Very solid rascals. Several have exploited your worlds. Without needs, and in no great hurry to bring to bear their brilliant abilities and their experience of your consciences. What mature men! Eyes dazed after the manner of the summer night, red and black, tricolored, of steel pricked with golden stars; deformed physiognomies, leaden, blanched, burnt-out; frolicsome hoarsenesses. The cruel gait of tinsel fineries! -There are some young ones-how would they look upon Cherubino?-provided with frightful voices and certain dangerous resources. They are sent into town to gain experience, rigged up with a disgusting @3luxury@1. Oh most violent Paradise of the frenzied grimace! Your Fakirs and other scenic buffooneries are not to be compared. In improvised costumes, in the style of a bad dream, they play laments, tragedies of brigands and of demigods witty as history or religions have never been. Chinamen, Hottentots, gypsies, simpletons, hyenas, Molochs, old lunacies, sinister demons, they mingle popular, maternal stunts with bestial poses and caresses. They would interpret new plays and simple-minded ballads. Master jugglers, they transform place and persons and make use of magnetic comedy. The eyes blaze, the blood sings, the bones expand, there is trickling of tears and red filaments. Their banter, their terror lasts a minute, or months on end. I alone hold the key to this savage ballyhoo.* | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VASHTI by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER THE CUMBERLAND [MARCH 8, 1862] by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE EARL O' QUARTERDECK by GEORGE MACDONALD A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO HER OWN OLD AGE by ALICE MEYNELL ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 15. TO THE EVENING STAR by MARK AKENSIDE THE BURIED FLOWER by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN GHOST-BEREFT; A SCENE FROM BOGLAND IN WAR-TIME by JANE BARLOW |