PHOTOGRAPHS
I had ordered the photographs of the prima donna.
They are lovely and beautiful to behold and they are printed before me in magazine.
Her madonna like face sheds radiance on the prospective box-office patron;
He is dazzled by her sun-like head of hair;
He loses his heart and his pocket-book when he glances on them.
I felt happy that I changed photographers.
I felt that my discovery of a new artisan of the sensitized plate
Would bring glory and money to many.
I sit by the rolltop desk and pull out again the objects of my praises.
The telephone bell rings and awakens me from my reveries,—
It is the voice of the beautiful prima donna herself;
But the melodious notes the critics have praised are changed.
There is a raucous, strident tone in the voice;
It sounds like the rasping bark of the harpies.
"How dare you use those terrible photographs?
"What do you mean by insulting my beauty?"
There is a slam down of the telephone receiver,—
I turn to my work of writing an advertisement about the prima donna's voice.
SAMUEL HOFFENSTEIN
THE THEATRE SCRUBWOMAN DREAMS A DREAM
When morning mingles with the gloom
On empty stage and twilit aisle,
She comes with rag and pan and broom
To work—and dream awhile.
Illusion's laughter, fancy's tears,
The mimic loves of yesternight,
On empty stages of the years
Awake in the dim light.
She cannot sweep the phantoms out—
How sweet the sobbing violin!—
She cannot put the ghosts to rout—
How pale the heroine!
Oh! valiant hero, sorely tried!—
'Tis only dust that fills her eyes—
But he shall have his lovely bride
And she her paradise!
And she—the broom falls from her hands,
And is it dust that fills her eyes?—
Shall go with him to golden lands
And find her paradise!—
The morning wrestles with the gloom
On silent stage and chilly aisle,
She takes her rag and pan and broom
To work—and dream awhile!