A line-o'-verse or two. Taylor Bert Leston

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      She is hotfoot after Cultyure,

      She pursues it with a club.

      She breathes a heavy atmosphere

      Of literary flub.

      No literary shrine so far

      But she is there to kneel;

      But —

      Her favorite line of reading

      Is O. Meredith’s “Lucille.”

      Of course she’s up on pictures —

      Passes for a connoisseur.

      On free days at the Institute

      You’ll always notice her.

      She qualifies approval

      Of a Titian or Corot;

      But —

      She throws a fit of rapture

      When she comes to Bouguereau.

      And when you talk of music,

      She is Music’s devotee.

      She will tell you that Beethoven

      Always makes her wish to pray;

      And “dear old Bach!” His very name

      She says, her ear enchants;

      But —

      Her favorite piece is Weber’s

      “Invitation to the Dance.”

      I hold it truth with him who sweetly sings —

      The weekly music of the London Sphere—

      That deathless tomes the living present brings:

      Great literature is with us year on year.

      Books of the mighty dead, whom men revere,

      Remind me I can make my books sublime.

      But prithee, bay my brow while I am here:

      Why do we always wait for Death and Time?

      Shakespeare, great spirit, beat his mighty wings,

      As I beat mine, for the occasion near.

      He knew, as I, the worth of present things:

      Great literature is with us year on year.

      Methinks I meet across the gulf his clear

      And tranquil eye; his calm reflections chime

      With mine: “Why do we at the present fleer?

      Why do we always wait for Death and Time?”

      The reading world with acclamation rings

      For my last book. It led the list at Weir,

      Altoona, Rahway, Painted Post, Hot Springs:

      Great literature is with us year on year.

      The Bookman gives me a vociferous cheer.

      Howells approves! I can no higher climb.

      Bring then the laurel, crown my bright career.

      Why do we always wait for Death and Time?

      Critics, who pastward, ever pastward peer,

      Great literature is with us year on year.

      Trumpet my fame while I am in my prime.

      Why do we always wait for Death and Time?

      Aufwiedersehen, brother mine!

      Farewells will soon be kissed;

      And ere you leave to breast the brine

      Give me once more your fist;

      That mailéd fist, clenched high in air

      On many a foreign shore,

      Enforcing coaling stations where

      No stations were before;

      That fist, which weaker nations view

      As if ’twere Michael’s own,

      And which appals the heathen who

      Bow down to wood and stone.

      But this trip no brass knuckles. Glove

      That heavy mailéd hand;

      Your mission now is one of Love

      And Peace – you understand.

      All that’s American you’ll praise;

      The Yank can do no wrong.

      To use his own expressive phrase,

      Just “jolly him along.”

      Express surprise to find, the more

      Of Roosevelt you see,

      How much I am like Theodore,

      And Theodore like me.

      I am, in fact, (this might not be

      A bad thing to suggest,)

      The Theodore of the East, and he

      The William of the West.

      And, should you get a chance, find out —

      If anybody knows —

      Exactly what it’s all about,

      That Doctrine of Monroe’s.

      That’s entre nous. My present plan

      You know as well as I:

      Be just as Yankee as you can;

      If needs be, eat some pie.

      Cut out the ’kraut, cut out Rhine wine,

      Cut out the Schützenfest,

      The Sängerbund, the Turnverein,

      The Kommers, and the rest.

      And if some fool society

      “Die Wacht am Rhein” should sing,

      You sing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” —

      The tune’s “God Save the King.”

      To our own kindred in that land

      There’s СКАЧАТЬ