章节正文
So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal,
Tho' all men plan to live in harmony.
Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.
The following verses were written on the evening of March the first,
nineteen hundred and eleven, and printed next morning
in the Illinois State Register.
They celebrate the arrival of the news that the United States Senate
had declared the election of William Lorimer good and valid,
by a vote of forty-six to forty.
To the United States Senate
[Revelation 16: Verses 16-19]
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes?
This brazengutter idol, reared to power
Upon a leering pyramid of lies?
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be the world's proverb of successful shame,
Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal,
Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?
If once or twice within his new won hall
His vote had counted for the broken men;
If in his early days he wrought some good --
We might a great soul's sins forgive him then.
But must the Senator from Illinois
Be vindicated by fat kings of gold?
And must he be belauded by the smirched,
The sleek, uncanny chiefs in lies grown old?
Be warned, O wanton ones, who shielded him --
Black wrath awaits. You all shall eat the dust.
You dare not say: "To-morrow will bring peace;
Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."
What will you trading frogs do on a day
When Armageddon thunders thro' the land;
When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame,
His ballot or his musket in his hand?
In the distracted states from which you came
The day is big with war hopes fierce and strange;
Our iron Chicagos and our grimy mines
Rumble with hate and love and solemn change.
Too many weary men shed honest tears,
Ground by machines that give the Senate ease.
Too many little babes with bleeding hands
Have heaped the fruits of empire on your knees.
And swine within the Senate in this day,
When all the smothering by-streets weep and wail;
When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best sons;
When kingly men, voting for truth, may fail: --
These are a portent and a call to arms.
Our protest turns into a battle cry:
"Our shame must end, our States be free and clean;
And in this war we choose to live and die."
[So far as the writer knows this is the first use
of the popular term Armageddon in present day politics.]
The Knight in Disguise
[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]
"He could not forget that he was a Sidney."
Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
This is that dubious hero of the press
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed and dozed, then roused and read again,
And vowed O. Henry funniest of men.
He always worked a triple-hinged surprise
To end the scene and make one rub his eyes.
He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer.
He comes with megaphone and specious cheer.
His troupe, too fat or short or long or lean,
Step from the pages of the magazine
With slapstick or sombrero or with cane:
The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain.
They over-act each part. But at the height
Of banter and of canter and delight
The masks fall off for one queer instant there
And show real faces: faces full of care
And desperatelonging: love that's hot or cold;
And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold.
The masks go back. 'Tis one more joke. Laugh on!
The goodlygrown-up company is gone.
No doubt had he occasion to address
The brilliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess,
He would have wrought for them the best he knew
And led more loftily his actor-crew.
How coolly he misquoted. 'Twas his art --
Slave-scholar, who misquoted -- from the heart.
So when we slapped his back with friendly roar
Aesop awaited him without the door, --
Aesop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh
With little tales of FOX and DOG and CALF.
And be it said, mid these his pranks so odd
With something nigh to chivalry he trod
And oft the drear and driven would defend --
The little shopgirls' knight unto the end.
Yea, he had passed, ere we could understand
The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand.
Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn
With valiant cut and thrust, and he was gone.
The Wizard in the Street
[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]
Who now will praise the Wizard in the street
With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet --
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born,
Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn,
This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good,
With melancholy bells upon his hood?
The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak,
And well may mock his mystifying cloak
Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read
To make the ignoramus turn his head.
The artificialglitter of his eyes
Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise.
Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep,
Soothed by his steady wand's mesmeric sweep.
The little lacquered boxes in his hands
Somehow suggest old times and reverenced lands.
From them doll-monsters come, we know not how:
Puppets, with Cain's black rubric on the brow.
Some passing jugglers, smiling, now concede
That his best cabinet-work is made, indeed
By bleeding his right arm, day after day,
Triumphantly to seal and to inlay.
They praise his little act of shedding tears;
A trick, well learned, with patience, thro' the years.
I love him in this blatant, well-fed place.
Of all the faces, his the only face
Beautiful, tho' painted for the stage,
Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage,
Shames that are living, loves and hopes long dead,
Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.
Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep:
"What Nations sow, they must expect to reap,"
Or haste to clothe the race with truth and power,
With hymns and shouts increasing every hour.
Useful are you. There stands the useless one
Who builds the Haunted Palace in the sun.
Good tailors, can you dress a doll for me
With silks that whisper of the sounding sea?
One moment, citizens, -- the weary tramp
Unveileth Psyche with the agate lamp.
Which one of you can spread a spotted cloak
And raise an unaccounted incense smoke
Until within the twilight of the day
Stands dark Ligeia in her disarray,
Witchcraft and desperatepassion in her breath
And battling will, that conquers even death?
And now the evening goes. No man has thrown
The weary dog his well-earned crust or bone.
We grin and hie us home and go to sleep,
Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep.
He drank alone, for sorrow, and then slept,
And few there were that watched him, few that wept.
He found the gutter, lost to love and man.
Too slowly came the good Samaritan.
The Eagle that is Forgotten
[John P. Altgeld. Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]
Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.
Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.
"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day,
Now you were ended. They praised you, * * * and laid you away.
The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,
The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,
The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor
That should have remembered forever, * * * remember no more.
Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call
The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?
They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones,
A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons,
The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began
The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.
Sleep softly, * * * eagle forgotten, * * * under the stone,
Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own.
Sleep on, O brave hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame --
To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name,
To live in mankind, far, far more * * * than to live in a name.
Shakespeare
Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came
Visible emperor of the deeds of Time,
With Justice still the genius of his rhyme,
Giving each man his due, each passion grace,
Impartial as the rain from Heaven's face
Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun.
Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again.
Teach us to write, and writing, to be men.
Michelangelo
Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul
Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone
And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone
Could draw the face of God, the titan high
Whose genius smote like lightning from the sky --
And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?
Nay he is in us! Let us dare and dare.
God help us to be brave.
Titian
Would that such hills and cities round us sang,
Such vistas of the actual earth and man
Tho' all men plan to live in harmony.
Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.
The following verses were written on the evening of March the first,
nineteen hundred and eleven, and printed next morning
in the Illinois State Register.
They celebrate the arrival of the news that the United States Senate
had declared the election of William Lorimer good and valid,
by a vote of forty-six to forty.
To the United States Senate
[Revelation 16: Verses 16-19]
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes?
This brazengutter idol, reared to power
Upon a leering pyramid of lies?
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be the world's proverb of successful shame,
Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal,
Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?
If once or twice within his new won hall
His vote had counted for the broken men;
If in his early days he wrought some good --
We might a great soul's sins forgive him then.
But must the Senator from Illinois
Be vindicated by fat kings of gold?
And must he be belauded by the smirched,
The sleek, uncanny chiefs in lies grown old?
Be warned, O wanton ones, who shielded him --
Black wrath awaits. You all shall eat the dust.
You dare not say: "To-morrow will bring peace;
Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."
What will you trading frogs do on a day
When Armageddon thunders thro' the land;
When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame,
His ballot or his musket in his hand?
In the distracted states from which you came
The day is big with war hopes fierce and strange;
Our iron Chicagos and our grimy mines
Rumble with hate and love and solemn change.
Too many weary men shed honest tears,
Ground by machines that give the Senate ease.
Too many little babes with bleeding hands
Have heaped the fruits of empire on your knees.
And swine within the Senate in this day,
When all the smothering by-streets weep and wail;
When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best sons;
When kingly men, voting for truth, may fail: --
These are a portent and a call to arms.
Our protest turns into a battle cry:
"Our shame must end, our States be free and clean;
And in this war we choose to live and die."
[So far as the writer knows this is the first use
of the popular term Armageddon in present day politics.]
The Knight in Disguise
[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]
"He could not forget that he was a Sidney."
Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
This is that dubious hero of the press
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed and dozed, then roused and read again,
And vowed O. Henry funniest of men.
He always worked a triple-hinged surprise
To end the scene and make one rub his eyes.
He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer.
He comes with megaphone and specious cheer.
His troupe, too fat or short or long or lean,
Step from the pages of the magazine
With slapstick or sombrero or with cane:
The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain.
They over-act each part. But at the height
Of banter and of canter and delight
The masks fall off for one queer instant there
And show real faces: faces full of care
And desperatelonging: love that's hot or cold;
And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold.
The masks go back. 'Tis one more joke. Laugh on!
The goodlygrown-up company is gone.
No doubt had he occasion to address
The brilliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess,
He would have wrought for them the best he knew
And led more loftily his actor-crew.
How coolly he misquoted. 'Twas his art --
Slave-scholar, who misquoted -- from the heart.
So when we slapped his back with friendly roar
Aesop awaited him without the door, --
Aesop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh
With little tales of FOX and DOG and CALF.
And be it said, mid these his pranks so odd
With something nigh to chivalry he trod
And oft the drear and driven would defend --
The little shopgirls' knight unto the end.
Yea, he had passed, ere we could understand
The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand.
Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn
With valiant cut and thrust, and he was gone.
The Wizard in the Street
[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]
Who now will praise the Wizard in the street
With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet --
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born,
Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn,
This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good,
With melancholy bells upon his hood?
The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak,
And well may mock his mystifying cloak
Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read
To make the ignoramus turn his head.
The artificialglitter of his eyes
Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise.
Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep,
Soothed by his steady wand's mesmeric sweep.
The little lacquered boxes in his hands
Somehow suggest old times and reverenced lands.
From them doll-monsters come, we know not how:
Puppets, with Cain's black rubric on the brow.
Some passing jugglers, smiling, now concede
That his best cabinet-work is made, indeed
By bleeding his right arm, day after day,
Triumphantly to seal and to inlay.
They praise his little act of shedding tears;
A trick, well learned, with patience, thro' the years.
I love him in this blatant, well-fed place.
Of all the faces, his the only face
Beautiful, tho' painted for the stage,
Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage,
Shames that are living, loves and hopes long dead,
Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.
Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep:
"What Nations sow, they must expect to reap,"
Or haste to clothe the race with truth and power,
With hymns and shouts increasing every hour.
Useful are you. There stands the useless one
Who builds the Haunted Palace in the sun.
Good tailors, can you dress a doll for me
With silks that whisper of the sounding sea?
One moment, citizens, -- the weary tramp
Unveileth Psyche with the agate lamp.
Which one of you can spread a spotted cloak
And raise an unaccounted incense smoke
Until within the twilight of the day
Stands dark Ligeia in her disarray,
Witchcraft and desperatepassion in her breath
And battling will, that conquers even death?
And now the evening goes. No man has thrown
The weary dog his well-earned crust or bone.
We grin and hie us home and go to sleep,
Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep.
He drank alone, for sorrow, and then slept,
And few there were that watched him, few that wept.
He found the gutter, lost to love and man.
Too slowly came the good Samaritan.
The Eagle that is Forgotten
[John P. Altgeld. Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]
Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.
Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.
"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day,
Now you were ended. They praised you, * * * and laid you away.
The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,
The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,
The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor
That should have remembered forever, * * * remember no more.
Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call
The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?
They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones,
A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons,
The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began
The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.
Sleep softly, * * * eagle forgotten, * * * under the stone,
Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own.
Sleep on, O brave hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame --
To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name,
To live in mankind, far, far more * * * than to live in a name.
Shakespeare
Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came
Visible emperor of the deeds of Time,
With Justice still the genius of his rhyme,
Giving each man his due, each passion grace,
Impartial as the rain from Heaven's face
Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun.
Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again.
Teach us to write, and writing, to be men.
Michelangelo
Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul
Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone
And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone
Could draw the face of God, the titan high
Whose genius smote like lightning from the sky --
And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?
Nay he is in us! Let us dare and dare.
God help us to be brave.
Titian
Would that such hills and cities round us sang,
Such vistas of the actual earth and man
- illinois [,ili´nɔi]
n.伊利诺斯 (初中英语单词) - celebrate [´selibreit] vt.庆祝；表扬；赞美 (初中英语单词)
- arrival [ə´raivəl] n.到达；到达的人(物) (初中英语单词)
- election [i´lekʃən] n.选举；选择 (初中英语单词)
- wrought [rɔ:t] work 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- wisdom [´wizdəm] n.智慧，聪明，才智 (初中英语单词)
- writer [´raitə] n.作者；作家 (初中英语单词)
- darling [´dɑ:liŋ] n.爱人 a.亲爱的 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- desperate [´despərit] a.拼死的；绝望的 (初中英语单词)
- grown-up [´grəun-ʌp] n.成年人 a.成熟的 (初中英语单词)
- brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- artificial [,ɑ:ti´fiʃəl] a.人工的；模拟的 (初中英语单词)
- glitter [´glitə] n.光辉 vi.闪烁，炫耀 (初中英语单词)
- shallow [´ʃæləu] a.肤浅的；表面的 (初中英语单词)
- patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- thunder [´θʌndə] n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词)
- useless [´ju:sləs] a.无用的，无价值的 (初中英语单词)
- haunted [´hɔ:tid] a.常出现鬼的，闹鬼的 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- mourning [´mɔ:niŋ] n.悲伤；治丧；戴孝 (初中英语单词)
- hatred [´heitrid] n.憎恨，敌意 (初中英语单词)
- terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- funeral [´fju:nərəl] n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词)
- shakespeare [´ʃeikspiə] n.莎士比亚 (初中英语单词)
- emperor [´empərə] n.皇帝 (初中英语单词)
- genius [´dʒi:niəs] n.天才(人物)；天赋 (初中英语单词)
- sunshine [´sʌnʃain] n.日光，阳光 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- lightning [´laitniŋ] n.闪电 a.突然的 (初中英语单词)
- actual [´æktʃuəl] a.现实的；实际的 (初中英语单词)
- everlasting [,evə´lɑ:stiŋ] a.永久的，无尽的 (高中英语单词)
- patriot [´pætriət] n.爱国者 (高中英语单词)
- ballot [´bælət] n.&v.投票；抽签 (高中英语单词)
- senate [´senit] n.参议院；上院 (高中英语单词)
- knight [nait] n.骑士；爵士 (高中英语单词)
- longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
- goodly [´gudli] a.适意的；漂亮的 (高中英语单词)
- chivalry [´ʃivəlri] n.侠义；骑士团 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- melancholy [´melənkəli] n.忧郁 a.忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- esteem [i´sti:m] n.尊重 vt.认为；感到 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- incense [´insens, in´sens] n.香(气) vt.激怒 (高中英语单词)
- brazen [´breizən] a.黄铜制的；无耻的 (英语四级单词)
- gutter [´gʌtə] n.(檐)槽；排水沟 (英语四级单词)
- proverb [´prɔvə:b] n.谚语；格言 (英语四级单词)
- wanton [´wɔntən, ´wɑ:n-] a.顽皮的 n.&vi.荡妇 (英语四级单词)
- musket [´mʌskit] n.滑膛枪 (英语四级单词)
- kingly [´kiŋli] a.国王的 ad.国王似地 (英语四级单词)
- coolly [´ku:li] ad.冷(静地)，沉着地 (英语四级单词)
- valiant [´væliənt] a.勇敢的，英勇的 (英语四级单词)
- wizard [´wizəd] n.术士；男巫 (英语四级单词)
- uncanny [ʌn´kæni] a.神秘的；离奇的 (英语六级单词)
- dubious [´dju:biəs] a.怀疑的；可疑的 (英语六级单词)
- insolent [´insələnt] a.傲慢的；无礼的 (英语六级单词)
- vaudeville [´vɔ:dəvil] n.滑稽通俗喜剧；杂耍 (英语六级单词)
- cowboy [´kaubɔi] n.牧童；牛仔 (英语六级单词)
- jester [´dʒestə] n.爱开玩笑的人 (英语六级单词)
- psyche [´saiki] n.心灵；灵魂；精神 (英语六级单词)
- bereft [bi´reft] bereave的过去分词 (英语六级单词)
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