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 artificial glitter 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 desperate passion 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.