The Broadway Anthology | Page 8

six hundred hearts.?There're twitches soon about the lips,?And later copious tears?From waiting eyes;?But all this time?There are six hundred separate souls?The playwright's puppet has to woo,?To win, to humor, or to cajole,?Until, with master stroke?Of Devil knowledge,?Or old Adam's,?He crushes in his manful arms?The languid heroine?And forcing back her golden head?Implants the kiss.
And then against his heaving breast?The hero feels the beatings of six hundred hearts?In mighty unison,?And on his lips there is the pulse?Of that one lingering kiss?Returned six-hundred fold.
PAVLOWA
I was working on The Daily News?When I first heard of her,?And from that time?Until the day she came to town?I longed to see her dance.?The night the dancer and her ballet came?The Desk assigned me to my nightly run?Of hotels, clubs, and undertakers' shops;?I was so green?I had not learned?The art of using telephones?To make it seem?That I was hot upon the trail of news?While loafing otherwhere.?How could I do my trick?And also see her dance??So I left bread and butter flat,?To feast my eyes, which had been prairie-fed,?Upon this vision from another world.
I'd seen the wind?Go rippling over seas of wheat;?I'd stood at night within a wood?And felt the pulse of growing things?Upon the April air;?I'd seen the hawks arise and soar;?And dragon-flies?At sunrise over misty pools--?But all these things had never known a name?Until I saw Pavlowa dance.
Next day the editor explained?That although art was--art,?He'd found a boy to take my place.?The days that followed?When I walked the town?Seeking for some sort of work,?The haze of Indian Summer?Blended with the dream?Of that one night's magic.?And though I needed work to keep alive?My thoughts would go no further?Than Pavlowa as the maid Giselle ...?Then cold days came,?And found the dream a fabric much too thin;?And finally a job,?And I was back to stomach fare.
But through the years?I've nursed the sacrifice,?Counting it a tribute?Unlike all the things?That Kings and Queens have laid before her feet;?And wishing somehow she might know?About the price?The cub reporter paid?To see Pavlowa dance.
And then by trick of time,?We came together at the Hippodrome;?And every day I saw her dance.?One morning in the darkened wings?I saw a big-eyed woman in a filmy thing?Go through the exercises?Athletes use when training for a team;?And from a stage-hand learned?That this Pavlowa, incomparable one,?Out of every day spent hours?On elementary practice steps.?And now somehow?I can not find the heart?To tell Pavlowa of the price I paid?To see her dance.
THE OLD CHORUS MAN
He's played with Booth,?He's shared applause with Jefferson,?He's run the gamut of the soul?Imparting substance to the shadow men?Masters have fashioned with their quills?And set upon the boards.?Great men-of-iron were his favored r?les,?(Once he essayed Napoleon).?And now, unknowing, he plays his greatest tragedy:?Dressed in a garb to look like service clothes,?Cheeks lit by fire--of make-up box,?He marches with a squad of sallow youths?And bare-kneed girls,?Keeping step to tattoo of the drums?Beat by some shapely maids in tights,?While close by in the silent streets?There march long files of purposed men?Who go to death, perhaps,?For the same cause he travesties?Within the playhouse walls.
BLUCH LANDOLF'S TALE
When I was old enough to walk?I rode a circus horse;?My first teeth held me swinging from a high trapeze.?About the age young men go out to colleges?I trudged the sanded vasts of Northern Africa,?Top-mounter in a nomad Arab tumbling troupe.?I was Christian, that is white and Infidel,?So old Abdullah took me in his tent?And stripping off my white man's clothes?Painted me with dye made from the chestnut hulls,?Laughing the while about the potency of juice?That would prove armour 'gainst some zealot's scimitar.?Four camels made our caravan?And these we also used for "props."?When we played a Morocco town?The chieftain met us at the hamlet's edge?Asked of Abdullah what his mission there,?Then let us enter?He leading our caravan to the chieftain's hut,?Where we sat upon the sand?The thirty odd of us?Surrounded by as many lesser chiefs.?The hookah solemnly was passed around?And then the hamlet chief would speak;?"Stranger, why have you forsaken home?And drawn believers after you,?You bear no spices, oil, or woven cloth,?No jewels nor any merchantry?"
And then Abdullah:?"True, Allah's precious son,?We trade in naught men feed their bellies on?But we have wares to thrill brave men,?To make your youth see what use bodies are,?To make your women blush?That they have no such men."
"What are these magic wares?"
"Why we have here an Arab youth?Who seems possessed of wings,?Jumping three camels in a row."
"So! In this very village there's a lad?Who jumps four camels?With half the wind it takes you, telling of your boy."
Scoff followed boast and back again?Until the chief arose,?Saying to the lesser chiefs?That they should call the local tribe?To meet beside the caravanserai?Before another sun went down?To see if these vain wandering men?Could do one half the deeds they boasted.
So we met at sundown,?Our brown men stripped?Except for linen clouts.?We tumbled, jumped, made human pyramids,?And