Shapes of Clay eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Shapes of Clay.

Shapes of Clay eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Shapes of Clay.

  All whose applauding hands
    Assist to rear the fame
  That throws o’er all the lands
    The shadow of its shame,—­

  Go drag her car!—­the mud
    Through which its axle rolls
  Is partly human blood
    And partly human souls.

  Mad, mad!—­your senses whirl
    Like devils dancing free,
  Because a strolling girl
    Can hold the note high C.

  For this the avenging rod
    Of Heaven ye dare defy,
  And tear the law that God
    Thundered from Sinai!

HOSPITALITY.

  Why ask me, Gastrogogue, to dine
  (Unless to praise your rascal wine)
  Yet never ask some luckless sinner
  Who needs, as I do not, a dinner?

FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC.

  Let lowly themes engage my humble pen—­
  Stupidities of critics, not of men. 
  Be it mine once more the maunderings to trace
  Of the expounders’ self-directed race—­
  Their wire-drawn fancies, finically fine,
  Of diligent vacuity the sign. 
  Let them in jargon of their trade rehearse
  The moral meaning of the random verse
  That runs spontaneous from the poet’s pen
  To be half-blotted by ambitious men
  Who hope with his their meaner names to link
  By writing o’er it in another ink
  The thoughts unreal which they think they think,
  Until the mental eye in vain inspects
  The hateful palimpsest to find the text.

  The lark ascending heavenward, loud and long
  Sings to the dawning day his wanton song. 
  The moaning dove, attentive to the sound,
  Its hidden meaning hastens to expound: 
  Explains its principles, design—­in brief,
  Pronounces it a parable of grief!

  The bee, just pausing ere he daubs his thigh
  With pollen from a hollyhock near by,
  Declares he never heard in terms so just
  The labor problem thoughtfully discussed! 
  The browsing ass looks up and clears his whistle
  To say:  “A monologue upon the thistle!”
  Meanwhile the lark, descending, folds his wing
  And innocently asks:  “What!—­did I sing?”

  O literary parasites! who thrive
  Upon the fame of better men, derive
  Your sustenance by suction, like a leech,
  And, for you preach of them, think masters preach,—­
  Who find it half is profit, half delight,
  To write about what you could never write,—­
  Consider, pray, how sharp had been the throes
  Of famine and discomfiture in those
  You write of if they had been critics, too,
  And doomed to write of nothing but of you!

  Lo! where the gaping crowd throngs yonder tent,
  To see the lion resolutely bent! 
  The prosing showman who the beast displays
  Grows rich and richer daily in its praise. 
  But how if, to attract the curious yeoman,
  The lion owned the show and showed the showman?

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Shapes of Clay from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.