Saponacea, wert thou not so fair
I’d curse thee for thy
multitude of sins—
For sending home my clothes
all full of pins—
A shirt occasionally that’s a snare
And a delusion, got, the Lord knows where,
The Lord knows why—a sock whose
outs and ins
None know, nor where it ends
nor where begins,
And fewer cuffs than ought to be my share.
But when I mark thy lilies how they grow,
And the red roses of thy ripening
charms,
I bless the lovelight
in thy dark eyes dreaming.
I’ll never pay thee, but I’d
gladly go
Into the magic circle of thine
arms,
Supple and fragrant
from repeated steaming.
FAME.
One thousand years I slept beneath the
sod,
My sleep in 1901 beginning,
Then, by the action of some scurvy god
Who happened then to recollect
my sinning,
I was revived and given another
inning.
On breaking from my grave I saw a crowd—
A formless multitude of men
and women,
Gathered about a ruin. Clamors loud
I heard, and curses deep enough
to swim in;
And, pointing at me, one said:
“Let’s put him in.”
Then each turned on me with an evil look,
As in my ragged shroud I stood and shook.
“Nay, good Posterity,” I cried,
“forbear!
If that’s a jail I fain
would be remaining
Outside, for truly I should little care
To catch my death of cold.
I’m just regaining
The life lost long ago by
my disdaining
To take precautions against draughts like
those
That, haply, penetrate that
cracked and splitting
Old structure.” Then an aged
wight arose
From a chair of state in which
he had been sitting,
And with preliminary coughing,
spitting
And wheezing, said: “’T
is not a jail, we’re sure,
Whate’er it may have been when it
was newer.
“’T was found two centuries
ago, o’ergrown
With brush and ivy, all undoored,
ungated;
And in restoring it we found a stone
Set here and there in the
dilapidated
And crumbling frieze, inscribed,
in antiquated
Big characters, with certain uncouth names,
Which we conclude were borne
of old by awful
Rapscallions guilty of all sinful games—
Vagrants engaged in purposes
unlawful,
And orators less sensible
than jawful.
So each ten years we add to the long row
A name, the most unworthy that we know.”
“But why,” I asked, “put
me in?” He replied:
“You look it”—and
the judgment pained me greatly;
Right gladly would I then and there have
died,
But that I’d risen from
the grave so lately.
But on examining that solemn,
stately
Old ruin I remarked: “My friend,
you err—
The truth of this is just
what I expected.
This building in its time made quite a
stir.
I lived (was famous, too)
when ’t was erected.
The names here first inscribed
were much respected.
This is the Hall of Fame, or I’m
a stork,
And this goat pasture once was called
New York.”
OMNES VANITAS.
Alas for ambition’s possessor!
Alas for the famous and proud!
The Isle of Manhattan’s best dresser
Is wearing a hand-me-down
shroud.
The world has forgotten his glory;
The wagoner sings on his wain,
And Chauncey Depew tells a story,
And jackasses laugh in the
lane.
