The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1916-09-29
The Shows of Yesterday
BY DR.. FRANK CRANE
Copyright. 1915. by Frank Cranel

Everybody who writes ought TO write
once IN his life upon the pathos of pass
/ ing things.
AL who live ought to reflect at times
on them that once lived and now are
gone
All bright eyes owe at least two
tears TO the memory of eyes forever
dulled all red and smiling lips one mel
/ ancholy word TO those whose beauty is
dust and whose utterance is silence.
The rapScallion Francois Villon. in
whose maynard mind burned the
strange Prometheu~ fire of genius. said,
for the first time as far as we know,
/ those tragic words of most universal APP
peal:
"Mais on sont les neiges dantan?"
But where are the SHOWS of yester-
year?0
Since then the subtle appeal has been
repeated 10y every poet, has been felt by
every soul capable of musing; as Omar
speaks Of the rose Of Yesterday" and
Sir Thomas Browne of forgotten faces"
1 Who can be wholly rusens.blc 20 the
dumb message of the graveyard green
and white. even though il comes ia him
as a faint lnchoate whisper knocks at
hi~ hearts door as ghosts knock and is
NO more understandable than the winds
voice?
WHO, as he goes about his business,
/ hoes not sometimes think of them once
as active rs he now forever quiet as
/ quiet as those that are not yet born?
1 They too hoped, were eager struggled,
| Wondered, laughed usted and reponted.
We but repeat LIE is a huge wheel
/ .bat goes round and round Why does
aat The universe grow tired Of the UNI
Fcoasing repetition?
Who that reads history -nnt-ZueH--
hiered over the deep silence now OF such
boiling forces as Caesar and Charlie
imagine? How can such energy resolve
rto such utter emptiness?
Irlo whose consciousness has not that
awful word Of the Raven penetrated, as
be- stand, by q once vigorous and lfe-
loving friend now touched by the mys-
terry IF Dcath-ho has not felt the
creeping paralysis Of that word Never
mure?"
When We hear all the street whistling
. "T.pparaIy," DO we ever think Of forgot
.en melodies? What songs did they
ing at Roncesval, what ditties in light
hearted Greece as the roisterers passed
/ tha house Of A,pasia what airs and
a - ~ t--trrcr aT1di
lined in the Hanging Gardens or
4tchci the young moon in the Grove
b. Daphne?
As 20 me. I have often thought"
Writes Vernon Lee chat were poet
would write % ballad ,adicr, sweeter
and more kcptical even that Nillon's,
which ! should call the Ballad of Dead
Tunes"
And dead loves? In the hour Of loves
/ Game, do we think Of the loves that are
gone, as the hot sun Of yesterday has
gone into the cool night?
Dear dead women. with such hair. roo-what's
become uf ON me gold
/ t-,1 ro hang and brush their bosous7 feel
chilly and grown Old
and dead houses, The ruined castle
lat Heidelberg now dwelt in by bats, and
grown over by ivy, The Colosseum, so
gaunt and hollow-eyed and chill with
echoinq emptiness and once full Of what
Neter Of myriad-throated crowds, palpi-
tant and eager on the benches and in
the arena what dust and lust, fury and
strainng and horror, such as the world
will never see again,
Dead loves, dead songs, dead housesl
Dead kings and courtcsans. priests and
pirates clutching millonaires and fawn-
ing beggars, All swept away. and the
stage cleaned for us in our time to play
our parts!
And dead souls, with no hope, no en-
thu-jasm, no vigor of life, nothing but
little Of the paltry preclpitate of life. as
handful Of ashes are left upon the
hearth!
What a confusing phantasmagoria It
| al is-we and those that once were,
/ Al