Men and Women | Page 7

itself
Against the single window spared some house
Intact yet with
its mouldered Moorish work--
Or else surprise the ferret of his stick
20 Trying the
mortar's temper 'tween the chinks
Of some new shop

a-building, French and fine.
He stood and watched the cobbler at his
trade,
The man who slices lemons into drink,
The coffee-roaster's
brazier, and the boys
That volunteer to help him turn its winch.
He
glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye,
And fly-leaf ballads on
the vendor's string,
And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.

He took such cognizance of men and things, 30 If any beat a horse, you
felt he saw;
If any cursed a woman, he took note;
Yet stared at
nobody--you stared at him,
And found, less to your pleasure than
surprise,
He seemed to know you and expect as much.
So, next time
that a neighbor's tongue was loosed,
It marked the shameful and
notorious fact,
We had among us, not so much a spy,
As a
recording chief-inquisitor,
The town's true master if the town but
knew 40 We merely kept a governor for form,
While this man walked
about and took account
Of all thought, said and acted, then went
home,
And wrote it fully to our Lord the King
Who has an itch to
know things, he knows why,
And reads them in his bedroom of a
night.
Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch,
A tang of . . .
well, it was not wholly ease
As back into your mind the man's look
came.
Stricken in years a little--such a brow 50 His eyes had to live
under!--clear as flint
On either side the formidable nose
Curved, cut
and colored like an eagle's claw,
Had he to do with A.'s surprising
fate?
When altogether old B. disappeared
And young C. got his
mistress, was't our friend,
His letter to the King, that did it all?

What paid the Woodless man for so much pains?
Our Lord the King
has favorites manifold,
And shifts his ministry some once a month;
60 Our city gets new governors at whiles--
But never word or sign,
that I could hear,
Notified to this man about the streets

The King's
approval of those letters conned
The last thing duly at the dead of
night.
Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord,
Exhorting
when none heard--"Beseech me not!
Too far above my
people--beneath me!
I set the watch--how should the people know?

Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!" 70 Was some such
understanding 'twixt the two?

I found no truth in one report at least--
That if you tracked him to his
home, down lanes
Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace,
You
found he ate his supper in a room
Blazing with lights, four Titians on
the wall,
And twenty naked girls to change his plate!
Poor man, he
lived another kind of life
In that new stuccoed third house by the
bridge,
Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! 80 The whole
street might o'erlook him as he sat,
Leg crossing leg, one foot on the
dog's back,
Playing a decent cribbage with his maid
(Jacynth, you're
sure her name was) o'er the cheese
And fruit, three red halves of
starved winter-pears,
Or treat of radishes in April. Nine,
Ten, struck
the church clock, straight to bed went he.
My father, like the man of sense he was,
Would point him out to me a
dozen times;
"'St--'St," he'd whisper, "the Corregidor!" 90 I had been
used to think that personage
Was one with lacquered breeches,
lustrous belt,
And feathers like a forest in his hat,
Who blew a
trumpet and proclaimed the news,
Announced the bull-fights, gave
each church its turn,
And memorized the miracle in vogue!
He had
a great observance from us boys;
We were in error; that was not the
man.
I'd like now, yet had happy been afraid,
To have just looked, when
this man came to die, 100 And seen who lined the clean gay
garret-sides
And stood about the neat low truckle-bed,
With the
heavenly manner of relieving guard.
Here had been, mark, the
general-in-chief,
Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death,

Doing the King's work all the dim day long,
In his old coat and up
to knees in mud,
Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust,
And,
now the day was won, relieved at once!
No further show or need for
that old coat, 110 You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while

How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I!
A second, and the
angels alter that.
Well, I could never write a verse--could you?

Let's
to the Prado and make the most of time.

NOTES
"How it Strikes a Contemporary" is a portrait of the Poet as the
unpoetic gossiping public of his day sees him. It is humorously colored
by the alien point of view of the speaker, who suspects without
understanding either the greatness of the poet's spiritual personality and
mission, or the nature of his life, which is withdrawn from that of the
commonalty, yet spent in clear-sighted universal sympathies and kindly
mediation between Humanity and its God.
3. Valladolid: the royal city of the kings of