Edmund Vance Cooke

“ Do you tie your cravat by the calendar's date?
Do you follow a cue?
Are you a writer, or that which is worded?
Are you a shepherd, or one of the herded?
Which are you—a What or a Who?
It sounds well to call yourself "one of the flock,"
But a sheep is a sheep after all. At the block
You're nothing but mutton, or possibly stock.
Would you flavor a stew?
Are you a being and boss of your soul? ”

“ You don't buy poetry. (Neither do I.)
Why?
You cannot afford it? Bosh! you spend
Editions de luxe on a thirsty friend.
You can buy any one of the poetry bunch
For the price you pay for a business lunch.
Don't you suppose that a hungry head,
Like an empty stomach, ought to be fed?
Looking into myself, I find this true,
So I hardly can figure it false in you. ”

“ You may be a jack-fool if you must, but this rule
Should ever be kept at the front:—
Don't fight with your pillow, but lay down your head
And kick every worriment out of the bed.
That friend or that foe (which he is, I don't know) ,
Whose name we have spoken as Death,
Hovers close to your side, while you run or you ride,
And he envies the warmth of your breath;
But he turns him away, with a shake of his head,
When he finds that you don't take your troubles to bed.
[Pg 23]
FAILURE.
What is a failure? ”

“ O, one might reach heroic heights
By one strong burst of power.
He might endure the whitest lights
Of heaven for an hour;—
But harder is the daily drag,
To smile at trials which fret and fag,
And not to murmur—nor to lag.
The test of greatness is the way
One meets the eternal Everyday.
[Pg 22]
DON'T TAKE YOUR TROUBLES TO BED.
You may labor your fill, friend of mine, if you will;
You may worry a bit, if you must;
You may treat your affairs as a series of cares,
You may live on a scrap and a crust;
But when the day's done, put it out of your head ”

“ If some one speak to his detraction,
And yet, the fact the thing is said
Affords you half a satisfaction.
I see the workings of your mind
Because my own is so inclined.
You tell me fame is hollow squeak,
You say that wealth is carking care ”

“ Where the hottest sun of day is and the coldest stars of night?
Plug!
Oh, it may be you're a fool, but if a fool you want to be,
If you want to climb above the crowd so every one can see
Just how a fool may look when he is at his apogee,
Why, plug!
Can you make a mile a minute? Do you want to make it two? ”

“ Of whom I am one and the other is you.
But for us the lesson is still remote,
Although we commit it and cite it and quote
It by rote.
But still when you thrill with the thudding thump
From the fist of the fellow you tried to bump
And the world looks hard at the swelling lump,
There's a strong temptation to open your door
And invite the public to hear you roar
That you're sore. ”

“ Of making of one's self a horse and mounting him and driving!
But now, let's cease;
Let's look for peace.
Let's forget the mark of money,
Let's forget the love of fame.
Life is ours and skies are sunny ”

“ God gives you a smile, not to make it a yawn;
Pass it on!
Did somebody show you a slanderous mess?
Pass it by!
When a brook's flowing by, will you drink at the cess?
Pass it by!
Dame Gossip's a wanton, whatever her dress;
Her sire was a lie and her dam was a guess,
And a poison is in her polluting caress;
Pass it by!
Unless you're a porker, keep out of the sty.
Pass it by!
Did somebody give you an insolent word?
Pass it up!
'T is the creak of a cricket, the pwit of a bird;
Pass it up!
[Pg 52] Shake your fist at the sea! Is its majesty blurred? ”

“ Was that which I tore from the teeth of defeat,
And the man who can hit
With his wisdom and wit
Without any effort, I envy no whit.
The genius whose laurels grow always the greenest
Finds pleasure in plenty, but misses the keenest. ”

“ Have noticed your rival is small in perspective.
I heard him in Memphis (a chance matinée) ;
He heard me (one Sunday) in Dallas.
His critics, I swore, never witnessed the play;
He vowed mine were prompted by malice.
A pleasanter fellow I cannot recall.
We were closer together; that's all.
And your rival, too, if you once see him clearly,
Is clever, or how could he rival you, nearly?
In Seattle they said he was greater than Booth,
(Or in Portland, perhaps; I've forgotten) ;
I said 'twas ungracious to speak the plain truth,
But his work in the first act was rotten. ”

“ In this workaday world, has no duty to do.
The dollar you waste when you ought not to spend it
Buys something no plutocrat's millions could lend it,
For if once you exhaust
All your care of the cost,
Full half of the pleasure of purchase is lost,
So I trust you are one who is wise in discerning
The value of spending is most in the earning. ”

“ The One-Legged Goose and that old What You Please—
And even, I swear it, The Crow and the Cheese.
And he sprang that old yarn of He Said 't was His Leg,
When you wanted to tell him Columbus's Egg,
While I wanted to tell my own whimsical tale
(Which I recently wrote) of The Man in the Whale!
[Pg 68]
THE CHOICE.
The little it takes to make life bright,
If we open our eyes to get it!
And the trifle which makes it black as night,
If we close our lids and let it!
Behold, as the world goes whirling by,
It is gloomy, or glad, as it fits your eye. ”

“ And I hear (such a joke!) that your chronic gastritis
Stands silent forever before her nephritis.
Mrs. Henderson's Annie goes out every night,
And Bertha, before her, was simply a fright,
While Agnes broke more than the worth of her head,
And Maggie—well, some things are better unsaid. ”

“ Oh, it isn't so bright it'll blind the sun,
But it's better than that by Such-a-one."
And this is the reason I and my creditors
Curse the "unreasoning whims" of editors,
And yet, if one writes for a livelihood,
He ought to believe that his work is good,
Provided the form that his vanity takes
Not only believes, but also makes. ”

“ Whenever the chef concocts a dish which sets the world to tasting,
Why does the cooking-school get out its recipes for basting?
Whenever a sprinter beats the bunch from the pistol-shot, why is it
The heavy hammer throwers get together for a visit? ”

“ To glamor and glimmer and shimmer and seem,...
Only seem;
And then, when the world looks unfadably blue,
If my rival sails by
With his head in the sky,
And sings "How is business?" why, what do I do?
Well, I claim that I aim to be honest and true,
But I sometimes lie. Don't you?
[Pg 17]
When something at home is decidedly wrong,
When somebody sings a false note in the song,
Too low or too high,
And, you hardly know why,
But it wrangles and jangles and runs all awry,... ”

“ And the tilting-upness of your chin.
Good-natured though you are and fair, as you have often boasted,
Still you like to hear the other man artistically roasted.
Whenever the star secures the stage with the spotlight in the centre,
Why should the anvil chorus think it has the cue to enter?
Whenever the prima donna trills the E above the clef,
Why should the brasses orchestrate the bass in double f?
It's funny,
But it's even money,
You like to spy the buzzing fly in the other fellow's honey.
Though you have said that honest bread
Demands no honey on it spread,
Page 30. ”

“ Let some one else lock up the pearly
Gateway to-night and get here early!"
III.
Perhaps you sometimes deem the Czar
A star?
With not a palm in all the land
To strike his fairly, hand to hand,
With not a man in all the pack
To fetch a hand against his back
[Pg 96] And cry, "Well met, Old Nick, come out
And let us trot the kids about.
Tut, man! you needn't look so pale,
A red flag means an auction sale."
IV.
I'll bet even Shakespeare's name was "Will,"
Until
He was so dead that he was great,
For fame can only isolate. ”

“ But wait, my friend, for a different day!
Wait till you want to want to! ”

“ And I've been on my uppers—so meagre my sole
'Twould scarcely have tempted the devil!
But it's nothing to you what I am, or I was,
And no whit of your sympathy's needed,
For I'm certain to win in the long run, because
I shall see how my rival succeeded.
[Pg 33]
BLOOD IS RED.
Some of us don't drink, some of us do ”