The Congo and Other Poems Part 12

Once you walked a grown-up strand Fish-wife siren, full of lure, Snaring with devices sure Lads who murdered on the sand.

But on most days just a child Dimpled as no grown-folk are, Cold of kiss as some north star, Violet from the valleys wild.

Snared as innocence must be, Fleeing, prisoned, chained, half-dead-- At the end of tortures dread Roaring cowboys set you free.

Fly, O song, to her to-day, Like a cowboy cross the land.

s.n.a.t.c.h her from Belasco's hand And that prison called Broadway.

All the village swains await One dear lily-girl demure, Saucy, dancing, cold and pure, Elf who must return in state.

Blanche Sweet

Moving-picture Actress

(After seeing the reel called "Oil and Water".)

Beauty has a throne-room In our humorous town, Spoiling its hob-goblins, Laughing shadows down.

Rank musicians torture Ragtime ballads vile, But we walk serenely Down the odorous aisle.

We forgive the squalor And the boom and squeal For the Great Queen flashes From the moving reel.

Just a prim blonde stranger In her early day, Hiding brilliant weapons, Too averse to play, Then she burst upon us Dancing through the night.

Oh, her maiden radiance, Veils and roses white.

With new powers, yet cautious, Not too smart or skilled, That first flash of dancing Wrought the thing she willed:-- Mobs of us made n.o.ble By her strong desire, By her white, uplifting, Royal romance-fire.

Though the tin piano Snarls its tango rude, Though the chairs are shaky And the dramas crude, Solemn are her motions, Stately are her wiles, Filling oafs with wisdom, Saving souls with smiles; 'Mid the restless actors She is rich and slow.

She will stand like marble, She will pause and glow, Though the film is twitching, Keep a peaceful reign, Ruler of her pa.s.sion, Ruler of our pain!

Sunshine

For a Very Little Girl, Not a Year Old. Catharine Frazee Wakefield.

The sun gives not directly The coal, the diamond crown; Not in a special basket Are these from Heaven let down.

The sun gives not directly The plough, man's iron friend; Not by a path or stairway Do tools from Heaven descend.

Yet sunshine fashions all things That cut or burn or fly; And corn that seems upon the earth Is made in the hot sky.

The gravel of the roadbed, The metal of the gun, The engine of the airship Trace somehow from the sun.

And so your soul, my lady-- (Mere sunshine, nothing more)-- Prepares me the contraptions I work with or adore.

Within me cornfields rustle, Niagaras roar their way, Vast thunderstorms and rainbows Are in my thought to-day.

Ten thousand anvils sound there By forges flaming white, And many books I read there, And many books I write;

And freedom's bells are ringing, And bird-choirs chant and fly-- The whole world works in me to-day And all the shining sky,

Because of one small lady Whose smile is my chief sun.

She gives not any gift to me Yet all gifts, giving one....

Amen.

An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic

Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire, The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire.

It's Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small, And then 'tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all.

And so my blood grows cold. I say, "The bottle held but ink, And, if you thought it otherwise, the worser for your think."

And then, just as I throw my scribbled paper on the floor, The bottle says, "Fe, fi, fo, fum," and steams and shouts some more.

O sad deceiving ink, as bad as liquor in its way-- All demons of a bottle size have pranced from you to-day, And seized my pen for hobby-horse as witches ride a broom, And left a trail of brimstone words and blots and gobs of gloom.

And yet when I am extra good and say my prayers at night, And mind my ma, and do the ch.o.r.es, and speak to folks polite, My bottle spreads a rainbow-mist, and from the vapor fine Ten thousand troops from fairyland come riding in a line.

I've seen them on their chargers race around my study chair, They opened wide the window and rode forth upon the air.

The army widened as it went, and into myriads grew, O how the lances shimmered, how the silvery trumpets blew!

When Ga.s.sy Thompson Struck it Rich

He paid a Swede twelve bits an hour Just to invent a fancy style To spread the celebration paint So it would show at least a mile.

Some things they did I will not tell.

They're not quite proper for a rhyme.

But I WILL say Yim Yonson Swede Did sure invent a sunflower time.

One thing they did that I can tell And not offend the ladies here:-- They took a goat to Simp's Saloon And made it take a bath in beer.

That ENTERprise took MANagement.

They broke a wash-tub in the fray.

But mister goat was bathed all right And bar-keep Simp was, too, they say.

They wore girls' pink straw hats to church And clucked like hens. They surely did.

They bought two HOtel frying pans And in them down the mountain slid.

They went to Denver in good clothes, And kept Burt's grill-room wide awake, And cut about like jumping-jacks, And ordered seven-dollar steak.