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 rôles,
(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.