Winked too much and were afraid of snakes. The zebras, supreme in their abnormality; the elephants with their fog-colored skin and strictly practical appendages were there, the small cats; and the parrakeet— trivial and humdrum on examination, destroying bark and portions of the food it could not eat. I recall their magnificence, now not more magnificent than it is dim. It is difficult to recall the ornament, speech, and precise manner of what one might call the minor acquaintances twenty years back; but I shall not forget him—that Gilgamesh among the hairy carnivora—that cat with the wedge-shaped, slate-gray marks on its forelegs and the resolute tail, astringently remarking: "They have imposed on us with their pale half fledged protestations, trembling about in inarticulate frenzy, saying it is not for us to understand art; finding it all so difficult, examining the thing as if it were inconceivably arcanic, as symme- trically frigid as if it had been carved out of chrysoprase or marble—strict with tension, malignant in its power over us and deeper than the sea when it proffers flattery in exchange for hemp, rye, flax, horses, platinum, timber, and fur." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EPILOGUE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS AUTUMN WOODS by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT A PRAYER by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE BRACELET: TO JULIA by ROBERT HERRICK WINTER'S EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |