A disgrace, I said, to allow in this place,
What lunatic homes should adorn,
An insult to art and the human race,
Of spirits degenerate born,
A meaningless daub, a horrid display
Of colors and lines and all,
But then to myself I also did say:
May be ’tis the age—and its soul.
A wicked word it was this to say,
As I left for the congested street,
And followed the masses which made their way
To a place where ten thousand did meet
Three times a day, to be edified
With burlesque, in Jesus name,
And painfully in my soul it cried:
“The Cubist again, just the same!”
I glanced at a paper at hour of sleep,
And found a whole page about bards,
Who gained a renown by a single leap,
With something which all art discards,
Again I said: ’tis the Cubist’s age,
A prophet is he after all,
Of the church and the stage and the printed page,
Of the age that has bartered its soul.
THE HANDCLASP
Full thousands of leagues over land, over seas,
I travelled, for two things to find:
From work, and its routine, a needed surcease,
And knowledge, to quicken the mind.
I moved mid the crowds in the cities of fame,
I pondered their pleasures and pride,
A stranger, alone, wherever I came,
I heard but the surge of the tide.
Though knowledge increased with the sight of the new,
Though grandeur gave thrills of delight,
Though marvelling oft at the things, man can do,
Yet weariness came with the night.
And I longed for the sound of the voice of a friend,
I longed for my home far away,
When, behold, I met one at a thoroughfare’s end,
At the close of a wearisome day!
The clasp of his hand, with the love of his heart,
The warm and the genuine grip,
Brought greater delight than the sight of all art,
And all wonderful things of the trip.