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A SENSE OF HUMOR
Spoken by the Author in his own person
NO man should stand before the moon, | |
| To make sweet song thereon, | |
| With dandified importance, | |
| His sense of humor gone. | |
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| Nay, let him don the motley cap, | 5 |
| The jester’s chastened mien, | |
| If he would woo that looking-glass | |
| And see what should be seen. | |
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| O mirror on fair Heaven’s wall! | |
| We find there what we bring; | 10 |
| So let us smile in honest part, | |
| And deck our souls, and sing. | |
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| Yea, by the chastened jest alone | |
| Will ghosts and terrors pass; | |
| And fays, and merry friendly things | 15 |
| Throw kisses through the glass. | |
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THE SOUL OF THE GAMBLER
Where now the huts are empty, | |
| Where never a camp-fire glows, | |
| In an abandoned cañon | |
| A gambler’s ghost arose. | 20 |
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| He muttered there, “The moon’s a sack | |
| Of dust.” His voice rose thin: | |
| “I wish I knew the miner man; | |
| I’d play, and play to win. | |
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| “In every game in Cripple Creek | 25 |
| Of old, when stakes were high, | |
| I held my own. Now I would play | |
| For that sack in the sky. | |
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| “The sport would not be ended there. | |
| ’Twould rather be begun. | 30 |
| I’d bet my moon against His stars, | |
| And gamble for the Sun.” | |
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WHAT THE MINER IN THE DESERT SAID
The moon’s a brazen water-keg, | |
| A wondrous water-feast. | |
| If I could climb the sands and drink | 35 |
| And give drink to my beast, | |
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| If I could drain that keg, the flies | |
| Would not be biting so, | |
| My burning feet be spry again, | |
| My mule no longer slow, | 40 |
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| And I could rise and dig for ore | |
| And reach my fatherland, | |
| And not be food for ants and hawks, | |
| And perish in the sand. | |
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WHAT THE MOON SAW
Two statesmen met by moonlight; | 45 |
| Their ease was partly feigned. | |
| They glanced about the prairie, | |
| Their faces were constrained. | |
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| In various ways aforetime | |
| They had misled the state, | 50 |
| Yet did it so politely | |
| Their henchmen thought them great. | |
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| They sat beneath a hedge and spake | |
| No word, but had a smoke. | |
| A satchel passed from hand to hand … | 55 |
| Next day the deadlock broke. | |
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THE MOON IS COMPARED TO A CITY
What the Tired Reformer Said
The moon’s a perfect city, with | |
| Curved walls encompassed round; | |
| With yellow palaces upreared | |
| Upon a glittering ground. | 60 |
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| Sometimes a disk, a planet dead; | |
| But on this splendid night, | |
| When all the sky is shining clear, | |
| When my whole heart is light, | |
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| I think it is a place for friends. | 65 |
| My soul is there in mirth, | |
| With golden-robed good-citizens, | |
| Far from the dusty earth. | |
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| Hail to the perfect city then! | |
| I love your doors and domes, | 70 |
| Your turrets and your palaces, | |
| Your terraces, your homes. | |
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THE MOON IS A KNIGHT IN ARMOR
What the Soldier Said
Oh, see the knight in armor, | |
| Who keeps his visor down | |
| And charges with a moon-beam spear | 75 |
| On hard hearts of the town; | |
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| Who makes the shabby fountain-square | |
| A flowering, glimmering park, | |
| Who pierces with a sharp-sweet dream | |
| The crabbed minds and dark; | 80 |
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| Who conquers those who see him not, | |
| Their brooding heads bent down; | |
| The knight whose scarcely-heeded strokes | |
| Have cleansed and cleared the town! | |
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EUCLID
Old Euclid drew a circle | 85 |
| On a sand-beach, long ago. | |
| He bounded and enclosed it | |
| With angles thus and so. | |
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| His set of solemn greybeards | |
| Nodded and argued much | 90 |
| Of arc and of circumference, | |
| Diameter and such. | |
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| A silent child stood by them | |
| From morning until noon, | |
| Because they drew such charming | 95 |
| Round pictures of the moon. | |
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DRYING THEIR WINGS
What the Carpenter Said to the Child
The moon’s a cottage with a door— | |
| Some folk can see it plain. | |
| Look! You may catch a glint of light | |
| A-sparkle through the pane, | 100 |
| Showing the place is brighter still | |
| Within, though bright without. | |
| There at a cosy open fire | |
| Strange babes are grouped about: | |
| The children of the Wind and Tide, | 105 |
| The urchins of the sky, | |
| Drying their wings from storms and things | |
| So they again can fly. | |
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YET GENTLE WILL THE GRIFFIN BE
What Grandpa Told the Children
The Moon? It is a griffin’s egg, | |
| Hatching tomorrow night; | 110 |
| And how the little boys will watch | |
| With shouting and delight | |
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| To see him break the shell and stretch | |
| And creep across the sky. | |
| The boys will laugh, the little girls, | 115 |
| I fear, may hide and cry. | |
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| Yet gentle will the griffin be, | |
| Most decorous and fat; | |
| And walk up to the milky way | |
| And lap it like a cat. | 120 |
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WHAT THE RATTLESNAKE SAID
The Moon’s a little prairie-dog. | |
| He shivers through the night. | |
| He sits upon his hill and cries | |
| For fear that I will bite. | |
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| The Sun’s a broncho. He’s afraid | 125 |
| Like every other thing, | |
| And trembles morning, noon and night | |
| Lest I should spring and sting. | |
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THE RECREANT QUEENS
To be tied to a pebble and thrown through a palace window
The Moon’s a mirror where dim shades | |
| Of queens are doomed to peer, | 130 |
| The beauteous queens that loved not love | |
| Or faith or godly fear. | |
| The night-wind makes their mirror grey. | |
| The breath of Autumn drear, | |
| And many mists of time and change | 135 |
| Have clouded it apace, | |
| In mercy veiled it lest each queen | |
| Too clearly see her face, | |
| With long-past sins deep written there, | |
| And ghostly rags she now must wear, | 140 |
| While slain men o’er her shoulders glare, | |
| Leering at her disgrace. | |
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THE SCISSORS-GRINDER
What the Tramp Said
The old man had his box and wheel | |
| For grinding knives and shears. | |
| No doubt his bell in village streets | 145 |
| Was joy to children’s ears. | |
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| And I bethought me of my youth | |
| When such men came around, | |
| And times I asked them in, quite sure | |
| The scissors should be ground. | 150 |
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| The old man turned and spoke to me, | |
| His face at last in view. | |
| And then I thought those curious eyes | |
| Were eyes that once I knew. | |
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| “The moon is but an emery-wheel | 155 |
| To whet the sword of God,” | |
| He said, “and here beside my fire | |
| I stretch upon the sod | |
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| “Each night, and dream, and watch the stars | |
| And watch the ghost-clouds go, | 160 |
| And see the sword of God in Heaven | |
| A-waving to and fro. | |
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| “I see that sword each century, friend. | |
| It means the world-war comes, | |
| With all its bloody wicked chiefs | 165 |
| And hate-inflaming drums. | |
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| “Men talk of Peace, but I have seen | |
| That emery-wheel turn round. | |
| The voice of Abel cries again | |
| To God from out the ground. | 170 |
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| “The ditches must flow red, the Plague | |
| Go stark and screaming by, | |
| Each time the sword of God takes edge | |
| Within the midnight sky. | |
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| “And those that scorned their brothers here | 175 |
| And sowed a wind of shame | |
| Will reap the whirlwind as of old, | |
| And face relentless flame.” | |
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| And thus the scissors-grinder spoke, | |
| His face at last in view. | 180 |
| And there beside the railroad-bridge | |
| I saw the Wandering Jew. | |
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WHAT THE YOUNG RHYMER SAID
No poet spent with visions, | |
| Bit by the City’s teeth, | |
| Laughing at fortune, seeking | 185 |
| Fame and the singer’s wreath, | |
| But must grow brave this evening, | |
| Humming a wilder tune, | |
| Armed against men and nations. | |
| Why? He beholds the moon! | 190 |
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