THE LEGEND OF REALISM
THIS is the sorrowful story,
Told when the twilight fails,
And the authors sit together
Reading each other's tales.
"Our fathers lived in the cloudland,
They were Romanticists,
They went down to the valley
To play with the Scientists.
"Our fathers murmured of moonshine,
Our fathers sang to the stars,
Our fathers were playfully prolix,
Our fathers knew nothing of 'pars.'
"Then came the terrible savants,
Nothing of play they knew,
Only—they caught our fathers,
And set them to burrow too.
"Set them to work in the workshop,
With crucible, test, and scales,
Put them in mud-walled prisons,
And—cut up their beautiful tales.
"Now we can read our fathers,
Trenchant, and terse, and cold,
Stooping to dig in dust-heaps,
Sharing the common mold.
"Driving a quill quotidian,
Mending a muddy plot,
Sitting in mud-walled prisons,
Steeping their souls in rot.
"Thus and so do our fathers,
Thus and so must we do,
For we are the slaves of science,
And we are Realists too."
This is the horrible story,
Told as the twilight fails,
And the authors sit together
Reading each other's tales.
Hilda Johnson.