The Broadway Anthology Part 4

Where you got that stuff I don't know, But you would be a riot in the two-a-day.

Quit this hanky-panky And I'll make you a headliner."

Well, I fell for his line of talk Like the sod busters had fallen for mine.

Aaron Hoffman wrote me a topical monologue; Max Marx made me a suit of clothes; And Lew Dockstader wised me up On how to jockey my laughs.

I opened in Hartford; Believe me, I was some scream.

I gave them gravy, and hok.u.m, And when they ate it up I came through With the old jasbo, Than which there is nothing so efficacious In vaudeville, polite or otherwise.

The first thing I did I hollered for more dough, And Poli says: "That's what I get for feeding you meat, But you are a riot all right, all right, So I guess you are on for more kale."

I kept getting better.

I got so's I could follow any act at all And get my laughs.

And he who getteth his laughs Is greater than he who taketh a city.

At last the Palace Theatre sent for me And I signed up for a week.

They kept me two.

I am a headliner; I stand at the corner of Forty-seventh Street And Little Old Broadway; Throw out my chest, Call the agents and vaudeville magnates By their first names.

I am a HEADLINER with a home in Freeport.

MURDOCK PEMBERTON

THE SCREEN

From midnight till the following noon I stand in shadow, Just a splotch of white, Unnoted by the cleaning crew Who've spent their hours of toil That I might live again.

Yet they hold no reverence for my charms, And if they pause amid their work They do not glance at me; All their admiration, all their awe, Is for the gold and scarlet trappings of the home That's built to house my wonders; Or for the gorgeous murals all around, Which really, after all, Were put in place as most lame subst.i.tutes, Striving to soothe the patron's ire For those few moments when my face is dark.

Yes, men have built a palace sheltering me, And as the endless ocean washes on its stretch of beach The tides of people flow to me.

All things I am to everyone; The newsboys, shopgirls, And all starved souls Who've clutched at life and missed, See in my magic face, The lowly rise to fame and palaces, See virtue triumph every time And rich and wicked justly flayed.

Old men are tearful When I show them what they might have been.

And others, not so old, Bask in the sunshine of my fairy tales.

The lovers see new ways to woo; And wives see ways to use old brooms.

Some nights I see the jeweled opera crowd Who seem aloof but inwardly are fond of me Because I've caught the gracious beauty of their pets.

Then some there are who watch my changing face To catch new history's shadow As it falls from day to day.

And at the noiseless tramp of soldier feet, In time to music of the warring tribes, The shadow men across my face Seem living with the hope or dread Of those who watch them off to wars.

In sordid substance I am but a sheet, A fabric of some fireproof stuff.

And yet, in every port where ships can ride, In every nook where there is breath of life, Intrepid men face death To catch for me the fleeting phases of the world Lest I lose some charming facet of my face.

And all the masters of all time Have thrummed their harps And bowed their violins To fashion melodies that might be played The while I tell my tales.

O you who hold the mirror up to nature, Behold my cosmic scope: I am the mirror of the whirling globe.

BROADWAY--NIGHT

I saw the rich in motor cars Held in long lines Until cross-streams of cars flowed by; I saw young boys in service clothes And flags flung out from tradesmen's doors; I saw some thousand drifting men Some thousand aimless women; I saw some thousand wearied eyes That caught no sparkle from the myriad lights Which blazoned everywhere; I saw a man stop in his walk To pet an old black cat.

MATINEE

They pa.s.s the window Where I sit at work, In silks and furs And boots and hats All of the latest mode.

They chatter as they pa.s.s Of various things But hardly hear the words they speak So tense are they Upon a life they know begins for them At 2:15.

Within the theatre The air is pungent with the mixed perfumes, More scents than ever blew from Araby.

And there's a rapid hum Of some six hundred secrets; Then sudden hush As tongues and violins cease.

The play is on.

There is a hastening of the beat Of some six hundred hearts.

There're twitches soon about the lips, And later copious tears From waiting eyes; But all this time There are six hundred separate souls The playwright's puppet has to woo, To win, to humor, or to cajole, Until, with master stroke Of Devil knowledge, Or old Adam's, He crushes in his manful arms The languid heroine And forcing back her golden head Implants the kiss.

And then against his heaving breast The hero feels the beatings of six hundred hearts In mighty unison, And on his lips there is the pulse Of that one lingering kiss Returned six-hundred fold.

PAVLOWA

I was working on _The Daily News_ When I first heard of her, And from that time Until the day she came to town I longed to see her dance.

The night the dancer and her ballet came The Desk a.s.signed me to my nightly run Of hotels, clubs, and undertakers' shops; I was so green I had not learned The art of using telephones To make it seem That I was hot upon the trail of news While loafing otherwhere.

How could I do my trick And also see her dance?

So I left bread and b.u.t.ter flat, To feast my eyes, which had been prairie-fed, Upon this vision from another world.

I'd seen the wind Go rippling over seas of wheat; I'd stood at night within a wood And felt the pulse of growing things Upon the April air; I'd seen the hawks arise and soar; And dragon-flies At sunrise over misty pools-- But all these things had never known a name Until I saw Pavlowa dance.

Next day the editor explained That although art was--art, He'd found a boy to take my place.

The days that followed When I walked the town Seeking for some sort of work, The haze of Indian Summer Blended with the dream Of that one night's magic.

And though I needed work to keep alive My thoughts would go no further Than Pavlowa as the maid Giselle ...

Then cold days came, And found the dream a fabric much too thin; And finally a job, And I was back to stomach fare.

But through the years I've nursed the sacrifice, Counting it a tribute Unlike all the things That Kings and Queens have laid before her feet; And wishing somehow she might know About the price The cub reporter paid To see Pavlowa dance.

And then by trick of time, We came together at the Hippodrome; And every day I saw her dance.

One morning in the darkened wings I saw a big-eyed woman in a filmy thing Go through the exercises Athletes use when training for a team; And from a stage-hand learned That this Pavlowa, incomparable one, Out of every day spent hours On elementary practice steps.

And now somehow I can not find the heart To tell Pavlowa of the price I paid To see her dance.

THE OLD CHORUS MAN

He's played with Booth, He's shared applause with Jefferson, He's run the gamut of the soul Imparting substance to the shadow men Masters have fashioned with their quills And set upon the boards.

Great men-of-iron were his favored roles, (Once he essayed Napoleon).

And now, unknowing, he plays his greatest tragedy: Dressed in a garb to look like service clothes, Cheeks lit by fire--of make-up box, He marches with a squad of sallow youths And bare-kneed girls, Keeping step to tattoo of the drums Beat by some shapely maids in tights, While close by in the silent streets There march long files of purposed men Who go to death, perhaps, For the same cause he travesties Within the playhouse walls.

BLUCH LANDOLF'S TALE

When I was old enough to walk I rode a circus horse; My first teeth held me swinging from a high trapeze.

About the age young men go out to colleges I trudged the sanded vasts of Northern Africa, Top-mounter in a nomad Arab tumbling troupe.

I was Christian, that is white and Infidel, So old Abdullah took me in his tent And stripping off my white man's clothes Painted me with dye made from the chestnut hulls, Laughing the while about the potency of juice That would prove armour 'gainst some zealot's scimitar.

Four camels made our caravan And these we also used for "props."

When we played a Morocco town The chieftain met us at the hamlet's edge Asked of Abdullah what his mission there, Then let us enter He leading our caravan to the chieftain's hut, Where we sat upon the sand The thirty odd of us Surrounded by as many lesser chiefs.

The hookah solemnly was pa.s.sed around And then the hamlet chief would speak; "Stranger, why have you forsaken home And drawn believers after you, You bear no spices, oil, or woven cloth, No jewels nor any merchantry?"