The Washington times., 1917-01-10
Don MARQUIS
Column

'why," asks s. NJ, don't you give
Us Hermione little more frequently,
as you used to do -
Because we have q Crouch against
that young woman. she has all but
ruined our life.
She has got to be so much habit
Of mind with US that we can't get
away from her.
We were looking over some poems
of our own the other day. We hadn't
read them for q year or so.
At the time we wrote them we
thought they were lovely poems
they were serious poems; poems al
about the soul, and the gods, and Man,
and all the things that poems are
about, IL you get what we mean.
We had always believed in, those
poems. -
But when we read them over the
other day . tone OF voice kept. creep
ing into them-if you follow us--spd
We suddenly exclaimed:
MY God. these poems are just like
Hermione@
We threw them down, and dug out
Of our desk part OF . novel we are
supposed to be writing; none Of your
frivolous darned novels, but . seal
Work Of Art; serious thing, = ain
cere thing.
| And as we read 1t that tone OF
voice crept in again: again we heard
the accents of Hermione spelling the
most beautiful passages; we add Il
down and sobbed; up to that time it
had always seemed to Us. 10 be one
OF the greatest unwritten novels in
the world. which contains 80 many
great unwritten novels ana now
we know It win always be unwrit-
ten.
We dragged out a partly finIshed
play.
One OF those plays, II you take Us.
that win Be Found Incompleted
Among the Authors Papers at His
Death-one of the sort that Is Too
Intellectual for Production.
We have, in times past, well-nigh
worshiped that play. what there Is
of it
But now we know there win never
be any more OF it.
As we read it II seemed to US the
play must have been built by Fothsr-
gil Finch and HermIone in eoIlabcra-
tion.
Either we have always been just
like Hermione in our most serious
moments and have never known Il
| until now; or else too much Hefmione
has affected our point >of view con
corning everything in the world.
Anyhow, we are ruined man.
And thinking how completely ruin
ed we were. it struck US As very prob
able that there was something the
matter with the whole universe.
Something had ruined IL, too, Per
haps.
This makes US sad, for we are uata-
rally of sympathetic disposition to-
ward. all helpless things J, ana
what is more helpless than the uni s,
verse, which has to so-right ON being
the universe, whether it likes # or
not? s..e'
So. not to waste this enaotfon Of
sadness, we reached for the diction-
airy, and wrote a poem.
It 10 called:
Fer An Sad.
No usual words can bear the woe 1
feel
NO tyalatitions trite gfxeme relief!
Oh, Webster: lend me words to voice
my grief
Bitter, as quassia, Quass or kumpquat
peel!
For am sad bound on the
cosmic wheel,
What mad chthonophagy bids slave
and chief
Through endless cycles bite the earth
like beef,
By turns each cannibai and each the
meal?
Turn we to nature. webster. and We
Your whidah bird refuse all ssroSile
fruit,
Your trasaesnth in tears ooss from
the treeN.
wehear your flammulatsd owlets
boot!
Turn we to nature, Webster, and we
Few creatures have q quite contented
mind.
Your koulan there. with dysIogistic
snort,
VIII leave his phocoid food on worts
to brovse.l
While galactophorous Himalsyan cows
The knurled kohl-rabi spurn in un-
Neouth sport;
No margay climbs morgosa trees:
the short
Gray mullet drinks no mulse, nor
In pibcorss when the youth Of wales
carouse
No tournure doth the toucan's tan
comfort a.
So I am sad! =. and yet. on
Summer ewes,
When ,xebecs search the whishinE
scree for whelk.
And the sharp sorrel. lifts obcordats
leaves,
And -cryptogsmous plants fulfill the
elk,
see the octopus play with his feet,