General William Booth Enters into Heaven | Page 9

in this
war we choose to live and die."
[So far as the writer knows this is the first use
of the popular term
Armageddon in present day politics.]
The Knight in Disguise
[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]
"He could not forget that he was a Sidney."
Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and
gaping town?
This is that dubious hero of the press
Whose slangy tongue and
insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
The
man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed and dozed,
then roused and read again,
And vowed O. Henry funniest of men.

He always worked a triple-hinged surprise
To end the scene and
make one rub his eyes.
He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer.
He comes with
megaphone and specious cheer.
His troupe, too fat or short or long or
lean,
Step from the pages of the magazine
With slapstick or
sombrero or with cane:
The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain.

They over-act each part. But at the height
Of banter and of canter and

delight
The masks fall off for one queer instant there
And show real
faces: faces full of care
And desperate longing: love that's hot or cold;

And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold.
The masks go back.
'Tis one more joke. Laugh on!
The goodly grown-up company is
gone.
No doubt had he occasion to address
The brilliant court of
purple-clad Queen Bess,
He would have wrought for them the best he
knew
And led more loftily his actor-crew.
How coolly he
misquoted. 'Twas his art --
Slave-scholar, who misquoted -- from the
heart.
So when we slapped his back with friendly roar
Aesop
awaited him without the door, --
Aesop the Greek, who made dull
masters laugh
With little tales of FOX and DOG and CALF.
And
be it said, mid these his pranks so odd
With something nigh to
chivalry he trod
And oft the drear and driven would defend --
The
little shopgirls' knight unto the end.
Yea, he had passed, ere we could
understand
The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand.
Yea, ere we
knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn
With valiant cut and thrust, and
he was gone.
The Wizard in the Street
[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]
Who now will praise the Wizard in the street
With loyal songs, with
humors grave and sweet --
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born,

Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn,
This threadbare jester,
neither wise nor good,
With melancholy bells upon his hood?
The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak,
And well may mock
his mystifying cloak
Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not
read
To make the ignoramus turn his head.
The artificial glitter of
his eyes
Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise.
Some
shallow player-folk esteem him deep,
Soothed by his steady wand's

mesmeric sweep.
The little lacquered boxes in his hands
Somehow
suggest old times and reverenced lands.
From them doll-monsters
come, we know not how:
Puppets, with Cain's black rubric on the
brow.
Some passing jugglers, smiling, now concede
That his best
cabinet-work is made, indeed
By bleeding his right arm, day after day,

Triumphantly to seal and to inlay.
They praise his little act of
shedding tears;
A trick, well learned, with patience, thro' the years.
I love him in this blatant, well-fed place.
Of all the faces, his the only
face
Beautiful, tho' painted for the stage,
Lit up with song, then torn
with cold, small rage,
Shames that are living, loves and hopes long
dead,
Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.
Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep:
"What Nations sow, they
must expect to reap,"
Or haste to clothe the race with truth and power,

With hymns and shouts increasing every hour.
Useful are you.
There stands the useless one
Who builds the Haunted Palace in the
sun.
Good tailors, can you dress a doll for me
With silks that
whisper of the sounding sea?
One moment, citizens, -- the weary
tramp
Unveileth Psyche with the agate lamp.
Which one of you can
spread a spotted cloak
And raise an unaccounted incense smoke

Until within the twilight of the day
Stands dark Ligeia in her disarray,

Witchcraft and desperate passion in her breath
And battling will,
that conquers even death?
And now the evening goes. No man has thrown
The weary dog his
well-earned crust or bone.
We grin and hie us home and go to sleep,

Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep.
He drank alone, for
sorrow, and then slept,
And few there were that watched him, few
that wept.
He found the gutter, lost to love and man.
Too slowly
came the good Samaritan.
The Eagle that is Forgotten

[John P. Altgeld. Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]
Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.
Time has its
way with you there, and the clay has its own.
"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day,
Now you were ended. They praised you, * * * and laid