Complete Poetical Works by Bret Harte Part 36

Of course you will SAY that I "never Replied to the letter you wrote."

That is just like a man! But, however, I read it--or how could I quote?

And as to the stories you've heard (No, Don't tell me you haven't--I know!), You'll not believe one blessed word, Joe; But just whence they came, let them go!

And they came from Sade Lotski of Yolo, Whose father sold clothes on the Bar-- You called him Job-lotski, you know, Joe, And the boys said HER value was par.

Well, we met her in Paris--just flaring With diamonds, and lost in a hat And she asked me "how Joseph was faring In his love-suit on Poverty Flat!"

She thought it would shame me! I met her With a look, Joe, that made her eyes drop; And I said that your "love-suit fared better Than any suit out of THEIR shop!"

And I didn't blush THEN--as I'm doing To find myself here, all alone, And left, Joe, to do all the "sueing"

To a lover that's certainly flown.

In this brand-new hotel, called "The Lily"

(I wonder who gave it that name?) I really am feeling quite silly, To think I was once called the same; And I stare from its windows, and fancy I'm labeled to each pa.s.ser-by.

Ah! gone is the old necromancy, For nothing seems right to my eye.

On that hill there are stores that I knew not; There's a street--where I once lost my way; And the copse where you once tied my shoe-knot Is shamelessly open as day!

And that bank by the spring--I once drank there, And you called the place Eden, you know; Now I'm banished like Eve--though the bank there Is belonging to "Adams and Co."

There's the rustle of silk on the sidewalk; Just now there pa.s.sed by a tall hat; But there's gloom in this "boom" and this wild talk Of the "future" of Poverty Flat.

There's a decorous chill in the air, Joe, Where once we were simple and free; And I hear they've been making a mayor, Joe, Of the man who shot Sandy McGee.

But there's still the "lap, lap" of the river; There's the song of the pines, deep and low.

(How my longing for them made me quiver In the park that they call Fontainebleau!) There's the snow-peak that looked on our dances, And blushed when the morning said, "Go!"

There's a lot that remains which one fancies-- But somehow there's never a Joe!

Perhaps, on the whole, it is better, For you might have been changed like the rest; Though it's strange that I'm trusting this letter To papa, just to have it addressed.

He thinks he may find you, and really Seems kinder now I'm all alone.

You might have been here, Joe, if merely To LOOK what I'm willing to OWN.

Well, well! that's all past; so good-night, Joe; Good-night to the river and Flat; Good-night to what's wrong and what's right, Joe; Good-night to the past, and all that-- To Harrison's barn, and its dancers; To the moon, and the white peak of snow; And good-night to the canyon that answers My "Joe!" with its echo of "No!"

P. S.

I've just got your note. You deceiver!

How dared you--how COULD you? Oh, Joe!

To think I've been kept a believer In things that were six months ago!

And it's YOU'VE built this house, and the bank, too, And the mills, and the stores, and all that!

And for everything changed I must thank YOU, Who have "struck it" on Poverty Flat!

How dared you get rich--you great stupid!-- Like papa, and some men that I know, Instead of just trusting to Cupid And to me for your money? Ah, Joe!

Just to think you sent never a word, dear, Till you wrote to papa for consent!

Now I know why they had me transferred here, And "the health of papa"--what THAT meant!

Now I know why they call this "The Lily;"

Why the man who shot Sandy McGee You made mayor! 'Twas because--oh, you silly!-- He once "went down the middle" with me!

I've been fooled to the top of my bent here, So come, and ask pardon--you know That you've still got to get MY consent, dear!

And just think what that echo said--Joe!

V. PARODIES

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize, A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.

The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide, And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride, Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.

Ah, well! no pa.s.sion walks its humble boards; O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords: The simplest skill is all its s.p.a.ce affords.

The song and jest, the dance and trifling play, The local hit at follies of the day, The trick to pa.s.s an idle hour away,--

For these no trumpets that announce the Moor, No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,-- A single fiddle in the overture!

TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL*

(A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS)

"Speak, O man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil!

Primal pioneer of pliocene formation, Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum Of volcanic tufa!

"Older than the beasts, the oldest Palaeotherium; Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami; Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions Of earth's epidermis!

"Eo--Mio--Plio--whatsoe'er the 'cene' was That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder,-- Whether sh.o.r.es Devonian or Silurian beaches,-- Tell us thy strange story!

"Or has the professor slightly antedated By some thousand years thy advent on this planet, Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted For cold-blooded creatures?

"Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest When above thy head the stately Sigillaria Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant Carboniferous epoch?

"Tell us of that scene,--the dim and watery woodland, Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect, Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club mosses, Lycopodiacea,--

"When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus, And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus, While from time to time above thee flew and circled Cheerful Pterodactyls.

"Tell us of thy food,--those half-marine refections, Crinoids on the sh.e.l.l and Brachipods au naturel,-- Cuttlefish to which the pieuvre of Victor Hugo Seems a periwinkle.

"Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's creation, Solitary fragment of remains organic!

Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence,-- Speak! thou oldest primate!"

Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla, And a lateral movement of the condyloid process, With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication, Ground the teeth together.

And from that imperfect dental exhibition, Stained with express juices of the weed nicotian, Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs Of expectoration: