When youth and strength had changed my blood to fire
And every day passed long and glorious,
Another link in the eternal chain
Of life, I turned my love of luring and my sense
For all the unfathomable ways of God,
My burning sense for laughter and my joy
In crowds, in tumult, and in blazing lights,
To make my fellows see these qualities.
Thus I became "Clown Pondi," and my fame
Grew high in every theatre in the land.
I seem'd to draw fresh vigour from the crowds—
Loving the sea of faces, eyes with tears,
And gaping mouths wide open—loosely hung;
The acrid, opalescent haze of smoke,
Hanging above the auditorium.
And over it the crowded galleries
That float far up, like painted prows of ships—
All overweighted and alive with men.
I loved the limelight, hard and white and strong,
The throbbing music and the theatre's scent,
That artificial, paper, printed scent
That sweeps across the footlights to the stalls.
Then was I pleased to strut about the stage,
With face dead white, and strangely purple nose—
Flamboyant in the garb of foolery—
To run about too quickly—and fall down;
To make queer noises—inarticulate
Strange sounds and oaths, the signal for my share
Of cackling laughter.
Thus the years pass'd by
And—all unheeding—swept away my youth,
Till, one sad night, I heard a voice near-by:
"Ah! Poor old man! It's shocking they should laugh;
Mock his bent legs, and poor old toothless jaws!"
And then old-age rush'd down upon my head,
Each sombre year roll'd past in solemn time;
In true perspective—to the jingling tune
That was my exit; and so near came death,
Holding a mirror to my ridicule,
That show'd each line beneath the smearing paint,
Each wrinkle underneath the dab of rouge,
That in my sudden hopelessness I wept.
But as I left the stage with dragging feet,
With body bent with age, and crouching low,
I heard the applauding people pause and say,
"Who but Clown Pondi could amuse us so?"
LAUSIAC THEME
SERAPION-THE-SINDONITE
Wore a cloth about his loins.
This Christian Recondite
Never carried coins.
Never did he ask for bread;
Revelled in his own distress.
High of spirit, low of head,
With no other dress
Than a loin-cloth, Serapion
Was free from greed and gluttony
Progressed in the direction
Of impassivity.
Serapion, though ascetic,
Could not keep within his cell—
Spiritual athletic,
Who wrestled with Hell—