by the crush of the mutton-browed,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Blatting crowd,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unwon by the flabby-brained, blinking ease<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Which he sees<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Throned and anointed. Say!<br /></span> +<span class="i6">At the height of the fray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You might be the chosen to captain the throng:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to stand all alone? How long? How long?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONSCIENCE PIANISSIMO.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You are honest as daylight. You're often assured<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That your word is as good as your note—unsecured.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We could trust you with millions unaudited, but——<br /></span> +<span class="i8">(Tut, tut!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">There is always a "but,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So don't get excited,) I'm pained to perceive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is seldom I notice you grumble or grieve<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the custom-house officer pockets your tip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And passes the contraband goods in your grip.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You would scorn to be shy on your ante, I'm certain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But skinning your Uncle you're rather expert in.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well, I'm proud that no taint of the sort touches me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(For I've never been over the water, you see.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Your yardstick's a yard and your goods are all wool;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your bushel's four pecks and you measure it full.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You are proud of your business integrity, yet—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">(Don't fret!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">There is always a "yet,")<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I never have noticed a sign of distress, or<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Disturbance in you, when the upright assessor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has listed your property somewhere about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half what you would take were you selling it out.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You're as true to the world as the world to its axis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But you chuckle to swear off your personal taxes.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +<span class="i0">As for me, I would scorn to do any such thing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Though I may have considered the question last spring.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You have notions of right. You would count it a sin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To cheat a blind billionaire out of a pin.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You have a contempt for a pettiness, still—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">(Don't chill!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">There is always a "still,")<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I never have noticed you storm with neglect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because the conductor had failed to collect,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or growl that the game wasn't run on the square<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When your boy in the high school paid only half fare.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The voice of your conscience is lusty and audible,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But a railroad—good heavens! why, that's only laudable.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of course, <i>I</i> am quite in a different class;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For me, it is painful to ride on a pass!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE WORLD RUNS ON.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So many good people find fault with God,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tho' admitting He's doing the best He can,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still they consider it somewhat odd<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That He doesn't consult them concerning his plan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the sun sinks down and the sun climbs back,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the world runs round and round its track.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Or they say God doesn't precisely steer<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This world in the way they think is best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And if He would listen to them, He'd veer<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A hair to the sou', sou'west by west.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the world sails on and it never turns back<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the Mariner never makes a tack.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Or the same folk pray "O, if Thou please,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dear God, be a little more circumspect;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou knowest Thy worm who is on his knees<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Would not willingly charge thee with neglect,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But O, if indeed Thou knowest all things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why fittest Thou not Thy worm with wings?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So many good people are quite inclined<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To favor God with their best advices,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And consider they're something more than kind<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In helping Him out of critical crises.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the world runs on, as it ran before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And eternally shall run evermore.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So many good people, like you and me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are deeply concerned for the sins of others<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And conceive it their duty that God should be<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Apprised of the lack in erring brothers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the myriad sun-stars seed the skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And look at us out of their calm, clear eyes.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> +<h2>PASS.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did somebody give you a pat on the back?<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Pass it on!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let somebody else have a taste of the snack,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Pass it on!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If it heightens your courage, or lightens your pack,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If it kisses your soul, with a song in the smack,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maybe somebody else has been dressing in black;<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Pass it on!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God gives you a smile, not to make it a yawn;<br /></span> +<span class="i24">Pass it on!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did somebody show you a slanderous mess?<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Pass it by!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a brook's flowing by, will you drink at the cess?<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Pass it by!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dame Gossip's a wanton, whatever her dress;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her sire was a lie and her dam was a guess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a poison is in her polluting caress;<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Pass it by!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unless you're a porker, keep out of the sty.<br /></span> +<span class="i24">Pass it by!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did somebody give you an insolent word?<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Pass it up!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is the creak of a cricket, the pwit of a bird;<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Pass it up!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Shake your fist at the sea! Is its majesty blurred?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blow your breath at the sky! Is its purity slurred?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the shallowest puddle, how easily stirred!<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Pass it up!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does the puddle invite you to dip in your cup?<br /></span> +<span class="i24">Pass it up!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> +<h2>PUBLICITY.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's nothing like publicity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To further that lubricity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which minted cartwheels need<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To maximize their speed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In your direction.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True, some hydropathist of stocks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or one whose trade is picking locks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May make objection:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet even those gentry always lurk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where booming first has done its work.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Observe how oft some foreigner,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the size of coroner,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can sell L O R D<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Four letters, as you see,)<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For seven numbers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because his trade-mark, thus devised,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is advertised and advertised<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till it encumbers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mental view, as though 't were some<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bald-headed brand of chewing-gum.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Study your own psychology!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See how some mere tautology<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of picture, or of print,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has realized the glint<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of your good money.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +<span class="i0">How often have persistent views<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of one bare head sold you your shoes!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which does seem funny;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet 'twas head-work, after all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which helped the shoe-man make his haul.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's some obscure locality<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In every man's mentality<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, I am free to state,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd like to penetrate<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For my felicity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For now who gives a second look<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he perceives a POEM by Cooke?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But come publicity!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then a poem by COOKE were seen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first thing in the magazine!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 442px;"> +<img src="images/fig062.jpg" width="442" height="650" alt="Page 55." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 55.</i></span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MOVE!</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We are on the main line of a crowded track;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We've got to go forward; we can't go back<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And run the risk of colliding:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We must make schedule, not now and again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But always, forever and ever, amen!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or else switch off on a siding.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If ever we loaf, like a car in the yard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doesn't somebody bump us, and bump us hard,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">I wonder?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You've succeeded in building a pretty fair trade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But can you sit down in the grateful shade<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And kill time cutting up capers?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or must you hustle and scheme and sweat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the shine be fine or the weather be wet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And keep your page in the papers?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If ever you fail to be pulling the strings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aren't some of your rivals around doing things,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">I wonder?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You're a first-class salesman. You know your line;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your house is good and your goods are fine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So you fill your book with orders,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But can you get quit of the ball and chain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or are you in jail on a railroad train,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With blue-coated men for warders?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +<span class="i0">If you sent your samples and cut out the trip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wouldn't somebody else soon be lugging your grip,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">I wonder?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You are starred on the bills and are chummy with fame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The man on the corner could tell you your name<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At three o'clock in the morning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But can you depend on the mind of the mob?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can you tell your press-agent to look for a job,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or give your manager warning?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should you lie down to sleep, with your laurels beneath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wouldn't somebody else soon be wearing your wreath,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">I wonder?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, I'm willing to work, but I wish I could lag,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not feeling as if I were "it" for tag,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or last in follow-my-leader;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is only one spot where, I haven't a doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nobody will try to be crowding me out,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And that is under the cedar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And even in that place, will Gabriel's trump<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come nagging along and be making me jump?<br /></span> +<span class="i10">I wonder.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<h2>GET NEXT.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Chap. I., verse 1, is where you'll find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The text of what is in my mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If, haply, you are so inclined.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chap. I., verse 1—the primal rule<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For saint or sinner, sage or fool,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No matter what his church or school.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though you may call it slangy solely,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though you may term it flippant wholly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth still is truth and is not vexed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I write this rhyme to prove the text—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Get Next.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Suppose I sought some lonely height<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dipped a stylus in the light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of welding worlds and sought to write<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the highest, deepest blue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My message to Sam Smith and you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chances are it would not do.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You would not risk your neck to read<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My much too altitudinous screed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I, chagrined and half-perplexed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had missed you when I missed my text—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Get Next.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Suppose you have a breakfast food<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which you conceive I should include<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within my lat-and-longitude.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +<span class="i0">'T is not enough to have the stuff,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But you must post, and praise, and puff,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until I memo. on my cuff,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among my most important notes—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be sure to bring home Oatless Oats.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then you know that I'm annexed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because you followed out the text—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Get Next.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Get next! get next! and hold it true<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's one you must get nextest to,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that important one is you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be not of those who, uncommuned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With their own skins, have all but swooned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From some imaginary wound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But strip the rags from off your soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And find you are not maimed, but whole!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is but a flea-bite which has vexed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As soon as you've applied the text—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Get Next.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 530px;"> +<img src="images/fig068.jpg" width="530" height="650" alt="Page 58." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 58.</i></span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 618px;"> +<img src="images/fig069.jpg" width="618" height="650" alt="Page 59." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 59.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> +<h2>ARE YOU YOU?</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you a trailer, or are you a trolley?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you tagged to a leader through wisdom and folly?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are you Somebody Else, or You?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you vote by the symbol and swallow it "straight"?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you pray by the book, do you pay by the rate?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you tie your cravat by the calendar's date?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Do you follow a cue?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you a writer, or that which is worded?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you a shepherd, or one of the herded?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which are you—a What or a Who?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It sounds well to call yourself "one of the flock,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But a sheep is a sheep after all. At the block<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You're nothing but mutton, or possibly stock.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Would you flavor a stew?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you a being and boss of your soul?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or are you a mummy to carry a scroll?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are you Somebody Else, or You?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When you finally pass to the heavenly wicket<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where Peter the Scrutinous stands on his picket,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you going to give him <i>a blank</i> for a ticket?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Do you think it will do?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE PRICE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In, or under, or over the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What will fill you, and what suffice?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No matter how mean, or much its worth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It is yours if you pay the price.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never a thing may a man attain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But gain pays loss, or loss pays gain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lady of riches, riot and rout,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fair of flesh and sated of sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothing in life you need do without<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Except the trifle of innocence.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Counterfeit kisses you paid, and got<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just what you paid for—which is what?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Man of adroitness, place and power,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Trampled above and torn below;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set in the light of your noonday hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Playing a part in the public show;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fooling the mob that the mob be ruled:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You know which is the greater fooled.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Artist of pencil, or paint, or pen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Reed, or string, or the vocal note,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making the soul to suffer again<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the wild heart clutch the throat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever your fancy has paid in fact;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You rack my soul, as yours was racked.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 438px;"> +<img src="images/fig073.jpg" width="438" height="650" alt="Page 60." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 60.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE BUBBLE-FLIES.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Let me read a homily<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Concerning an anomaly<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I view<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whatever you are striving for,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whatever you are driving for,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is not alone because you crave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be successful that you slave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To swim upon the topmost wave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You care less what your station is,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But more what your relation is.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be a bit above the rest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be upon, or of, the crest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah! that is where the trouble lies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which stirs you little bubble-flies.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(I sneer these sneers, but just the same<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I keep my fingers in the game.)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See! you have eat-and-drinkables<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And portables and thinkables<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And yet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You fret.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For what? Let's reach the heart of you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And see the funny part of you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For what? I find the soul and seed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of it is not your lack or need,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or even merely vulgar greed.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Gold? You may have a store of it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But someone else has more of it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fame? Pretty things are said of you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But—some one is ahead of you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Place? You disprize your easy one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For some one's high and breezy one.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(I smile these smiles to soothe my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But squint one eye upon the goal.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tell me! what's your capacity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compared to your voracity?<br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>I</i> guess<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'T is less.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so I strike these attitudes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tender you these platitudes;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not wishing wealth, or spurning it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not hoarding it, or burning it<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is equal to the earning it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life's race is in the riding it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not in the word deciding it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And after all is said and uttered<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The keenest taste is bread-and-buttered.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(And yet—and yet—my palate aches<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For pallid pie and pasty cakes!)<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 489px;"> +<img src="images/fig077.jpg" width="489" height="650" alt="Page 61." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 61.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> +<h2>QUALIFIED.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I love to see my friend succeed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I love to praise him; yes, indeed!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And so, no doubt, do you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But will you tell me why it is<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The praise we parcel out as his<br /></span> +<span class="i4">So often goes askew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ends by running in the rut<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of "if," "except" or "but"?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Boggs is a clever chap. His trade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is doubling yearly, and he's made<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A fortune all right, but——"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Sharp is elected. Well, I say!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'll hit a high mark yet, some day,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">If——" (here one eye is shut).<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Such acting! Why, I laughed and wept!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fobb's art is great—except."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Miss Hautton has such queenly grace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then her figure and her face!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">She'd be a beauty if——"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"And Mrs. Follol entertains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With so much taste and so much pains;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But——" (here a little sniff).<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"And Mrs. Caste has ever kept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The narrow path—except."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I wish some man were great and good<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I might praise him all I could<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And never add a "but."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would that some would value me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And never hint what I would be<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"If"—but why cavil? Tut!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eternal justice still is kept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Heaven is good—except!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;"> +<img src="images/fig081.jpg" width="430" height="650" alt="Page 65." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Page 65.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> +<h2>WHAT ARE YOU DOING?</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Do you lazily nurse your knee and muse?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you contemplate your conquering thews<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With a critical satisfaction?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But yesterday's laurels are dry and dead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to-morrow's triumph is still ahead;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To-day is the day for action.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yesterday's sun: is it shining still?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-morrow's dawn: will its coming fill<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To-day, if to-day's light fail us?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not so. The past is forever past;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-day's is the hand which holds us fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And to-morrow may never hail us.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The present and only the present endures,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So it's hey for to-day! for to-day is yours<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For the goal you are still pursuing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What you have done is a little amount;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What you will do is of lesser account,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But the test is, what are you doing?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">McUmphrey's a fellow who's lengthy on lungs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Backed up by the smoothest of ball-bearing tongues,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his topic—himself—is worth talking about,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he works it so much he has frazzled it out.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He never will give me my half of a chance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To chip in my own little, clever romance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the first person singular. Yes, and they say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He offended you, too, in a similar way.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Cousin Maud tells her illnesses, ancient and recent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a most minute way which is almost indecent!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vivisecting herself, with some medical chatter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She serves us her portions—as if on a platter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never noting how I am but waiting to stir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My dregs of diseases to offer to her.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I hear (such a joke!) that your chronic gastritis<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stands silent forever before her nephritis.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mrs. Henderson's Annie goes out every night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Bertha, before her, was simply a fright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While Agnes broke more than the worth of her head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Maggie—well, some things are better unsaid.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such manners to talk of her help—when she knows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My wife's simply aching to tell of <i>our</i> woes!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I hear that she never lets you get a start<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On your story of Rosy we all know by heart.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You'd hardly believe that I've heard Bunson tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Flea-Powder Frenchman and Razors to Sell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The One-Legged Goose and that old What You Please—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And even, I swear it, The Crow and the Cheese.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he sprang that old yarn of He Said 't was His Leg,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When you wanted to tell him Columbus's Egg,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While I wanted to tell my own whimsical tale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Which I recently wrote) of The Man in the Whale!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE CHOICE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The little it takes to make life bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If we open our eyes to get it!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the trifle which makes it black as night,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If we close our lids and let it!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold, as the world goes whirling by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is gloomy, or glad, as it fits your eye.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As it fits your eye, and I mean by that<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You find what you look for mostly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You can feed your happiness full and fat,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You can make your miseries ghostly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or you can forget every joy you own<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By coveting something beyond your zone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the storms of life we can fret the eye<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the guttering mud is drifted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or we can look to the world-wide sky<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the Artist's scenes are shifted.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Puddles are oceans in miniatures,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or merely puddles; the choice is yours.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We can strip our niggardly souls so bare<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That we haggle a penny between us;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or we can be rich in a common share<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the Pleiades and Venus.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You can lift your soul to its outermost look,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or can keep it packed in a pocketbook.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We may follow a phantom the arid miles<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To a mountain of cankered treasure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or we can find, in a baby's smiles,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pulse of a living pleasure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We may drink of the sea until we burst,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the trickling spring would have quenched our thirst.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE SAVING CLAUSE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Kerr wrote a book, and a good book, too;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At least I<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> managed to read it through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without finding very much room for blame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a good many other folks did the same.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when any one asked me<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>: "Have you read?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or: "How do you like?" I<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> only said:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Very good, very good! and I'm glad enough;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For his other writings are horrible stuff."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Banks wrote a play, and it had a run.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(That's a good deal more than ever I've<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> done.)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The interest held with hardly a lag<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the overture to the final tag.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when any one asked me<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>: "Have you seen?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or: "What do you think?" I<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> looked serene<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And remarked: "Oh, a pretty good thing of its kind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I guess Mr. Shakespeare needn't mind!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Phelps made a machine; 't was smooth as grease.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(I<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> couldn't invent its smallest piece<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a thousand years.) It was tried and tried,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until everybody was satisfied.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when any one asked me<a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>: "Will it pay?"—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Is it really good?"—I<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> could only say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"It's a marvelous thing! Why, it almost thinks!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Phelps is a wonder—too bad he drinks!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> (Errata: On scanning the verses through I find these +pronouns should all read "You.")</p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 472px;"> +<img src="images/fig089.jpg" width="472" height="650" alt="Page 70." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 70.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> +<h2>BETWEEN TWO THIEVES.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sure! I am one who disbelieves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In thieves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At which you interrupt to cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Aye, aye, and I."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hmf! you're so sudden to agree.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suppose we see.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I know a thief. No matter whether<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I ought to know a thief, or not.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perhaps "we went to school together;"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That old excuse is worked a lot.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One day he "copped a rummy's leather,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which means—I hate to tell you what.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's such a vulgar thing to steal<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A drunkard's purse to buy a meal.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Hey, pal," said he, "come help me dine;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I've hit a pit and got the swag;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-day, Delmonico's is mine;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To-morrow once again a vag.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come on and tell me all the stunts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the boys who knew me—once."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Did I go with him?" I did not.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would you have gone? Could you be bought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By dinners—when the trail was hot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And any hour he might be caught?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +<span class="i0">I know a thief, whose operations<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are colored by a kindly law.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your income and a beggar's rations<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Contribute to his cunning claw;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cities and counties, courts and nations<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pay portion to his monstrous maw.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He gave a dinner not long since<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In honor of some played-out Prince.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The decorations, ah, how chaste!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And how delicious was the wine!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Mrs. Thief has perfect taste<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And Mr. Thief knows how to dine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so the world has long agreed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quite to forgive, forget—and feed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But really I was shocked to see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How many decent folks could be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Induced to come and bow the knee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I think you were my <i>vis-a-vis</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yes, yes, I quite despise him, too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like you;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And (though it's not a thing to brag)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I somehow like the vag.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, oh, the difference one perceives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between two thieves!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE SPECTATOR.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Look at the man with the crown<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Weighing him down.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plumed and petted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Galled and fretted!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why do you eye him askance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a quiver of hate in your glance?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why not conceive him as human,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nursed at the breast of a woman,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Growing, mayhap, as he could,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Not as he would?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How are you sure you would be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better and wiser than he?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Look at the woman whose eye<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Follows you by.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silked and satined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scented, fattened!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why does the half smile slip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into a sneer on your lip?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You pity her? Ah, but the fashion<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of your complacent compassion.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pity her! yet you have said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Better the creature were dead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is there left here for her<br /></span> +<span class="i6">But to err?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus would you make the world right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hiding its ills from your sight.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Look at the man with the pack<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Breaking his back.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ragged, squalid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wretched, stolid.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you are sorry, you say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Much as you are at a play.)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But do you say to him, "Brother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twin-born son of our mother<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What were the word, or the deed<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Fitting your need?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, as he slouches by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you breathe "God be praised, I am I?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 433px;"> +<img src="images/fig095.jpg" width="433" height="650" alt="Page 74." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 74.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE SQUEALER.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of course some people are born so bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That no matter what one may say, or write,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The theme is old and the lesson is trite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which is what you may say, as these lines unreel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I mildly suggest it is better to feel<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Than to squeal.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Everybody knows that? Yes, it's certain they do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Everybody, that is, with exception of two,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of whom I am one and the other is you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But for us the lesson is still remote,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Although we commit it and cite it and quote<br /></span> +<span class="i12">It by rote.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But still when you thrill with the thudding thump<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the fist of the fellow you tried to bump<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the world looks hard at the swelling lump,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's a strong temptation to open your door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And invite the public to hear you roar<br /></span> +<span class="i12">That you're sore.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And again, tho' 'tis plain as the printed page:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Keep your hand on the lever and watch the gauge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the fire-pot's full and the boilers rage,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How often the steam-pressure grows and grows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And before the engineer cares or knows,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Up she goes.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So why should you fret if I send you to school<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again to consider the sapient rule<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Wisdom is Silence and Speech is a Fool.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close up! and a year from to-day you will kneel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thank the good Lord that you knew how to feel<br /></span> +<span class="i12">And not squeal.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> +<h2>DISTANCE AND DISENCHANTMENT.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He was playing New York, and on Broadway at that;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I was playing in stock, in Chicago.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard that his Hamlet fell fearfully flat;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He heard I was fierce, as Iago.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each looked to the other exceedingly small;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We were too far apart, that is all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You, too, if your vision is ever reflective,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have noticed your rival is small in perspective.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I heard him in Memphis (a chance matinée);<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He heard me (one Sunday) in Dallas.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His critics, I swore, never witnessed the play;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He vowed mine were prompted by malice.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pleasanter fellow I cannot recall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We were closer together; that's all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And your rival, too, if you once see him clearly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is clever, or how could he rival you, nearly?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In Seattle they said he was greater than Booth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Or in Portland, perhaps; I've forgotten);<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I said 'twas ungracious to speak the plain truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But his work in the first act was rotten.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had only intended to speak of the thrall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his wonderful fifth act; that's all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when a man's praised far ahead of his talents,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I guess you say something to even the balance.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In Atlanta I heard a remark that he made<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And again in Mobile, Alabama;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he hardly thought Shakespeare was meant to be played<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like a ten-twenty-thirt' melodrama.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, well, there was one honey-drop in the gall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fellow was jealous; that's all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you, too, have found, when a friendship is broken,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That his words are worse than the ones you have spoken.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 464px;"> +<img src="images/fig101.jpg" width="464" height="650" alt="Page 77." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 77.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> +<h2>FAMILY RESEMBLANCE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I used to boost the P. and P.,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Designed to run from sea to sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Portland, Ore., to Portland, Me.,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But which, as all the maps agree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Begins somewhere in Minnesota<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And peters out in North Dakota.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You gibed because I used to mock<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its streaks of rust and rolling-stock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its schedule and its G. P. A.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Who took your Annual away,)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But lately you seem much inclined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To own a sudden change of mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Ah, me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You're much like other folks, I see.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I much admired the book reviews<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Quillip of the Daily News.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I laughed to see him put the screws<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On some sprig of the late Who's-Whos,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tear off his verbiage and skin him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To show the little there was in him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You said the book he wrote himself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay stranded on the dealer's shelf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wasn't worthy a critique;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Just what he said of mine last week).<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perhaps your reasoning was strong<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And you were right and I was wrong.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Heigho!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm very much like you, I know.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O'Brien's zeal ran almost daft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In its antipathy to graft.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He raked the practice fore and aft;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord! how his sulphurous breath would waft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Eternal and infernal tarmint<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To ivery grasping, grafting, varmint."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The worst of these upon the planet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He said, were those who wanted granite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In public buildings,—"yis, begorry!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(O'Brien owns a sandstone quarry.)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of course I'd hate to see it tested,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But would he be less interested<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In civic virtue—uninvested?<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Oh, dear!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'Brien's much like us, I fear.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> +<h2>NEED.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Don't you remember how you and I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Held a property nobody wanted to buy<br /></span> +<span class="i10">In San José,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Until one day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A man came along from Franklin, Pa.?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And didn't we jump till we happened to find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chap wasn't going it wholly blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But all the rest of the block was bought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he simply had to have our lot.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, didn't our land go up in price<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till double the figures would scarce suffice?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And don't we sometimes figure and fret<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How he got the best of us, even yet?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Don't you remember the perfect plan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You had, which needed another man<br /></span> +<span class="i10">To make it win,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">To jump right in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And everlasting make things spin?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you said I had the requisite dash<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And also the trifle of hoarded cash.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was I glad to get in? Well, yes, indeed!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until I saw the compelling need<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which had brought you to me, and then, "Ho! ho!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None of that for me, nay, not for Joe."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And I'm always provoked when I think you made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The plan get along without my aid.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Don't you remember the time we met<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At Des Moines, or was it at Winterset?<br /></span> +<span class="i10">But anyway, you<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Were feeling blue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tickled to see me through and through.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And "Come, let's open a bottle of—ink,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said you, "and see if it's good to drink."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But weren't you sorry because you spoke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I had to tell you I was "broke"?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, you lent me the saw-buck, I know, but still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fancied your ardor had taken a chill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And you've never been able to quite forget<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That once I was "broke," and in your debt.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> +<h2>BETTER.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's only one motto you need<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To succeed:<br /></span> +<span class="i20">"Better."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To other man's winning? Then you<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Must do<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Better.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the baking of bread<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the breaking a head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From rhyming a ballad<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To sliming a salad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From mending of ditches<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To spending of riches,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Follow the rule to the uttermost letter:<br /></span> +<span class="i20">"Better!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of course you may say but a few<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Can do<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Better;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you're going to strive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So that all may thrive<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Better.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it's right you are<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To follow the star,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Set in the heavens, afar, afar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still with your eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i4">On the skies<br /></span> +<span class="i10">It is wise<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +<span class="i0">To be riding a mule,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or guiding a school,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thatching a hovel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hatching a novel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Foretelling weather,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or selling shoe-leather;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And remember you must<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Be doing it just<br /></span> +<span class="i10">A wee dust<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Better.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And 'tis quite<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As right<br /></span> +<span class="i10">For you to cite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the author might,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or ought, to write<br /></span> +<span class="i10">A heavenly sight<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Better!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For which sharp word I am much your debtor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowing none other could file my fetter<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Better.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 435px;"> +<img src="images/fig109.jpg" width="435" height="650" alt="Page 85." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 85.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> +<h2>FORGET WHAT THE OTHER MAN HATH.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What do I care for your four-track line?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I have a country path;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this is the message I've taken for mine:—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Forget what the other man hath."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What do I care for your giant trees?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'd rather whittle a lath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my motto helps me to take my ease;—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Forget what the other man hath."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What do I care for your Newport beach?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A tub's as good for a bath.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I keep my solace in constant reach:—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Forget what the other man hath."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What do I care for your automobile?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm saving repairs and wrath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My proverb goes well with an old style wheel;—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Forget what the other man hath."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What do I care if you scorn my rime?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For this is its aftermath;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It sounds so well I shall try, (sometime,)<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To "forget what the other man hath!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE WHET.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The day that I loaf when I ought to employ it<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has, somehow, the flavor which makes me enjoy it.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">So the man with no work<br /></span> +<span class="i12">He may joyously shirk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I envy no more than I do the Grand Turk.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He most is in need of a holiday, who,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In this workaday world, has no duty to do.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The dollar you waste when you ought not to spend it<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Buys something no plutocrat's millions could lend it,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">For if once you exhaust<br /></span> +<span class="i12">All your care of the cost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full half of the pleasure of purchase is lost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I trust you are one who is wise in discerning<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The value of spending is most in the earning.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My little success which was nearest complete<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was that which I tore from the teeth of defeat,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">And the man who can hit<br /></span> +<span class="i12">With his wisdom and wit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without any effort, I envy no whit.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The genius whose laurels grow always the greenest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Finds pleasure in plenty, but misses the keenest.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> +<h2>WHAT SORT ARE YOU?</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"How much do you want for your A. Street lot?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said a real estate man to me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I looked as if I were lost in thought<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And then I replied: "Let's see;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black's sold last year at fifty the foot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And without using algebra that should put<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My figure at sixty now, I guess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or a trifle more, or a trifle less."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I was anxious to sell at fifty straight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or I might have been glad of forty-eight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, it's true;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What sort of a bluff are you?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And what do you think of these railroad rates?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The man with a bald brow said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"For you have travelled through all the states<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And have heard a good deal and read."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"The railroad lines," I wisely replied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Are the lines with which our trade is tied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wretches who take their rebates set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New knots in the bonds under which we fret."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, now I remember, I once rode free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And forgot that the road rebated me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, its true;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How much of a bluff are you?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"You've been to hear 'Siegfried' and found it fine?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cried a classical friend one day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I'm sure your impressions accord with mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But I want your own words and way.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, oh, "the tone-color beats belief,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, oh, "dynamics," and oh, "motif,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And "chiar-oscura, how finely abstruse,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And oh, la-la-la, and oh, well, what's the use?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the only thing I understood in the play<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was that dippy, old dragon of <i>papier-maché</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, it's true;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What style of a bluff are you?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And the senator should, you believe, be returned?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said a newspaper-man to me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"He's as rotten a rascal as ever burned,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I said. "May I quote?" asked he.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Oh, no," I replied, "if you're going to quote,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just remark that his friends are regretting to note<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the exigencies of the party case<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Indicate that he shouldn't re-enter the race."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the senator sometime may possibly be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Interviewed by a newspaper-man about me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No, none of these cases may quite fit you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But what sort of a bluff <i>are</i> you?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 503px;"> +<img src="images/fig115.jpg" width="503" height="650" alt="Page 88." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 88.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE CRITICS.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As a matter of fact,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am sure I can act,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">When I go,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">To the show,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not the art of an Irving<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seems wholly deserving,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And though Booth were the star<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'd have many a jar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If he heard the critique<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which I frequently speak,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">As you<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Do,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Too.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Written deep in my heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is a knowledge of art,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For why?<br /></span> +<span class="i6">I've an eye<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Like a die.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where Raphael's paint<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has bedizened some saint,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I note his perspective<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is sadly defective,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you? O, I know<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +<span class="i0">When you've looked on Corot<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The same<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Blame<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Came.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And the world would have gained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If my voice had been trained,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For my ear<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Is severe,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">As I hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De Reszke and Patti.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(I've heard 'em sing "ratty!")<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the crowd has yelled "Bis!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a call for police<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should have shortened the score.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was there ever a more<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Absurd<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Word<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Heard?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And I feel, now and then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I could handle a pen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">As I heed<br /></span> +<span class="i12">What I read,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I observe many faults;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Homer nods, Shakespere halts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dante's sad, Pope is trite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poe's mechanic, Holmes light,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Yet so easy to do<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is the thing, even you<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Might<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Write<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Quite<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Bright!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> +<h2>PLUG.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As you haven't asked me for advice, I'll give it to you now:<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No matter who or what you are, or where you are, the how<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Is plug.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You may take your dictionary, unabridged, and con it through,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You may swallow the Britannica and all its retinue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But here I lay it f. o. b.—the only word for you<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Is plug.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you in the big procession, but away behind the band?<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the cobble, or asphaltum, in the mud or in the sand,<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, you'll hear the story frequently of how some clever man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cut clean across the country, so that now he's in the van;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You may think that you will do it, but I don't believe you can,<br /></span> +<span class="i16">So plug!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;"> +<img src="images/fig121.jpg" width="432" height="650" alt="Page 92." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 92.</i></span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you singing in the chorus? Do you want to be a star?<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You may think that you're a genius, but I don't believe you are,<br /></span> +<span class="i16">So plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, you'll hear of this or that one who was born without a name,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who slept eleven hours a day and dreamed the way to fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who simply couldn't push it off, so rapidly it came!<br /></span> +<span class="i16">But plug.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Are you living in the valley? Do you want to reach the height?<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the hottest sun of day is and the coldest stars of night?<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, it may be you're a fool, but if a fool you want to be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you want to climb above the crowd so every one can see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just how a fool may look when he is at his apogee,<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Why, plug!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Can you make a mile a minute? Do you want to make it two?<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Are you good and up against it? Well, the only thing to do<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Is plug.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, you'll find some marshy places, where the crust is pretty thin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when you think you're gliding out, you're only sliding in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the only thing for you to do is think of this and grin,<br /></span> +<span class="i16">And plug.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's many a word that's prettier that hasn't half the cheer<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Of plug.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It may not save you in a day, but try it for a year.<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Plug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to show you I am competent to tell you what is what,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I assure you that I never yet have made a centre shot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which surely is an ample demonstration that I ought<br /></span> +<span class="i16">To plug.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<h2>FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">I.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You sometimes think you'd like to be<br /></span> +<span class="i12">John D.?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not a man you know would dare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To josh you on your handsome hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or say, "Hey, John, it's rather rude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To boost refined and jump on crude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To help Chicago University,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or bull the doctrine of—immersity."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i10">II.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You wouldn't care to be the Pope,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">I hope?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With not a chum to call your own,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hale you up by telephone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With, "Say, old man, I hope you're free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-night. Bring Mrs. Pope to tea.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let some one else lock up the pearly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gateway to-night and get here early!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i10">III.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Perhaps you sometimes deem the Czar<br /></span> +<span class="i12">A star?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With not a palm in all the land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To strike his fairly, hand to hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With not a man in all the pack<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fetch a hand against his back<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And cry, "Well met, Old Nick, come out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And let us trot the kids about.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tut, man! you needn't look so pale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A red flag means an auction sale."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i10">IV.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'll bet even Shakespeare's name was "Will,"<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Until<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He was so dead that he was great,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For fame can only isolate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And better than "The Immortal Bard"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were "Hello, Bill," and "Howdy, pard!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would he have swapped his comrades' laughter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all the praise of ages after?<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> +<h2>A SONG OF REST.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have sung the song of striving,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the struggling, of arriving,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of making of one's self a horse and mounting him and driving!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But now, let's cease;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Let's look for peace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let's forget the mark of money,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Let's forget the love of fame.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life is ours and skies are sunny;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What is worry but a name?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let's sit down and whiff and whittle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us loaf and laugh a little.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(Here the youngest spoiled the rime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By running to me for a dime.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have sung the joy of doing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the pleasure of pursuing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And how life is like a woman and our role and rule is wooing,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But now, O let<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Us cease to fret!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us cease our vain desiring;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Water's better than Cliquot;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is honor but perspiring?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wealth's another name for woe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us spread out in the clover,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just too lazy to turn over,—<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">(Here my wife brought in the news:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the children need new shoes.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have sung the song of action,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the sweet of satisfaction<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of pounding, pounding, pounding opposition to a fraction,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But now, let's quit;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Let's rest a bit.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Money only makes us greedy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life's success is but a taunt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He alone is never needy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who has learned to laugh at want.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us loaf and laugh and wallow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too much work to even swallow—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(Here's the mail and bills are curses;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I must try to sell these verses.)<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> +<h2>DESIRE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, the ripe, red apple which handily hung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And flaunted and taunted and swayed and swung,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till it itched your fingers and tickled your tongue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For it was juicy and you were young!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But you held your hands and you turned your head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you thought of the switch which hung in the shed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you didn't take it (or so you said),<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But tell me—didn't you want to?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, the rounded maiden who passed you by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose cheek was dimpled, whose glance was shy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But who looked at you out of the tail of her eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And flirted her skirt just a trifle high!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, you were human and not sedate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But you thought of the narrow way and straight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you didn't follow (or so you state),<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But tell me—didn't you want to?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, the golden chink and the sibilant sign<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which sang of honey and love and wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of pleasure and power when the sun's a-shine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And plenty and peace in the day's decline!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, the dream was schemed and the play was planned;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You had nothing to do but to reach your hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But you didn't (or so I understand),<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But tell me—didn't you want to?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, you wanted to, yes; and hence you crow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the Want To within you found its foe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which wanted you not to want to, and so<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You were able to answer always "No."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To have tricked temptation and turned it away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But wait, my friend, for a different day!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wait till you want to want to!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 451px;"> +<img src="images/fig131.jpg" width="451" height="650" alt="Page 99." title="" /> +<span class="caption"><i>Page 99.</i></span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> +<h2>THERE IS, OH, SO MUCH.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is oh, so much for a man to be<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He may cover the world like the searching sea<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He may be of the rush of the city's roar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his song may sing where the condors soar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or may dip to the dark of Labrador,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is oh, so much for a man to do<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He may sort the suns of Andromeda through<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or he may strive, as a good man must,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the wretch at his feet who licks the dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And never learn how to be even just<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is oh, so much for a man to learn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The least and the most he should trouble to earn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The message burned bright on the heavenly scroll,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The little he needs that his stomach be whole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vastness of vision to sate his soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is oh, so much for a man to get<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He may drench the earth in vicarious sweat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his wealth may be but a lifelong itch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the lowliest digger within his ditch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May have gained the little to make him rich<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is oh, so much for a man to try<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sea is so deep and the hill so high<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But sometimes we look at our little ball<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the smallest is great and the greatest small<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wonder the why and the what of it all<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is oh, so much, so we work as we may<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And loiter a little along the way<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O, the honeybee works, but the honeybee clings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the flowers of life and the honeybee sings!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us eat the sweet and forget the stings<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In nineteen hundred and now!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> +<h2>HOW DID YOU DIE?</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did you tackle that trouble that came your way<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a resolute heart and cheerful?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hide your face from the light of day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a craven soul and fearful?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or a trouble is what you make it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But only how did you take it?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Come up with a smiling face.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's nothing against you to fall down flat,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But to lie there—that's disgrace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be proud of your blackened eye!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It's how did you fight—and why?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And though you be done to the death, what then?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If you battled the best you could,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you played your part in the world of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Why, the Critic will call it good.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And whether he's slow or spry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But only how did you die?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/fig136.jpg" width="650" height="321" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Impertinent Poems, by Edmund Vance Cooke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPERTINENT POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 33770-h.htm or 33770-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/7/33770/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Impertinent Poems + +Author: Edmund Vance Cooke + +Illustrator: Gordon Ross + +Release Date: September 20, 2010 [EBook #33770] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPERTINENT POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + +[Illustration: There's one you must get next to + +_Page 57._] + + + + +Impertinent Poems + +By + +Edmund Vance Cooke + +Author of + +"Chronicles of the Little Tot" +"Told to the Little Tot" +"Rimes to Be Read" +Etc. + +With Illustrations by + +Gordon Ross + + _Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, + And whether he's slow, or spry, + It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts + But only--how did you die?_ + +New York +Dodge Publishing Company +220 East 23rd Street + +Copyright, 1903, by +Edmund Vance Cooke + +Copyright, 1907, by +Dodge Publishing Company + + + + +A PRE-IMPERTINENCE. + + +Anticipating the intelligent critic of "Impertinent Poems," it may well +be remarked that the chief impertinence is in calling them poems. Be +that as it may, the editors and publishers of "The Saturday Evening +Post," "Success" and "Ainslee's," and, in a lesser degree, +"Metropolitan," "Independent," "Booklovers'" and "New York Herald" share +with the author the reproach of first promoting their publicity. That +they are now willing to further reduce their share of the burden by +dividing it with the present publishers entitles them to the thanks of +the author and the gratitude of the book-buying public. + + E. V. C. + +[Illustration] + + + + +INDEX. + + + PAGE + +Are You You? 59 + +Better 83 + +Between Two Thieves 71 + +Blood is Red 33 + +Bubble-Flies, The 61 + +Choice, The 68 + +Conscience Pianissimo 47 + +Conservative, The 40 + +Critics, The 89 + +Dead Men's Dust 11 + +Desire 99 + +Diagnosis 35 + +Dilettant, The 38 + +Distance and Disenchantment 77 + +Don't Take Your Troubles to Bed 22 + +Don't You? 16 + +Eternal Everyday, The 21 + +Failure 23 + +Familiarity Breeds Contempt 95 + +Family Resemblance 79 + +First Person Singular, The 66 + +Forget What the Other Man Hath 85 + +Get Next 57 + +Good 24 + +Grill, The 30 + +How Did You Die? 103 + +Humbler Heroes 45 + +Hush 41 + +In Nineteen Hundred and Now 14 + +Island, The 43 + +Let's Be Glad We're Living 26 + +Move 55 + +Need 81 + +Pass 51 + +Plug 92 + +Price, The 60 + +Publicity 53 + +Qualified 63 + +Saving Clause, The 70 + +Song of Rest, A 97 + +Spectator, The 73 + +Spread Out 37 + +Squealer, The 75 + +Success 28 + +There Is, Oh, So Much 101 + +Vision, The 32 + +What Are You Doing? 65 + +What Sort Are You? 87 + +Whet, The 86 + +World Runs On, The 49 + +You Too 18 + + + + +IMPERTINENT POEMS + +[Illustration] + + + + +DEAD MEN'S DUST. + + + You don't buy poetry. (Neither do I.) + Why? + You cannot afford it? Bosh! you spend + _Editions de luxe_ on a thirsty friend. + You can buy any one of the poetry bunch + For the price you pay for a business lunch. + Don't you suppose that a hungry head, + Like an empty stomach, ought to be fed? + Looking into myself, I find this true, + So I hardly can figure it false in you. + + And you don't _read_ poetry very much. + (Such + Is my own case also.) "But," you cry, + "I haven't the time." Beloved, you lie. + When a scandal happens in Buffalo, + You ponder the details, con and pro; + If poets were pugilists, couldn't you tell + Which of the poets licked John L.? + If poets were counts, could your wife be fooled + As to which of the poets married a Gould? + And even _my_ books might have some hope + If poetry books were books of dope. + + "You're a little bit swift," you say to me, + "See!" + You open your library. There you show + Your "favorite poets," row on row, + Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, + A Homer unread, an uncut Horace, + A wholly forgotten William Morris. + My friend, my friend, can it be you thought + That these were poets whom you had bought? + These are dead men's bones. You bought their mummies + To display your style, like clothing dummies. + But when do they talk to you? Some one said + That these were poets which should be read, + So here they stand. But tell me, pray, + How many poets who live to-day + Have you, of your own volition, sought, + Discovered and tested, proved and _bought_, + With a grateful glow that the dollar you spent + Netted the poet his ten per cent.? + + "But hold on," you say, "I am reading _you_." + True, + And pitying, too, the sorry end + Of the dog I tried this on. My friend, + I _can_ write poetry--good enough + So you wouldn't look at the worthy stuff. + But knowing what you prefer to read + I'm setting the pace at about your speed, + Being rather convinced these truths will hold you + A little bit better than if I'd told you + A genuine poem and forgotten to scold you. + Besides, when I open my little room + And see _my_ poets, each in his tomb, + With his mouth dust-stopped, I turn from the shelf + And I must scold you, or scold myself. + + + + +IN NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NOW. + + + Thomas Moore, at the present date, + Is chiefly known as "a ten-cent straight." + Walter, the Scot, is forgiven his rimes + Because of his tales of stirring times. + William Morris's fame will wear + As a practical man who made a chair. + And even Shakespere's memory's green + Less because he's read than because he's seen. + Then why should a poet make his bow + In the year of nineteen hundred and now? + + + Homer himself, if he could but speak, + Would admit that most of his stuff is Greek. + Chaucer would no doubt own his tongue + Was the broken speech of the land when young. + Shelley's a sealed-up book, and Byron + Is chiefly recalled as a masculine siren. + Poe has a perch on the chamber door, + But the populace read him "Nevermore." + Spenser fitted his day, as all allow, + But this is nineteen hundred and now. + + + Tennyson's chiefly given away + To callow girls on commencement day. + Alfred Austin, entirely solemn, + Is quoted most in the funny column. + Riley's Hoosiers have made their pile + And moved to the city to live in style. + Kipling's compared to "The Man Who Was," + And the rest of us write with little cause, + Till publishers shy at talk of per cents., + But offer to print "at author's expense." + + O, once the "celestial fire" burned bright, + But the world now calls for electric light! + And Pegasus, too, is run by meter, + Being trolleyized to make him fleeter. + So I throw the stylus away and set + Myself at the typewriter alphabet + To spell some message I find within + Which shall also scratch your rawhide skin, + For you must read it, if I learn how + To write for nineteen hundred and now. + +[Illustration] + + + + +DON'T YOU? + + + When the plan which I have, to grow suddenly rich + Grows weary of leg and drops into the ditch, + And scheme follows scheme + Like the web of a dream + To glamor and glimmer and shimmer and seem,... + Only seem; + And then, when the world looks unfadably blue, + If my rival sails by + With his head in the sky, + And sings "How is business?" why, what do I do? + Well, I claim that I aim to be honest and true, + But I sometimes lie. Don't you? + + When something at home is decidedly wrong, + When somebody sings a false note in the song, + Too low or too high, + And, you hardly know why, + But it wrangles and jangles and runs all awry,... + Aye, awry! + And then, at the moment when things are askew, + Some cousin sails in + With a face all a-grin, + And a "Do I intrude? Oh, I see that I do!" + Well, then, though I aim to be honest and true, + Still I sometimes lie. Don't you? + + When a man whom I need has some foible or fad, + Not very commendable, not very bad; + Perhaps it's his daughter, + And some one has taught her + To daub up an "oil" or to streak up a "water"; + What a "water"! + And her grass is green green and her sky is blue blue, + But her father, with pride, + In a stagey aside + Asks my "candid opinion." Then what do I do? + Well, I claim that I aim to be honest and true, + But I sometimes lie. Don't you? + + + + +YOU TOO. + + + Did you ever make some small success + And brag your little brag, + As if your breathing would impress + The world and fix your tag + Upon it, so that all might see + The label loudly reading, "ME!" + And when you thought you'd gained the height + And, sunning in your own delight, + You preened your plumes and crowed "All right!" + Did something wipe you out of sight? + Unless you did this many a time + You needn't stop to read this rime. + + When I was mamma's little joy + And not the least bit tough, + I'd sometimes whop some other boy + (If he were small enough), + And for a week I'd wear a chip, + And at the uplift of a lip + I'd lord it like a pigmy pope, + Until, when I had run my rope, + Some bullet-headed little Swope + Would clean me out as slick as soap. + No doubt you were as bad, or worse, + Or else you had not read this verse. + +[Illustration: "Me!" + +_Page 18._] + + All women were like pica print + When I was young and wise; + I'd read their very souls by dint + Of looking in their eyes. + And in those limpid souls I'd see + A very fierce regard for me. + And then--my, my, it makes me faint!-- + Peroxide and a pinkish paint + Gave me the hard, hard heart complaint, + I saw the sham, I felt the taint, + Yet if she'd pat me once or twice, + I'd follow like a little fyce. + + I never played a little game + And won a five or ten, + But, presto! I was not the same + As common makes of men. + Not Solomon and all his kind + Held half the wisdom of my mind. + And so I'd swell to twice my size, + And throw my hat across my eyes, + And chew a quill, and wear red ties, + And tip you off the stock to rise-- + Until, at last, I'd have to steal + The baby's bank to buy a meal. + + I speak as if these things remained + All in the perfect tense, + And yet I don't suppose I've gained + A single ounce of sense. + I scoff these tales of yesterday + In quite a supercilious way, + But by to-morrow I may bump + Into some newer game and jump! + You'll think I am the only trump + In all the deck until--kerslump! + Unless you'll do the same some time, + Of course you haven't read this rime. + +[Illustration: The Eternal Everyday + +_Page 21._] + + + + +THE ETERNAL EVERYDAY. + + + O, one might be like Socrates + And lift the hemlock up, + Pledge death with philosophic ease, + And drain the untrembling cup;-- + But to be barefoot and be great, + Most in desert and least in state, + Servant of truth and lord of fate! + I own I falter at the peak + Trod daily by the steadfast Greek. + + O, one might nerve himself to climb + His cross and cruelly die, + Forgiving his betrayer's crime, + With pity in his eye;-- + But day by day and week by week + To feel his power and yet be meek, + Endure the curse and turn the cheek, + I scarce dare trust even you to be + As was the Jew of Galilee. + + O, one might reach heroic heights + By one strong burst of power. + He might endure the whitest lights + Of heaven for an hour;-- + But harder is the daily drag, + To smile at trials which fret and fag, + And not to murmur--nor to lag. + The test of greatness is the way + One meets the eternal Everyday. + + + + +DON'T TAKE YOUR TROUBLES TO BED. + + + You may labor your fill, friend of mine, if you will; + You may worry a bit, if you must; + You may treat your affairs as a series of cares, + You may live on a scrap and a crust; + But when the day's done, put it out of your head; + Don't take your troubles to bed. + + You may batter your way through the thick of the fray, + You may sweat, you may swear, you may grunt; + You may be a jack-fool if you must, but this rule + Should ever be kept at the front:-- + Don't fight with your pillow, but lay down your head + And kick every worriment out of the bed. + + That friend or that foe (which he is, I don't know), + Whose name we have spoken as Death, + Hovers close to your side, while you run or you ride, + And he envies the warmth of your breath; + But he turns him away, with a shake of his head, + When he finds that you don't take your troubles to bed. + + + + +FAILURE. + + + What is a failure? It's only a spur + To a man who receives it right, + And it makes the spirit within him stir + To go in once more and fight. + If you never have failed, it's an even guess + You never have won a high success. + + What is a miss? It's a practice shot + Which a man must make to enter + The list of those who can hit the spot + Of the bull's-eye in the centre. + If you never have sent your bullet wide, + You never have put a mark inside. + + What is a knock-down? A count of ten + Which a man may take for a rest. + It will give him a chance to come up again + And do his particular best. + If you never have more than met your match, + I guess you never have toed the scratch. + +[Illustration] + + + + +GOOD. + + + You look at yourself in the glass and say: + "Really, I'm rather _distingue_. + To be sure my eyes + Are assorted in size, + And my mouth is a crack + Running too far back, + And I hardly suppose + An unclassified nose + Is a mark of beauty, as beauty goes; + But still there's something about the whole + Suggesting a beauty of--well, say soul." + And this is the reason that photograph-galleries + Are able to pay employees' salaries. + Now, this little mark of our brotherhood, + By which each thinks that his looks are good, + Is laudable quite in you and me, + Provided we not only look, but be. + + I look at my poem and you hear me say: + "Really, it's clever in its way. + The theme is old + And the style is cold. + These words run rude; + That line is crude; + And here is a rhyme + Which fails to chime, + And the metre dances out of time. + +[Illustration: Look at Yourself + +_Page 24._] + + Oh, it isn't so bright it'll blind the sun, + But it's better than that by Such-a-one." + And this is the reason I and my creditors + Curse the "unreasoning whims" of editors, + And yet, if one writes for a livelihood, + He ought to believe that his work is good, + Provided the form that his vanity takes + Not only believes, but also makes. + + And there is our neighbor. We've heard him say: + "Really, I'm not the commonest clay. + Brown got his dust + By betraying a trust; + And Jones's wife + Leads a terrible life; + While I _have_ heard + That Robinson's word + Isn't quite so good as Gas preferred. + And Smith has a soul with seamy cracks, + For he talks of people behind their backs!" + And these are the reasons the penitentiary + Holds open house for another century. + True, we want no man in our neighborhood + Who doesn't consider his character good, + But then it ought to be also true + He not only knows to consider, but do. + + + + +LET'S BE GLAD WE'RE LIVING. + + + I. + + Oh, let's be glad that we're living yet; you bet! + The sun runs round and the rain is wet + And the bird flip-flops its wing; + Tennis and toil bring an equal sweat; + It's so much trouble to frown and fret, + So easy to laugh and sing, + Ting ling! + So easy to laugh and sing! + (And yet, sometimes, when I sing my song, + I'm almost afraid my method is wrong.) + + + II. + + Many have money which I have not, God wot! + But victual and keep are all they've got, + And the stars still dot the sky. + Heaven be praised that they shine so bright, + Heaven be praised for an appetite, + So who is richer than I? + Hi yi! + Say, who is richer than I? + (And yet I'm hoping to sell this screed + For several dollars I hardly need.) + + + III. + + Ducats and dividends, stocks and shares, who cares? + Worry and property travel in pairs, + While the green grows on the tree. + A banquet's nothing more than a meal; + A trolley's much like an automobile, + With a transfer sometimes free, + Tra lee! + With a transfer sometimes free! + (And yet you're unwilling, I plainly see, + To leave the automobile to me.) + + + IV. + + A note you give and a note you get; don't fret, + For they both may go to protest yet, + And the roses blow perfume. + Fortune is only a Dun report; + The Homestead Law and the Bankrupt Court + Have fostered many a boom, + Boom, boom! + Have fostered many a boom. + (But I see you smile in a rapturous way + On the man who is rated double A.) + + + V. + + Life is a show for you and me; it's free! + And what you look for is what you see; + A hill is a humped-up hollow. + Riches are yours with a dollar bill; + A million's the same little digit still, + With nothing but naughts to follow, + So hollo! + There's nothing but naughts to follow. + (But you and I, as I've said before, + Could get along with a trifle more.) + + + + +SUCCESS. + + + It's little the difference where you arrive; + The serious question is how you strive. + Are you up to your eyes in a wild romance? + Does your lady lead you a dallying dance? + Do you question if love be fate, or chance? + Oh, the world will ask: "Did he get the girl?" + Though gentleman, coxcomb, clown or churl, + Master or menial of passion's whirl. + But it _isn't_ that. The world will run + Though you never bequeath it daughter or son, + But what, O lover, will come to you + If you be not chivalrous, honest, true? + As far ahead as a man may think, + You can see your little soul shrivel and shrink. + It's not, "Do you win?" + It is, "What have you been?" + + Are you stripped for the world-old, world-wide race + For the metal which shines like the sun's own face + Till it dazzles us blind to the mean and base? + Do you say to yourself, "When I have my hoard, + I will give of the plenty which I have stored, + If the Lord bless me, I will bless the Lord"? + And do you forget, as you pile your pelf, + What is the gift you are giving yourself? + Though your mountain of gold may dazzle the day, + Can you climb its height with your feet of clay? + Oh, it isn't the stamp on the metal you win; + It's the stamp on the metal you coin within. + It's not what you give; + It is "What do you live?" + + Are you going to sail the polar seas + To the point of ninety-and-north degrees, + Where the very words in your larynx freeze? + Well, the mob may ask "Did he reach the pole? + Though fair, or foul, did he touch the goal?" + But if that be the spirit which stirs your soul, + Off, off from the land below the zeroes; + For you are not of the stuff of heroes. + Ho! many a man can lead men forth + To the fearsome end of the Farthest North, + But can you be faithful for woe or weal + In a land where nothing but self is leal? + Oh, it isn't "How far?" + It is what you are. + And it isn't your lookout where you arrive, + But it's up to you as to how you strive. + + + + +THE GRILL. + + + Why do you? + What's it to you? + I know you do, for I've seen the gruesome feeling simmer through you. + I've seen it rise behind your eyes + And take your features by surprise. + I've seen it in your half-hid grin + And the tilting-upness of your chin. + Good-natured though you are and fair, as you have often boasted, + Still you like to hear the other man artistically roasted. + + Whenever the star secures the stage with the spotlight in the centre, + Why should the anvil chorus think it has the cue to enter? + Whenever the prima donna trills the E above the clef, + Why should the brasses orchestrate the bass in double f? + + It's funny, + But it's even money, + You like to spy the buzzing fly in the other fellow's honey. + Though you have said that honest bread + Demands no honey on it spread, + +[Illustration: Why do You? + +_Page 30._] + + And if we eat the crusty wheat + With appetite, it needs no sweet, + Still I have noticed you were not at all inclined to cry + Because the man the bees had blest was bothered with the fly. + + Whenever the chef concocts a dish which sets the world to tasting, + Why does the cooking-school get out its recipes for basting? + Whenever a sprinter beats the bunch from the pistol-shot, why is it + The heavy hammer throwers get together for a visit? + + Excuse me! + Did you accuse me + Of turning the spit a little bit myself? Why, you amuse me! + Didn't I scratch the sulphurous match + And blow the flame to make it catch? + Didn't you trot to get the pot + To heat the water good and hot? + Then, seizing on our victim, if we found no greater sin, + Didn't we call him "a lobster," and cheerfully chuck him in? + + + + +THE VISION. + + + At the door of Success, I've been tempted to knock + Both the door and the man who went through it, + But I find that the fellow was greasing the lock + All the time that he strove to undo it, + So I either stay out, or must look for the key + Which slipped back the bolt which impeded, + And I'm certain to find it, as soon as I see + The reason my rival succeeded. + + Yes, I own when the man is a rank also-ran + That I feel quite pish-tushy and pooh-y, + And exclaim if he ever knew saw-dust from bran, + Well--I come from just west of St. Louis! + But then, in the winning he's made, there's a hope + That I may do even as he did, + So I swallow my sneer and I study his dope + To discover just why he succeeded. + + I've been up in the air, I've been down in the hole, + (But always, let's hope, on the level,) + And I've been on my uppers--so meagre my sole + 'Twould scarcely have tempted the devil! + But it's nothing to you what I am, or I was, + And no whit of your sympathy's needed, + For I'm certain to win in the long run, because + I shall see how my rival succeeded. + + + + +BLOOD IS RED. + + + Some of us don't drink, some of us do; + Some of us use a word or two. + Most of us, maybe, are half-way ripe + For deeds that would't look well in type. + All of us have done things, no doubt, + We don't very often brag about. + We are timidly good, we are badly bold, + But there's hope for the worst of us, I hold, + If there be a few things we didn't do, + For the reason that we so wanted to. + + Some of us sin on a smaller scale. + (We don't mind minnows, we shy at a whale.) + We speak of a woman with half a sneer, + We sit on our hands when we ought to cheer. + The salad we mix in the bowl of the heart + We sometimes make a little too tart + For home consumption. We growl, we nag, + But we're not quite lost if we sometimes drag + The hot words back and make them mild + At the moment they fret to be running wild. + + Don't pin your faith on the man or woman + Who never is tempted. We're mostly human. + And whoever he be who never has felt + The red blood sing in the veins and melt + The ice of convention, caste and creed, + To the very last barrier, has no need + To raise his brows at the rest of us. + It bides its time in the best of us, + And well for him if he do not do + That which the strength of him wants him to. + + + + +DIAGNOSIS. + + + You have a grudge against the man + Who did the thing you couldn't do. + You hatched the scheme, you laid the plan, + And yet you couldn't push it through. + You strained your soul and couldn't win; + He gave a breath and it was easy. + You smile and swallow your chagrin, + But, oh, the swallow makes you queasy. + + I know your illness, for, you see, + The diet never pleases me. + + Your dearest friend has made a strike, + Has placed his mark above the crowd, + Has won the thing which _you_ would like + And you are glad for him, and proud. + Your tongue is swift, your cheek is red, + If some one speak to his detraction, + And yet, the fact the thing is said + Affords you half a satisfaction. + + I see the workings of your mind + Because my own is so inclined. + + You tell me fame is hollow squeak, + You say that wealth is carking care; + And to live care-free a single week + Is more than years of work and wear. + Alexander weeps his highest place, + Diogenes is happy sunning! + What matters it who wins the race + So you have had the joy of running? + + And yet, you covet prize and pelf. + I know it, for I do, myself. + + + + +SPREAD OUT. + + + In politics I'm a--never mind, + And you are a--I don't care, + But, anyway, I am rather inclined + To suspect we are both unfair; + For I have called you a coward and slave + And you have dubbed me a fool and knave. + + (Yet, perhaps I was right, for you surely abused + The right of free speech in the names you used!) + + In business you figure--a profit, I guess, + And I charge you--as much as I dare, + And I grumble that you ought to do it for less, + And you ask if my price is fair. + But if _I_ sold your goods and _you_ sold mine, + I doubt if the prices would much decline. + + (Though I must insist that I think I see + Where you'd still have a little advantage of me!) + + In religion you are a--who cares what? + And I am a--what's the odds? + So why have I sneered at your holiest thought, + And why have you jeered at my gods? + For, thinking it over, I'm sure we two + Were doing the best that we honestly knew. + + (Though, of course, I cannot escape a touch + Of suspicion that _you_ never knew too much!) + + + + +THE DILETTANT. + + + To lie outright in the light of day + I'm not sufficiently skilful, + But I practice a bit, in an amateur way, + The lie which is hardly wilful; + The society lie and the business lie + And the lie I have had to double, + And the lie that I lie when I don't know why + And the truth is too much trouble. + + For this I am willing to take your blame + Unless you have sometimes done the same. + + To be a fool of an A1 brand + I'm not sufficiently clever, + But I often have tried my 'prentice hand + In a callow and crude endeavor; + A fool with the money for which I've toiled, + A fool with the word I've spoken, + And the foolish fool who is fooled and foiled + On a maiden's finger broken. + + If you never yourself have made a slip, + I'm willing to watch you curl your lip. + + And yet my blood and my bone resist + If you dub me fool and liar. + I set my teeth and double my fist + And my brow is flushed with fire. + + You I deny and you I defy + And I vow I will make you rue it; + And I lie when I say that I never lie, + Which proves me a fool to do it! + + You may jerk your thumb at me and grin + If liar and fool you never have been. + + + + +THE CONSERVATIVE. + + + At twenty, as you proudly stood + And read your thesis, "Brotherhood," + If I remember right, you saw + The fatuous faults of social law. + + At twenty-five you braved the storm + And dug the trenches of Reform, + Stung by some gadfly in your breast + Which would not let your spirit rest. + + At thirty-five you made a pause + To sum the columns of The Cause; + You noted, with unwilling eye, + The heedless world had passed you by. + + At forty you had always known + Man owes a duty to His Own. + Man's life is as man's life is made; + The game is fair, if fairly played. + + At fifty, after years of stress + You bore the banner of Success. + All men have virtues, all have sins, + And God is with the man who wins. + + At sixty, from your captured heights + You fly the flag of Vested Rights, + Bounded by bonds collectable, + And hopelessly respectable! + + + + +HUSH. + + + What's the best thing that you ever have done? + The whitest day, + The cleverest play + That ever you set in the shine of the sun? + The time that you felt just a wee bit proud + Of defying the cry of the cowardly crowd + And stood back to back with God? + Aye, I notice you nod, + But silence yourself, lest you bring me shame + That I have no answering deed to name. + + What's the worst thing that ever you did? + The darkest spot, + The blackest blot + On the page you have pasted together and hid? + Ah, sometimes you think you've forgotten it quite, + Till it crawls in your bed in the dead of the night + And brands you its own with a blush. + What was it? Nay, hush! + Don't tell it to me, for fear it be known + That I have an answering blush of my own. + + But whenever you notice a clean hit made, + Sing high and clear + The sounding cheer + You would gladly have heard for the play you played, + And when a man walks in the way forbidden, + Think you of the thing you have happily hidden + And spare him the sting of your tongue. + Do I do that which I've sung? + Well, it may be I don't and it may be I do, + But I'm telling the thing which is good for _you_! + + + + +THE ISLAND. + + + You, my friend, in your long-tailed coat, + With your white cravat at your withered throat, + Praying by proxy of him you hire, + Worshiping God with a quartet choir, + Bumping your head on the pew in front, + Assenting "Amen!" with an unctuous grunt, + Are you sure it is you + In the pew? + + Look! + You're away on a lonely isle, + Where the scant breech-clout is the only style, + Where the day of the week forgets its name, + Where god and devil are all the same. + Look at yourself in your careless clout, + And tell me, then, would you be devout? + + One on the island, one in the pew-- + How do you know which is you? + + You, dear maiden, with eyes askance + At the little soubrette and her daring dance, + Thanking God that His ways are wide + To allow you to pass on the other side, + You, as you ask, "Will the world approve?" + At the hint of a wabble out of the groove, + + Look! + On that isle of the lonely sea + Are you, the saucy soubrette and _he_. + And the little grooves that you circle in + Are forever as though they never had been. + Now you are naked of soul and limb: + Will you say what you will not dare--for him? + + Which of the women is real? + The one you appear, or the one you feel? + + You, good sir, with your neck a-stretch, + As the van goes by with the prison wretch, + Asking naught of his ills or hurts, + Judging "he's getting his just deserts," + Pluming yourself that the moral laws + Are centred in you as effect and cause. + + Look! + At the island, and there you are + With the long, strong arm which reaches far, + And there are the natives who kneel and bow, + And where are your _meum et tuum_ now? + Are you sure that the balance swings quite true? + Or does it a little incline to you? + + Answer or not as you will, but oh, + I have an island, too, and so + I know, I know. + + + + +HUMBLER HEROES. + + + It might not be so difficult to lead the light brigade, + While the army cheered behind you, and the fifes and bugles played; + It might be rather easy, with the war-shriek in your ears, + To forget the bite of bullets and the taste of blood and tears. + But to be a scrubwoman, with four + Babies, or more, + Every day, every day setting your back + On the rack, + And all your reward forever not quite + A full bite + Of bread for your babies. Say! + In the heat of the day + You might be a hero to head a brigade, + But a hero like her? I'm afraid! I'm afraid! + + It might be very feasible to force a great reform, + To saddle public passion and to ride upon the storm; + It might be somewhat simple to ignore the roar of wrath, + Because a second shout broke out to cheer you on your path. + But he who, alone and unknown, is true + To his view, + Unswerved by the crush of the mutton-browed, + Blatting crowd, + Unwon by the flabby-brained, blinking ease + Which he sees + Throned and anointed. Say! + At the height of the fray, + You might be the chosen to captain the throng: + But to stand all alone? How long? How long? + + + + +CONSCIENCE PIANISSIMO. + + + You are honest as daylight. You're often assured + That your word is as good as your note--unsecured. + We could trust you with millions unaudited, but---- + (Tut, tut! + There is always a "but," + So don't get excited,) I'm pained to perceive + It is seldom I notice you grumble or grieve + When the custom-house officer pockets your tip + And passes the contraband goods in your grip. + You would scorn to be shy on your ante, I'm certain, + But skinning your Uncle you're rather expert in. + + Well, I'm proud that no taint of the sort touches me. + (For I've never been over the water, you see.) + + Your yardstick's a yard and your goods are all wool; + Your bushel's four pecks and you measure it full. + You are proud of your business integrity, yet-- + (Don't fret! + There is always a "yet,") + I never have noticed a sign of distress, or + Disturbance in you, when the upright assessor + Has listed your property somewhere about + Half what you would take were you selling it out. + You're as true to the world as the world to its axis, + But you chuckle to swear off your personal taxes. + As for me, I would scorn to do any such thing, + (Though I may have considered the question last spring.) + + You have notions of right. You would count it a sin + To cheat a blind billionaire out of a pin. + You have a contempt for a pettiness, still-- + (Don't chill! + There is always a "still,") + I never have noticed you storm with neglect + Because the conductor had failed to collect, + Or growl that the game wasn't run on the square + When your boy in the high school paid only half fare. + The voice of your conscience is lusty and audible, + But a railroad--good heavens! why, that's only laudable. + + Of course, _I_ am quite in a different class; + For me, it is painful to ride on a pass! + + + + +THE WORLD RUNS ON. + + + So many good people find fault with God, + Tho' admitting He's doing the best He can, + But still they consider it somewhat odd + That He doesn't consult them concerning his plan, + But the sun sinks down and the sun climbs back, + And the world runs round and round its track. + + Or they say God doesn't precisely steer + This world in the way they think is best, + And if He would listen to them, He'd veer + A hair to the sou', sou'west by west. + But the world sails on and it never turns back + And the Mariner never makes a tack. + + Or the same folk pray "O, if Thou please, + Dear God, be a little more circumspect; + Thou knowest Thy worm who is on his knees + Would not willingly charge thee with neglect, + But O, if indeed Thou knowest all things, + Why fittest Thou not Thy worm with wings?" + + So many good people are quite inclined + To favor God with their best advices, + And consider they're something more than kind + In helping Him out of critical crises. + But the world runs on, as it ran before, + And eternally shall run evermore. + + So many good people, like you and me, + Are deeply concerned for the sins of others + And conceive it their duty that God should be + Apprised of the lack in erring brothers. + And the myriad sun-stars seed the skies + And look at us out of their calm, clear eyes. + + + + +PASS. + + + Did somebody give you a pat on the back? + Pass it on! + Let somebody else have a taste of the snack, + Pass it on! + If it heightens your courage, or lightens your pack, + If it kisses your soul, with a song in the smack, + Maybe somebody else has been dressing in black; + Pass it on! + God gives you a smile, not to make it a yawn; + Pass it on! + + Did somebody show you a slanderous mess? + Pass it by! + When a brook's flowing by, will you drink at the cess? + Pass it by! + Dame Gossip's a wanton, whatever her dress; + Her sire was a lie and her dam was a guess, + And a poison is in her polluting caress; + Pass it by! + Unless you're a porker, keep out of the sty. + Pass it by! + + Did somebody give you an insolent word? + Pass it up! + 'T is the creak of a cricket, the pwit of a bird; + Pass it up! + Shake your fist at the sea! Is its majesty blurred? + Blow your breath at the sky! Is its purity slurred? + But the shallowest puddle, how easily stirred! + Pass it up! + Does the puddle invite you to dip in your cup? + Pass it up! + + + + +PUBLICITY. + + + There's nothing like publicity + To further that lubricity + Which minted cartwheels need + To maximize their speed + In your direction. + True, some hydropathist of stocks, + Or one whose trade is picking locks, + May make objection: + Yet even those gentry always lurk + Where booming first has done its work. + + Observe how oft some foreigner, + About the size of coroner, + Can sell L O R D + (Four letters, as you see,) + For seven numbers, + Because his trade-mark, thus devised, + Is advertised and advertised + Till it encumbers + The mental view, as though 't were some + Bald-headed brand of chewing-gum. + + Study your own psychology! + See how some mere tautology + Of picture, or of print, + Has realized the glint + Of your good money. + How often have persistent views + Of one bare head sold you your shoes! + Which does seem funny; + And yet 'twas head-work, after all, + Which helped the shoe-man make his haul. + + There's some obscure locality + In every man's mentality + Which, I am free to state, + I'd like to penetrate + For my felicity. + For now who gives a second look + When he perceives a POEM by Cooke? + But come publicity! + And then a poem by COOKE were seen + The first thing in the magazine! + +[Illustration: _Page 55._] + + + + +MOVE! + + + We are on the main line of a crowded track; + We've got to go forward; we can't go back + And run the risk of colliding: + We must make schedule, not now and again, + But always, forever and ever, amen! + Or else switch off on a siding. + If ever we loaf, like a car in the yard, + Doesn't somebody bump us, and bump us hard, + I wonder? + + You've succeeded in building a pretty fair trade, + But can you sit down in the grateful shade + And kill time cutting up capers? + Or must you hustle and scheme and sweat, + Though the shine be fine or the weather be wet, + And keep your page in the papers? + If ever you fail to be pulling the strings, + Aren't some of your rivals around doing things, + I wonder? + + You're a first-class salesman. You know your line; + Your house is good and your goods are fine, + So you fill your book with orders, + But can you get quit of the ball and chain, + Or are you in jail on a railroad train, + With blue-coated men for warders? + If you sent your samples and cut out the trip, + Wouldn't somebody else soon be lugging your grip, + I wonder? + + You are starred on the bills and are chummy with fame; + The man on the corner could tell you your name + At three o'clock in the morning, + But can you depend on the mind of the mob? + Can you tell your press-agent to look for a job, + Or give your manager warning? + Should you lie down to sleep, with your laurels beneath, + Wouldn't somebody else soon be wearing your wreath, + I wonder? + + Oh, I'm willing to work, but I wish I could lag, + Not feeling as if I were "it" for tag, + Or last in follow-my-leader; + There is only one spot where, I haven't a doubt, + Nobody will try to be crowding me out, + And that is under the cedar. + And even in that place, will Gabriel's trump + Come nagging along and be making me jump? + I wonder. + + + + +GET NEXT. + + + Chap. I., verse 1, is where you'll find + The text of what is in my mind + If, haply, you are so inclined. + Chap. I., verse 1--the primal rule + For saint or sinner, sage or fool, + No matter what his church or school. + Though you may call it slangy solely, + Though you may term it flippant wholly, + Truth still is truth and is not vexed; + I write this rhyme to prove the text-- + Get Next. + + Suppose I sought some lonely height + And dipped a stylus in the light + Of welding worlds and sought to write + Upon the highest, deepest blue + My message to Sam Smith and you. + The chances are it would not do. + You would not risk your neck to read + My much too altitudinous screed, + And I, chagrined and half-perplexed, + Had missed you when I missed my text-- + Get Next. + + Suppose you have a breakfast food + Which you conceive I should include + Within my lat-and-longitude. + 'T is not enough to have the stuff, + But you must post, and praise, and puff, + Until I memo. on my cuff, + Among my most important notes-- + Be sure to bring home Oatless Oats. + And then you know that I'm annexed, + Because you followed out the text-- + Get Next. + + Get next! get next! and hold it true + There's one you must get nextest to, + And that important one is you. + Be not of those who, uncommuned + With their own skins, have all but swooned + From some imaginary wound, + But strip the rags from off your soul + And find you are not maimed, but whole! + 'T is but a flea-bite which has vexed + As soon as you've applied the text-- + Get Next. + +[Illustration: "Post, and praise, and puff" + +_Page 58._] + +[Illustration: Are You You? + +_Page 59._] + + + + +ARE YOU YOU? + + + Are you a trailer, or are you a trolley? + Are you tagged to a leader through wisdom and folly? + Are you Somebody Else, or You? + Do you vote by the symbol and swallow it "straight"? + Do you pray by the book, do you pay by the rate? + Do you tie your cravat by the calendar's date? + Do you follow a cue? + + Are you a writer, or that which is worded? + Are you a shepherd, or one of the herded? + Which are you--a What or a Who? + It sounds well to call yourself "one of the flock," + But a sheep is a sheep after all. At the block + You're nothing but mutton, or possibly stock. + Would you flavor a stew? + + Are you a being and boss of your soul? + Or are you a mummy to carry a scroll? + Are you Somebody Else, or You? + When you finally pass to the heavenly wicket + Where Peter the Scrutinous stands on his picket, + Are you going to give him _a blank_ for a ticket? + Do you think it will do? + + + + +THE PRICE. + + + In, or under, or over the earth, + What will fill you, and what suffice? + No matter how mean, or much its worth, + It is yours if you pay the price. + Never a thing may a man attain, + But gain pays loss, or loss pays gain. + + Lady of riches, riot and rout, + Fair of flesh and sated of sense, + Nothing in life you need do without + Except the trifle of innocence. + Counterfeit kisses you paid, and got + Just what you paid for--which is what? + + Man of adroitness, place and power, + Trampled above and torn below; + Set in the light of your noonday hour, + Playing a part in the public show; + Fooling the mob that the mob be ruled: + You know which is the greater fooled. + + Artist of pencil, or paint, or pen, + Reed, or string, or the vocal note, + Making the soul to suffer again + And the wild heart clutch the throat; + Ever your fancy has paid in fact; + You rack my soul, as yours was racked. + +[Illustration: "The Trifle of Innocence" + +_Page 60._] + + + + +THE BUBBLE-FLIES. + + + Let me read a homily + Concerning an anomaly + I view + In you. + Whatever you are striving for, + Whatever you are driving for, + 'T is not alone because you crave + To be successful that you slave + To swim upon the topmost wave. + You care less what your station is, + But more what your relation is. + To be a bit above the rest! + To be upon, or of, the crest! + Ah! that is where the trouble lies + Which stirs you little bubble-flies. + + (I sneer these sneers, but just the same + I keep my fingers in the game.) + See! you have eat-and-drinkables + And portables and thinkables + And yet + You fret. + For what? Let's reach the heart of you + And see the funny part of you. + For what? I find the soul and seed + Of it is not your lack or need, + Or even merely vulgar greed. + Gold? You may have a store of it, + But someone else has more of it. + Fame? Pretty things are said of you, + But--some one is ahead of you. + Place? You disprize your easy one + For some one's high and breezy one. + + (I smile these smiles to soothe my soul, + But squint one eye upon the goal.) + + Tell me! what's your capacity + Compared to your voracity? + _I_ guess + 'T is less. + And so I strike these attitudes + And tender you these platitudes;-- + Not wishing wealth, or spurning it, + Not hoarding it, or burning it + Is equal to the earning it. + Life's race is in the riding it, + Not in the word deciding it. + And after all is said and uttered + The keenest taste is bread-and-buttered. + + (And yet--and yet--my palate aches + For pallid pie and pasty cakes!) + +[Illustration: The Bubble-Flies + +_Page 61._] + + + + +QUALIFIED. + + + I love to see my friend succeed; + I love to praise him; yes, indeed! + And so, no doubt, do you. + But will you tell me why it is + The praise we parcel out as his + So often goes askew, + And ends by running in the rut + Of "if," "except" or "but"? + + "Boggs is a clever chap. His trade + Is doubling yearly, and he's made + A fortune all right, but----" + "Sharp is elected. Well, I say! + He'll hit a high mark yet, some day, + If----" (here one eye is shut). + "Such acting! Why, I laughed and wept! + Fobb's art is great--except." + + "Miss Hautton has such queenly grace. + And then her figure and her face! + She'd be a beauty if----" + "And Mrs. Follol entertains + With so much taste and so much pains; + But----" (here a little sniff). + "And Mrs. Caste has ever kept + The narrow path--except." + + I wish some man were great and good + That I might praise him all I could + And never add a "but." + I would that some would value me + And never hint what I would be + "If"--but why cavil? Tut! + Eternal justice still is kept + And Heaven is good--except! + +[Illustration: Yesterday's laurels are dry and dead + +_Page 65._] + + + + +WHAT ARE YOU DOING? + + + Do you lazily nurse your knee and muse? + Do you contemplate your conquering thews + With a critical satisfaction? + But yesterday's laurels are dry and dead + And to-morrow's triumph is still ahead; + To-day is the day for action. + + Yesterday's sun: is it shining still? + To-morrow's dawn: will its coming fill + To-day, if to-day's light fail us? + Not so. The past is forever past; + To-day's is the hand which holds us fast, + And to-morrow may never hail us. + + The present and only the present endures, + So it's hey for to-day! for to-day is yours + For the goal you are still pursuing. + What you have done is a little amount; + What you will do is of lesser account, + But the test is, what are you doing? + + + + +THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR. + + + McUmphrey's a fellow who's lengthy on lungs. + Backed up by the smoothest of ball-bearing tongues, + And his topic--himself--is worth talking about, + But he works it so much he has frazzled it out. + He never will give me my half of a chance + To chip in my own little, clever romance + In the first person singular. Yes, and they say, + He offended you, too, in a similar way. + + Cousin Maud tells her illnesses, ancient and recent, + In a most minute way which is almost indecent! + Vivisecting herself, with some medical chatter, + She serves us her portions--as if on a platter, + Never noting how I am but waiting to stir + My dregs of diseases to offer to her. + And I hear (such a joke!) that your chronic gastritis + Stands silent forever before her nephritis. + + Mrs. Henderson's Annie goes out every night, + And Bertha, before her, was simply a fright, + While Agnes broke more than the worth of her head, + And Maggie--well, some things are better unsaid. + Such manners to talk of her help--when she knows + My wife's simply aching to tell of _our_ woes! + And I hear that she never lets you get a start + On your story of Rosy we all know by heart. + + You'd hardly believe that I've heard Bunson tell + The Flea-Powder Frenchman and Razors to Sell, + The One-Legged Goose and that old What You Please-- + And even, I swear it, The Crow and the Cheese. + And he sprang that old yarn of He Said 't was His Leg, + When you wanted to tell him Columbus's Egg, + While I wanted to tell my own whimsical tale + (Which I recently wrote) of The Man in the Whale! + + + + +THE CHOICE. + + + The little it takes to make life bright, + If we open our eyes to get it! + And the trifle which makes it black as night, + If we close our lids and let it! + Behold, as the world goes whirling by, + It is gloomy, or glad, as it fits your eye. + + As it fits your eye, and I mean by that + You find what you look for mostly; + You can feed your happiness full and fat, + You can make your miseries ghostly, + Or you can forget every joy you own + By coveting something beyond your zone. + + In the storms of life we can fret the eye + Where the guttering mud is drifted, + Or we can look to the world-wide sky + Where the Artist's scenes are shifted. + Puddles are oceans in miniatures, + Or merely puddles; the choice is yours. + + We can strip our niggardly souls so bare + That we haggle a penny between us; + Or we can be rich in a common share + Of the Pleiades and Venus. + You can lift your soul to its outermost look, + Or can keep it packed in a pocketbook. + + We may follow a phantom the arid miles + To a mountain of cankered treasure, + Or we can find, in a baby's smiles, + The pulse of a living pleasure. + We may drink of the sea until we burst, + While the trickling spring would have quenched our thirst. + + + + +THE SAVING CLAUSE. + + + Kerr wrote a book, and a good book, too; + At least I[A] managed to read it through + Without finding very much room for blame, + And a good many other folks did the same. + But when any one asked me[A]: "Have you read?" + Or: "How do you like?" I[A] only said: + "Very good, very good! and I'm glad enough; + For his other writings are horrible stuff." + + Banks wrote a play, and it had a run. + (That's a good deal more than ever I've[A] done.) + The interest held with hardly a lag + From the overture to the final tag. + But when any one asked me[A]: "Have you seen?" + Or: "What do you think?" I[A] looked serene + And remarked: "Oh, a pretty good thing of its kind, + But I guess Mr. Shakespeare needn't mind!" + + Phelps made a machine; 't was smooth as grease. + (I[A] couldn't invent its smallest piece + In a thousand years.) It was tried and tried, + Until everybody was satisfied. + But when any one asked me[A]: "Will it pay?"-- + "Is it really good?"--I[A] could only say: + "It's a marvelous thing! Why, it almost thinks! + And Phelps is a wonder--too bad he drinks!" + +[Footnote A: (Errata: On scanning the verses through I find these +pronouns should all read "You.")] + +[Illustration: Mr. Shakespeare needn't mind + +_Page 70._] + + + + +BETWEEN TWO THIEVES. + + + Sure! I am one who disbelieves + In thieves; + At which you interrupt to cry + "Aye, aye, and I." + Hmf! you're so sudden to agree. + Suppose we see. + + I know a thief. No matter whether + I ought to know a thief, or not. + Perhaps "we went to school together;" + That old excuse is worked a lot. + One day he "copped a rummy's leather," + Which means--I hate to tell you what. + It's such a vulgar thing to steal + A drunkard's purse to buy a meal. + "Hey, pal," said he, "come help me dine; + I've hit a pit and got the swag; + To-day, Delmonico's is mine; + To-morrow once again a vag. + Come on and tell me all the stunts + Of all the boys who knew me--once." + + "Did I go with him?" I did not. + Would you have gone? Could you be bought + By dinners--when the trail was hot + And any hour he might be caught? + I know a thief, whose operations + Are colored by a kindly law. + Your income and a beggar's rations + Contribute to his cunning claw; + Cities and counties, courts and nations + Pay portion to his monstrous maw. + + He gave a dinner not long since + In honor of some played-out Prince. + The decorations, ah, how chaste! + And how delicious was the wine! + For Mrs. Thief has perfect taste + And Mr. Thief knows how to dine. + And so the world has long agreed + Quite to forgive, forget--and feed. + But really I was shocked to see + How many decent folks could be + Induced to come and bow the knee; + I think you were my _vis-a-vis_. + + Yes, yes, I quite despise him, too, + Like you; + And (though it's not a thing to brag) + I somehow like the vag. + But, oh, the difference one perceives + Between two thieves! + + + + +THE SPECTATOR. + + + Look at the man with the crown + Weighing him down. + Plumed and petted, + Galled and fretted! + Why do you eye him askance + With a quiver of hate in your glance? + Why not conceive him as human, + Nursed at the breast of a woman, + Growing, mayhap, as he could, + Not as he would? + How are you sure you would be + Better and wiser than he? + + Look at the woman whose eye + Follows you by. + Silked and satined, + Scented, fattened! + Why does the half smile slip + Into a sneer on your lip? + You pity her? Ah, but the fashion + Of your complacent compassion. + Pity her! yet you have said, + "Better the creature were dead. + What is there left here for her + But to err?" + Thus would you make the world right, + Hiding its ills from your sight. + + Look at the man with the pack + Breaking his back. + Ragged, squalid, + Wretched, stolid. + And you are sorry, you say, + (Much as you are at a play.) + But do you say to him, "Brother, + Twin-born son of our mother + What were the word, or the deed + Fitting your need?" + Or, as he slouches by, + Do you breathe "God be praised, I am I?" + +[Illustration: "God be praised, I am I!" + +_Page 74._] + + + + +THE SQUEALER. + + + Of course some people are born so bright + That no matter what one may say, or write, + The theme is old and the lesson is trite, + Which is what you may say, as these lines unreel + And I mildly suggest it is better to feel + Than to squeal. + + Everybody knows that? Yes, it's certain they do, + Everybody, that is, with exception of two, + Of whom I am one and the other is you. + But for us the lesson is still remote, + Although we commit it and cite it and quote + It by rote. + + But still when you thrill with the thudding thump + From the fist of the fellow you tried to bump + And the world looks hard at the swelling lump, + There's a strong temptation to open your door + And invite the public to hear you roar + That you're sore. + + And again, tho' 'tis plain as the printed page:-- + "Keep your hand on the lever and watch the gauge + When the fire-pot's full and the boilers rage," + How often the steam-pressure grows and grows + And before the engineer cares or knows, + Up she goes. + + So why should you fret if I send you to school + Again to consider the sapient rule + That Wisdom is Silence and Speech is a Fool. + Close up! and a year from to-day you will kneel + And thank the good Lord that you knew how to feel + And not squeal. + + + + +DISTANCE AND DISENCHANTMENT. + + + He was playing New York, and on Broadway at that; + I was playing in stock, in Chicago. + I heard that his Hamlet fell fearfully flat; + He heard I was fierce, as Iago. + Each looked to the other exceedingly small; + We were too far apart, that is all. + You, too, if your vision is ever reflective, + Have noticed your rival is small in perspective. + + I heard him in Memphis (a chance matinee); + He heard me (one Sunday) in Dallas. + His critics, I swore, never witnessed the play; + He vowed mine were prompted by malice. + A pleasanter fellow I cannot recall. + We were closer together; that's all. + And your rival, too, if you once see him clearly, + Is clever, or how could he rival you, nearly? + + In Seattle they said he was greater than Booth, + (Or in Portland, perhaps; I've forgotten); + I said 'twas ungracious to speak the plain truth, + But his work in the first act was rotten. + I had only intended to speak of the thrall + Of his wonderful fifth act; that's all. + But when a man's praised far ahead of his talents, + I guess you say something to even the balance. + + In Atlanta I heard a remark that he made + And again in Mobile, Alabama;-- + That he hardly thought Shakespeare was meant to be played + Like a ten-twenty-thirt' melodrama. + Oh, well, there was one honey-drop in the gall; + The fellow was jealous; that's all. + And you, too, have found, when a friendship is broken, + That his words are worse than the ones you have spoken. + +[Illustration: To even the balance + +_Page 77._] + + + + +FAMILY RESEMBLANCE. + + + I used to boost the P. and P., + Designed to run from sea to sea, + From Portland, Ore., to Portland, Me., + But which, as all the maps agree, + Begins somewhere in Minnesota + And peters out in North Dakota. + You gibed because I used to mock + Its streaks of rust and rolling-stock, + Its schedule and its G. P. A. + (Who took your Annual away,) + But lately you seem much inclined + To own a sudden change of mind. + Ah, me, + You're much like other folks, I see. + + I much admired the book reviews + Of Quillip of the Daily News. + I laughed to see him put the screws + On some sprig of the late Who's-Whos, + Tear off his verbiage and skin him + To show the little there was in him. + You said the book he wrote himself + Lay stranded on the dealer's shelf + And wasn't worthy a critique; + (Just what he said of mine last week). + Perhaps your reasoning was strong + And you were right and I was wrong. + Heigho! + I'm very much like you, I know. + + O'Brien's zeal ran almost daft + In its antipathy to graft. + He raked the practice fore and aft; + Lord! how his sulphurous breath would waft + "Eternal and infernal tarmint + To ivery grasping, grafting, varmint." + The worst of these upon the planet, + He said, were those who wanted granite + In public buildings,--"yis, begorry!" + (O'Brien owns a sandstone quarry.) + Of course I'd hate to see it tested, + But would he be less interested + In civic virtue--uninvested? + Oh, dear! + O'Brien's much like us, I fear. + + + + +NEED. + + + Don't you remember how you and I + Held a property nobody wanted to buy + In San Jose, + Until one day + A man came along from Franklin, Pa.? + And didn't we jump till we happened to find + The chap wasn't going it wholly blind, + But all the rest of the block was bought + And he simply had to have our lot. + Well, didn't our land go up in price + Till double the figures would scarce suffice? + + And don't we sometimes figure and fret + How he got the best of us, even yet? + + Don't you remember the perfect plan + You had, which needed another man + To make it win, + To jump right in + And everlasting make things spin? + And you said I had the requisite dash + And also the trifle of hoarded cash. + Was I glad to get in? Well, yes, indeed! + Until I saw the compelling need + Which had brought you to me, and then, "Ho! ho! + None of that for me, nay, not for Joe." + + And I'm always provoked when I think you made + The plan get along without my aid. + + Don't you remember the time we met + At Des Moines, or was it at Winterset? + But anyway, you + Were feeling blue + And tickled to see me through and through. + And "Come, let's open a bottle of--ink," + Said you, "and see if it's good to drink." + But weren't you sorry because you spoke + When I had to tell you I was "broke"? + Oh, you lent me the saw-buck, I know, but still + I fancied your ardor had taken a chill. + + And you've never been able to quite forget + That once I was "broke," and in your debt. + + + + +BETTER. + + + There's only one motto you need + To succeed: + "Better." + To other man's winning? Then you + Must do + Better. + From the baking of bread + To the breaking a head, + From rhyming a ballad + To sliming a salad, + From mending of ditches + To spending of riches, + Follow the rule to the uttermost letter: + "Better!" + + Of course you may say but a few + Can do + Better; + And you're going to strive + So that all may thrive + Better. + And it's right you are + To follow the star, + Set in the heavens, afar, afar; + But still with your eyes + On the skies + It is wise + To be riding a mule, + Or guiding a school, + Thatching a hovel + Or hatching a novel, + Foretelling weather, + Or selling shoe-leather; + And remember you must + Be doing it just + A wee dust + Better. + + And 'tis quite + As right + For you to cite + That the author might, + Or ought, to write + A heavenly sight + Better! + For which sharp word I am much your debtor, + Knowing none other could file my fetter + Better. + +[Illustration: "Saving repairs and wrath" + +_Page 85._] + + + + +FORGET WHAT THE OTHER MAN HATH. + + + What do I care for your four-track line? + I have a country path; + And this is the message I've taken for mine:-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care for your giant trees? + I'd rather whittle a lath, + And my motto helps me to take my ease;-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care for your Newport beach? + A tub's as good for a bath. + And I keep my solace in constant reach:-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care for your automobile? + I'm saving repairs and wrath, + My proverb goes well with an old style wheel;-- + "Forget what the other man hath." + + What do I care if you scorn my rime? + For this is its aftermath;-- + It sounds so well I shall try, (sometime,) + To "forget what the other man hath!" + + + + +THE WHET. + + + The day that I loaf when I ought to employ it + Has, somehow, the flavor which makes me enjoy it. + So the man with no work + He may joyously shirk + I envy no more than I do the Grand Turk. + He most is in need of a holiday, who, + In this workaday world, has no duty to do. + + The dollar you waste when you ought not to spend it + Buys something no plutocrat's millions could lend it, + For if once you exhaust + All your care of the cost, + Full half of the pleasure of purchase is lost, + So I trust you are one who is wise in discerning + The value of spending is most in the earning. + + My little success which was nearest complete + Was that which I tore from the teeth of defeat, + And the man who can hit + With his wisdom and wit + Without any effort, I envy no whit. + The genius whose laurels grow always the greenest + Finds pleasure in plenty, but misses the keenest. + + + + +WHAT SORT ARE YOU? + + + "How much do you want for your A. Street lot?" + Said a real estate man to me. + I looked as if I were lost in thought + And then I replied: "Let's see;-- + Black's sold last year at fifty the foot + And without using algebra that should put + My figure at sixty now, I guess, + Or a trifle more, or a trifle less." + I was anxious to sell at fifty straight, + Or I might have been glad of forty-eight. + Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, it's true; + What sort of a bluff are you? + + "And what do you think of these railroad rates?" + The man with a bald brow said, + "For you have travelled through all the states + And have heard a good deal and read." + "The railroad lines," I wisely replied + "Are the lines with which our trade is tied, + And the wretches who take their rebates set + New knots in the bonds under which we fret." + But, now I remember, I once rode free + And forgot that the road rebated me! + Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, its true; + How much of a bluff are you? + + "You've been to hear 'Siegfried' and found it fine?" + Cried a classical friend one day. + "I'm sure your impressions accord with mine, + But I want your own words and way. + And, oh, "the tone-color beats belief," + And, oh, "dynamics," and oh, "motif," + And "chiar-oscura, how finely abstruse," + And oh, la-la-la, and oh, well, what's the use? + For the only thing I understood in the play + Was that dippy, old dragon of _papier-mache_. + Oh, yes, I'm a bit of a bluff, it's true; + What style of a bluff are you? + + "And the senator should, you believe, be returned?" + Said a newspaper-man to me. + "He's as rotten a rascal as ever burned," + I said. "May I quote?" asked he. + "Oh, no," I replied, "if you're going to quote, + Just remark that his friends are regretting to note + That the exigencies of the party case + Indicate that he shouldn't re-enter the race." + For the senator sometime may possibly be + Interviewed by a newspaper-man about me. + No, none of these cases may quite fit you, + But what sort of a bluff _are_ you? + +[Illustration: "And, oh, the tone color beats belief" + +_Page 88._] + + + + +THE CRITICS. + + + As a matter of fact, + I am sure I can act, + And so, + When I go, + To the show, + Not the art of an Irving + Seems wholly deserving, + And though Booth were the star + He'd have many a jar, + If he heard the critique + Which I frequently speak, + As you + Do, + Too. + + Written deep in my heart + Is a knowledge of art, + For why? + I've an eye + Like a die. + And where Raphael's paint + Has bedizened some saint, + I note his perspective + Is sadly defective, + And you? O, I know + When you've looked on Corot + The same + Blame + Came. + + And the world would have gained + If my voice had been trained, + For my ear + Is severe, + As I hear + De Reszke and Patti. + (I've heard 'em sing "ratty!") + And the crowd has yelled "Bis!" + When a call for police + Should have shortened the score. + Was there ever a more + Absurd + Word + Heard? + + And I feel, now and then, + I could handle a pen, + For indeed, + As I heed + What I read, + I observe many faults; + Homer nods, Shakespere halts, + Dante's sad, Pope is trite, + Poe's mechanic, Holmes light, + Yet so easy to do + Is the thing, even you + Might + Write + Quite + Bright! + + + + +PLUG. + + + As you haven't asked me for advice, I'll give it to you now: + Plug! + No matter who or what you are, or where you are, the how + Is plug. + You may take your dictionary, unabridged, and con it through, + You may swallow the Britannica and all its retinue, + But here I lay it f. o. b.--the only word for you + Is plug. + + Are you in the big procession, but away behind the band? + Plug! + On the cobble, or asphaltum, in the mud or in the sand, + Plug! + Oh, you'll hear the story frequently of how some clever man + Cut clean across the country, so that now he's in the van; + You may think that you will do it, but I don't believe you can, + So plug! + +[Illustration: Do you want to reach the heights? + +_Page 92._] + + Are you singing in the chorus? Do you want to be a star? + Plug! + You may think that you're a genius, but I don't believe you are, + So plug! + Oh, you'll hear of this or that one who was born without a name, + Who slept eleven hours a day and dreamed the way to fame, + Who simply couldn't push it off, so rapidly it came! + But plug. + + Are you living in the valley? Do you want to reach the height? + Plug! + Where the hottest sun of day is and the coldest stars of night? + Plug! + Oh, it may be you're a fool, but if a fool you want to be, + If you want to climb above the crowd so every one can see + Just how a fool may look when he is at his apogee, + Why, plug! + + Can you make a mile a minute? Do you want to make it two? + Plug! + Are you good and up against it? Well, the only thing to do + Is plug. + Oh, you'll find some marshy places, where the crust is pretty thin, + And when you think you're gliding out, you're only sliding in, + But the only thing for you to do is think of this and grin, + And plug. + + There's many a word that's prettier that hasn't half the cheer + Of plug. + It may not save you in a day, but try it for a year. + Plug! + And to show you I am competent to tell you what is what, + I assure you that I never yet have made a centre shot, + Which surely is an ample demonstration that I ought + To plug. + + + + +FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT. + + + I. + + You sometimes think you'd like to be + John D.? + And not a man you know would dare + To josh you on your handsome hair, + Or say, "Hey, John, it's rather rude + To boost refined and jump on crude, + To help Chicago University, + Or bull the doctrine of--immersity." + + + II. + + You wouldn't care to be the Pope, + I hope? + With not a chum to call your own, + To hale you up by telephone, + With, "Say, old man, I hope you're free + To-night. Bring Mrs. Pope to tea. + Let some one else lock up the pearly + Gateway to-night and get here early!" + + + III. + + Perhaps you sometimes deem the Czar + A star? + With not a palm in all the land + To strike his fairly, hand to hand, + With not a man in all the pack + To fetch a hand against his back + And cry, "Well met, Old Nick, come out + And let us trot the kids about. + Tut, man! you needn't look so pale, + A red flag means an auction sale." + + + IV. + + I'll bet even Shakespeare's name was "Will," + Until + He was so dead that he was great, + For fame can only isolate. + And better than "The Immortal Bard" + Were "Hello, Bill," and "Howdy, pard!" + Would he have swapped his comrades' laughter + For all the praise of ages after? + + + + +A SONG OF REST. + + + I have sung the song of striving, + Of the struggling, of arriving, + Of making of one's self a horse and mounting him and driving! + But now, let's cease; + Let's look for peace. + Let's forget the mark of money, + Let's forget the love of fame. + Life is ours and skies are sunny; + What is worry but a name? + Let's sit down and whiff and whittle, + Let us loaf and laugh a little. + + (Here the youngest spoiled the rime + By running to me for a dime.) + + I have sung the joy of doing, + Of the pleasure of pursuing, + And how life is like a woman and our role and rule is wooing, + But now, O let + Us cease to fret! + Let us cease our vain desiring; + Water's better than Cliquot; + What is honor but perspiring? + Wealth's another name for woe. + Let us spread out in the clover, + Just too lazy to turn over,-- + + (Here my wife brought in the news: + All the children need new shoes.) + + I have sung the song of action, + Of the sweet of satisfaction + Of pounding, pounding, pounding opposition to a fraction, + But now, let's quit; + Let's rest a bit. + Money only makes us greedy, + Life's success is but a taunt. + He alone is never needy + Who has learned to laugh at want. + Let us loaf and laugh and wallow; + Too much work to even swallow-- + + (Here's the mail and bills are curses; + I must try to sell these verses.) + + + + +DESIRE. + + + Oh, the ripe, red apple which handily hung + And flaunted and taunted and swayed and swung, + Till it itched your fingers and tickled your tongue, + For it was juicy and you were young! + But you held your hands and you turned your head, + And you thought of the switch which hung in the shed, + And you didn't take it (or so you said), + But tell me--didn't you want to? + + Oh, the rounded maiden who passed you by, + Whose cheek was dimpled, whose glance was shy, + But who looked at you out of the tail of her eye, + And flirted her skirt just a trifle high! + Oh, you were human and not sedate, + But you thought of the narrow way and straight, + And you didn't follow (or so you state), + But tell me--didn't you want to? + + Oh, the golden chink and the sibilant sign + Which sang of honey and love and wine, + Of pleasure and power when the sun's a-shine + And plenty and peace in the day's decline! + Oh, the dream was schemed and the play was planned; + You had nothing to do but to reach your hand, + But you didn't (or so I understand), + But tell me--didn't you want to? + + Oh, you wanted to, yes; and hence you crow + That the Want To within you found its foe + Which wanted you not to want to, and so + You were able to answer always "No." + So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay + To have tricked temptation and turned it away; + But wait, my friend, for a different day! + Wait till you want to want to! + +[Illustration: "Desire" + +_Page 99._] + + + + +THERE IS, OH, SO MUCH. + + + There is oh, so much for a man to be + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may cover the world like the searching sea + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may be of the rush of the city's roar + And his song may sing where the condors soar, + Or may dip to the dark of Labrador, + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to do + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may sort the suns of Andromeda through + In nineteen hundred and now. + Or he may strive, as a good man must, + For the wretch at his feet who licks the dust, + And never learn how to be even just + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to learn + In nineteen hundred and now: + The least and the most he should trouble to earn + In nineteen hundred and now, + The message burned bright on the heavenly scroll, + The little he needs that his stomach be whole, + The vastness of vision to sate his soul, + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to get + In nineteen hundred and now. + He may drench the earth in vicarious sweat + In nineteen hundred and now. + And his wealth may be but a lifelong itch, + While the lowliest digger within his ditch + May have gained the little to make him rich + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much for a man to try + In nineteen hundred and now. + The sea is so deep and the hill so high + In nineteen hundred and now. + But sometimes we look at our little ball + Where the smallest is great and the greatest small + And wonder the why and the what of it all + In nineteen hundred and now. + + There is oh, so much, so we work as we may + In nineteen hundred and now, + And loiter a little along the way + In nineteen hundred and now. + O, the honeybee works, but the honeybee clings + To the flowers of life and the honeybee sings! + Let us eat the sweet and forget the stings + In nineteen hundred and now! + + + + +HOW DID YOU DIE? + + + Did you tackle that trouble that came your way + With a resolute heart and cheerful? + Or hide your face from the light of day + With a craven soul and fearful? + Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce, + Or a trouble is what you make it, + And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts, + But only how did you take it? + + You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that? + Come up with a smiling face. + It's nothing against you to fall down flat, + But to lie there--that's disgrace. + The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce; + Be proud of your blackened eye! + It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts, + It's how did you fight--and why? + + And though you be done to the death, what then? + If you battled the best you could, + If you played your part in the world of men, + Why, the Critic will call it good. + Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, + And whether he's slow or spry, + It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, + But only how did you die? + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Impertinent Poems, by Edmund Vance Cooke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPERTINENT POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 33770.txt or 33770.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/7/33770/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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