Shapes of Clay | Page 9

You'll be
sorry, sir, for this!" And the silly creature cried-- Feared, perchance, the

rising tide. Town of Dae by the sea, Madam Adam, when she had 'em,
May have been as bad as she.
_Fiat lux!_ Love's lumination Fell in floods of revelation! Blinded
brain by world aglare, Sense of pulses in the air,
Sense of swooning and the beating Of a voice somewhere repeating
Something indistinctly heard! And the soul of Picklepip Sprang upon
his trembling lip, But he spake no further word Of the wealth he did not
own; In that moment had outgrown Ship and mine and flock and land--
Even his cask upon the strand. Dropped a stricken star to earth, Type of
wealth and worldly worth. Clomb the moon into the sky, Type of love's
immensity! Shaking silver seemed the sea, Throne of God the town of
Dae! Town of Dae by the sea, From above there cometh love, Blessing
all good souls that be.

AN ANARCHIST.
False to his art and to the high command God laid upon him,
Markham's rebel hand Beats all in vain the harp he touched before: It
yields a jingle and it yields no more. No more the strings beneath his
finger-tips Sing harmonies divine. No more his lips, Touched with a
living coal from sacred fires, Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires.
The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak; They labor, they complain,
they sweat, they reek! The more the wayward, disobedient song Errs
from the right to celebrate the wrong, More diligently still the singer
strums, To drown the horrid sound, with all his thumbs. Gods, what a
spectacle! The angels lean Out of high Heaven to view the sorry scene,
And Israfel, "whose heart-strings are a lute," Though now compassion
makes their music mute, Among the weeping company appears, Pearls
in his eyes and cotton in his ears.

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.
Once I "dipt into the future far as human eye could see," And saw--it
was not Sandow, nor John Sullivan, but she-- The Emancipated
Woman, who was weeping as she ran Here and there for the discovery
of Expurgated Man. But the sun of Evolution ever rose and ever set,
And that tardiest of mortals hadn't evoluted yet. Hence the tears that
she cascaded, hence the sighs that tore apart All the tendinous

connections of her indurated heart. Cried Emancipated Woman, as she
wearied of the search: "In Advancing I have left myself distinctly in the
lurch! Seeking still a worthy partner, from the land of brutes and dudes
I have penetrated rashly into manless solitudes. Now without a mate of
any kind where am I?--that's to say, Where shall I be
to-morrow?--where exert my rightful sway And the purifying strength
of my emancipated mind? Can solitude be lifted up, vacuity refined?
Calling, calling from the shadows in the rear of my Advance-- From
the Region of Unprogress in the Dark Domain of Chance-- Long I
heard the Unevolvable beseeching my return To share the degradation
he's reluctant to unlearn. But I fancy I detected--though I pray it wasn't
that-- A low reverberation, like an echo in a hat. So I've held my way
regardless, evoluting year by year, Till I'm what you now behold
me--or would if you were here-- A condensed Emancipation and a
Purifier proud An Independent Entity appropriately loud! Independent?
Yes, in spirit, but (O, woful, woful state!) Doomed to premature
extinction by privation of a mate-- To extinction or reversion, for
Unexpurgated Man Still awaits me in the backward if I sicken of the
van. O the horrible dilemma!--to be odiously linked With an
Undeveloped Species, or become a Type Extinct!"
As Emancipated Woman wailed her sorrow to the air, Stalking out of
desolation came a being strange and rare-- Plato's Man!--bipedal,
featherless from mandible to rump, Its wings two quilless flippers and
its tail a plumeless stump. First it scratched and then it clucked, as if in
hospitable terms It invited her to banquet on imaginary worms. Then it
strutted up before her with a lifting of the head, And in accents of
affection and of sympathy it said: "My estate is some 'at 'umble, but I'm
qualified to draw Near the hymeneal altar and whack up my heart and
claw To Emancipated Anything as walks upon the earth; And them
things is at your service for whatever they are worth. I'm sure to be
congenial, marm, nor e'er deserve a scowl-- I'm Emancipated Rooster, I
am Expurgated Fowl!"
From the future and its wonders I withdrew my gaze, and then Wrote
this wild unfestive prophecy about the Coming Hen.

ARMA VIRUMQUE.
"Ours is a Christian Army"; so he said A regiment of bangomen who

led. "And ours a Christian Navy," added he Who