Shapes of Clay Part 20

LIBERTY.

"'Let there be Liberty!' G.o.d said, and, lo!

The red skies all were luminous. The glow Struck first Columbia's kindling mountain peaks One hundred and eleven years ago!"

So sang a patriot whom once I saw Descending Bunker's holy hill. With awe I noted that he shone with sacred light, Like Moses with the tables of the Law.

One hundred and eleven years? O small And paltry period compared with all The tide of centuries that flowed and ebbed To etch Yosemite's divided wall!

Ah, Liberty, they sing you always young Whose harps are in your adoration strung (Each swears you are his countrywoman, too, And speak no language but his mother tongue).

And truly, la.s.s, although with shout and horn Man has all-hailed you from creation's morn, I cannot think you old--I think, indeed, You are by twenty centuries unborn.

1886.

THE Pa.s.sING OF "BOSS" SHEPHERD.

The sullen church-bell's intermittent moan, The dirge's melancholy monotone, The measured march, the drooping flags, attest A great man's progress to his place of rest.

Along broad avenues himself decreed To serve his fellow men's disputed need-- Past parks he raped away from robbers' thrift And gave to poverty, wherein to lift Its voice to curse the giver and the gift-- Past n.o.ble structures that he reared for men To meet in and revile him, tongue and pen, Draws the long retinue of death to show The fit credentials of a proper woe.

"Boss" Shepherd, you are dead. Your hand no more Throws largess to the mobs that ramp and roar For blood of benefactors who disdain Their purity of purpose to explain, Their righteous motive and their scorn of gain.

Your period of dream--'twas but a breath-- Is closed in the indifference of death.

Sealed in your silences, to you alike If hands are lifted to applaud or strike.

No more to your dull, inattentive ear Praise of to-day than curse of yesteryear.

From the same lips the honied phrases fall That still are bitter from cascades of gall.

We note the shame; you in your depth of dark The red-writ testimony cannot mark On every honest cheek; your senses all Locked, _incommunicado_, in your pall, Know not who sit and blush, who stand and bawl.

"Seven Grecian cities claim great Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread."

So sang, as if the thought had been his own, An unknown bard, improving on a known.

"Neglected genius!"--that is sad indeed, But malice better would ignore than heed, And Shepherd's soul, we rightly may suspect, Prayed often for the mercy of neglect When hardly did he dare to leave his door Without a guard behind him and before To save him from the gentlemen that now In cheap and easy reparation bow Their corrigible heads above his corse To counterfeit a grief that's half remorse.

The pageant pa.s.ses and the exile sleeps, And well his tongue the solemn secret keeps Of the great peace he found afar, until, Death's writ of extradition to fulfill, They brought him, helpless, from that friendly zone To be a show and pastime in his own-- A final opportunity to those Who fling with equal aim the stone and rose; That at the living till his soul is freed, This at the body to conceal the deed!

Lone on his hill he's lying to await What added honors may befit his state-- The monument, the statue, or the arch (Where knaves may come to weep and dupes to march) Builded by clowns to brutalize the scenes His genius beautified. To get the means, His newly good traducers all are dunned For contributions to the conscience fund.

If each subscribe (and pay) one cent 'twill rear A structure taller than their tallest ear.

Washington, May 4, 1903.

TO MAUDE.

Not as two errant spheres together grind With monstrous ruin in the vast of s.p.a.ce, Destruction born of that malign embrace, Their hapless peoples all to death consigned-- Not so when our intangible worlds of mind, Even mine and yours, each with its spirit race Of beings shadowy in form and face, Shall drift together on some blessed wind.

No, in that marriage of gloom and light All miracles of beauty shall be wrought, Attesting a diviner faith than man's; For all my sad-eyed daughters of the night Shall smile on your sweet seraphim of thought, Nor any jealous G.o.d forbid the banns.

THE BIRTH OF VIRTUE.

When, long ago, the young world circling flew Through wider reaches of a richer blue, New-eyed, the men and maids saw, manifest, The thoughts untold in one another's breast: Each wish displayed, and every pa.s.sion learned-- A look revealed them as a look discerned.

But sating Time with clouds o'ercast their eyes; Desire was hidden, and the lips framed lies.

A G.o.ddess then, emerging from the dust, Fair Virtue rose, the daughter of Distrust.

STONEMAN IN HEAVEN.

The Seraphs came to Christ, and said: "Behold!

The man, presumptuous and overbold, Who boasted that his mercy could excel Thine own, is dead and on his way to h.e.l.l."

Gravely the Saviour asked: "What did he do To make his impious a.s.sertion true?"

"He was a Governor, releasing all The vilest felons ever held in thrall.

No other mortal, since the dawn of time, Has ever pardoned such a ma.s.s of crime!"

Christ smiled benignly on the Seraphim: "Yet I am victor, for I pardon _him_."

THE SCURRIL PRESS.

TOM JONESMITH _(loquitur)_: I've slept right through The night--a rather clever thing to do.

How soundly women sleep _(looks at his wife.)_ They're all alike. The sweetest thing in life Is woman when she lies with folded tongue, Its toil completed and its day-song sung.

(_Thump_) That's the morning paper. What a bore That it should be delivered at the door.

There ought to be some expeditious way To get it _to_ one. By this long delay The fizz gets off the news _(a rap is heard)_.

That's Jane, the housemaid; she's an early bird; She's brought it to the bedroom door, good soul.

_(Gets up and takes it in.)_ Upon the whole The system's not so bad a one. What's here?

Gad, if they've not got after--listen dear _(To sleeping wife)_--young Gastrotheos! Well, If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell She'll shriek again--with laughter--seeing how They treated Gast. with her. Yet I'll allow 'T is right if he goes dining at The Pup With Mrs. Thing.

WIFE _(briskly, waking up)_: With her? The hussy! Yes, it serves him right.

JONESMITH (_continuing to "seek the light"_): What's this about old Impycu? That's good!

Grip--that's the funny man--says Impy should Be used as a decoy in shooting tramps.

I knew old Impy when he had the "stamps"

To buy us all out, and he wasn't then So bad a chap to have about. Grip's pen Is just a tickler!--and the world, no doubt, Is better with it than it was without.