Shapes of Clay Part 26

SUPERINTENDENT:

The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend, b.a.l.l.s you may not, but church you _shall_, attend.

Some recognition cannot be denied To the great mercy that has turned aside The sword of death from us and let it fall Upon the people's necks in Montreal; That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome, And drowned the Texans out of house and home; Blessed all our continent with peace, to flood The Balkan with a cataclysm of blood.

Compared with blessings of so high degree, Your private woes look mighty small--to me.

L'AUDACE.

Daughter of G.o.d! Audacity divine-- Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign-- Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool, Not thine of idiots the vocal drool: Thy b.a.s.t.a.r.d sister of the brow of bra.s.s, Presumption, actuates the charging a.s.s.

Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings; The notes should mount on pinions true and strong, For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song, Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng!

Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails, They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails; The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.

Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand For stronger voices and a harder hand: Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire, And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!

THE G.o.d'S VIEW-POINT.

Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, The wisest and the best of men, Betook him to the place where sat With folded feet upon a mat Of precious stones beneath a palm, In sweet and everlasting calm, That ancient and immortal gent, The G.o.d of Rational Content.

As tranquil and unmoved as Fate, The deity reposed in state, With palm to palm and sole to sole, And beaded breast and beetling jowl, And belly spread upon his thighs, And costly diamonds for eyes.

As Chunder Sen approached and knelt To show the reverence he felt; Then beat his head upon the sod To prove his fealty to the G.o.d; And then by gestures signified The other sentiments inside; The G.o.d's right eye (as Chunder Sen, The wisest and the best of men, Half-fancied) grew by just a thought More narrow than it truly ought.

Yet still that prince of devotees, Persistent upon bended knees And elbows bored into the earth, Declared the G.o.d's exceeding worth, And begged his favor. Then at last, Within that cavernous and vast Thoracic s.p.a.ce was heard a sound Like that of water underground-- A gurgling note that found a vent At mouth of that Immortal Gent In such a chuckle as no ear Had e'er been privileged to hear!

Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, The wisest, greatest, best of men, Heard with a natural surprise That mighty midriff improvise.

And greater yet the marvel was When from between those ma.s.sive jaws Fell words to make the views more plain The G.o.d was pleased to entertain: "Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,"

So ran the rede in speech of men-- "Foremost of mortals in a.s.sent To creed of Rational Content, Why come you here to impetrate A blessing on your scurvy pate?

Can you not rationally be Content without disturbing me?

Can you not take a hint--a wink-- Of what of all this rot I think?

Is laughter lost upon you quite, To check you in your pious rite?

What! know you not we G.o.ds protest That all religion is a jest?

You take me seriously?--you About me make a great ado (When I but wish to be alone) With att.i.tudes supine and p.r.o.ne, With genuflexions and with prayers, And putting on of solemn airs, To draw my mind from the survey Of Rational Content away!

Learn once for all, if learn you can, This truth, significant to man: A pious person is by odds The one most hateful to the G.o.ds."

Then stretching forth his great right hand, Which shadowed all that sunny land, That deity bestowed a touch Which Chunder Sen not overmuch Enjoyed--a touch divine that made The sufferer hear stars! They played And sang as on Creation's morn When spheric harmony was born.

Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, The most astonished man of men, Fell straight asleep, and when he woke The deity nor moved nor spoke, But sat beneath that ancient palm In sweet and everlasting calm.

THE AESTHETES.

The lily cranks, the lily cranks, The loppy, loony la.s.ses!

They multiply in rising ranks To execute their solemn pranks, They moon along in ma.s.ses.

Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O, Sunflower decorate the dado!

The maiden a.s.s, the maiden a.s.s, The tall and tailless jenny!

In limp attire as green as gra.s.s, She stands, a monumental bra.s.s, The one of one too many.

Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O, Sunflower decorate the dado!

JULY FOURTH.

G.o.d said: "Let there be noise." The dawning fire Of Independence gilded every spire.

WITH MINE OWN PETARD.

Time was the local poets sang their songs Beneath their breath in terror of the thongs I snapped about their shins. Though mild the stroke Bards, like the conies, are "a feeble folk,"

Fearing all noises but the one they make Themselves--at which all other mortals quake.

Now from their cracked and disobedient throats, Like rats from sewers scampering, their notes Pour forth to move, where'er the season serves, If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves; As once a ram's-horn solo maddened all The sober-minded stones in Jerich's wall.

A year's exemption from the critic's curse Mends the bard's courage but impairs his verse.

Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night, Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight, Or by the sudden plashing of a stone From some adjacent cottage garden thrown, But straight renew the song with double din Whene'er the light goes out or man goes in.

Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched, My falchion p.a.w.ned, my buckler, too, attached) Resume the cuishes and the broad cuira.s.s, Accomplishing my body all in bra.s.s, And arm in battle royal to oppose A village poet singing through the nose, Or strolling troubadour his lyre who strums With clumsy hand whose fingers all are thumbs?

No, let them rhyme; I fought them once before And stilled their songs--but, Satan! how they swore!-- Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throats They cleared for action with their sweetest notes; Twisted their ears (they'd oft tormented mine) And d.a.m.ned them roundly all along the line; Clubbed the whole crew from the Parna.s.sian slopes, A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes!

What gained I so? I feathered every curse Launched at the village bards with lilting verse.

The town approved and christened me (to show its High admiration) Chief of Local Poets!

CONSTANCY.

Dull were the days and sober, The mountains were brown and bare, For the season was sad October And a dirge was in the air.

The mated starlings flew over To the isles of the southern sea.

She wept for her warrior lover-- Wept and exclaimed: "Ah, me!

"Long years have I mourned my darling In his battle-bed at rest; And it's O, to be a starling, With a mate to share my nest!"

The angels pitied her sorrow, Restoring her warrior's life; And he came to her arms on the morrow To claim her and take her to wife.

An aged lover--a portly, Bald lover, a trifle too stiff, With manners that would have been courtly, And would have been graceful, if--

If the angels had only restored him Without the additional years That had pa.s.sed since the enemy bored him To death with their long, sharp spears.

As it was, he bored her, and she rambled Away with her father's young groom, And the old lover smiled as he ambled Contentedly back to the tomb.