New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-06-26

NARRATIVE

~ the worlds greatest theater,
The guest of the worlds greatest show
man,
Successor through a tragic line
VI men who stood host to Art.
Rlch men had built the place
From out the ends of earth
MOSCOW, Munich, London, Berlin
Gave up their secrets
That this might be the greatest:
Inc Inc giants IA Of illusion had been chained
50, at word, it went around
Or up and down,
Changing fishing village to the Powered
a keyboard and spider web of wires
ofefed the master of the lights
a chance at symphonies
mat ranged from misty morning va
porS
T., the orange of waning moon;
Inc ioyers dazzled with the panels of
Viennese,
The box walls glowed with altar cloths
from Rome
Al these had been but funeral meats
10 those who came to watch
Old Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sheridan.
ne l5elglan and his bird,
GIVE way to shapely legs
And raucous song.
In our party were:
The worlds greatest tenor,
Inc worlds greatest impresario,
The worlds greatest conductor,
Inc worlds greatest patron of the arts.
And composers--as great as any living,
ana there were great critics,
And writers
And many who were great
Unto themselves.
At three the party broke;
The last lift down
brought US to the darkened stage.
Nov"d through uncouth shadows
Three camels sleeping in the stacked
u.Ufls
Of ancient Athens
Beginnings of pilared TEMPLES.
Canvas marble steps,
And upright bits Of the Egean Sea,
Wire baskets holding red chiffon in
Which famed, and lit by incandescent
lamps.
Made altar fires
Whereon the Greeks made sacrifice.
The watchman's pilot light
Set on standard near the foots
Ate out its little circle from the gloom.
Within this circle sat two men
One thrummed a grand piano
The other on mouth harp tried
tune.
Our host explained
These were two chorus men
He'd given leave to use the stage
80 they might form a vaudeville team;
tie called for showing of their wares.
The one who blew the organ
Deprecated what they had,
Then as prologue outlined to the men
What he essayed:
A A, coon hunt through the scrub oak
H. Ga
The yapping hounds,
The medley of song and Jest
from the plantation boys,
The striking of the scent,
The baying of the hounds
Until the coon is freed.
And the greatest tenor in the world
And the worlds greatest impresario
And the great composers
stood silent on the darkened stage
intent upon the magic of the lanky boy,
Lost minstrel from his tribe,
Hearing with him thine leyee SONGS.
The daep-mouthed hounds.
The crescendo Of the moon-lit chase.
The joy and triumph of the hunt
When the raccoon is shaken down To
foaming jaws,
The diminuendo of the homeward
march,
The laughter AMI the song
ana everything echoes of the leashed,
protesting hounds.
The boy bowed to the long applause.
These persons were but men to him,
Great only as to outline,
Their bodies blending to great shadows
W hich rose into the flies.
So he went back to work
Warmed by the hope
That he would make the two-a-day."
And it is not known
What the great patron of the arts was
thinking,
Or the great Snowman
Or the great composers,
Or what the spirit of Ariel
Said to the spirit of Caliban
There IN the grotesque shadows of the
stage;
SO here ends the narrative
Without point or moral
But with this questioning:
You who know the salt
10 put upon the tail of Art
What is this thing. The Theater?
MURDOCH PEMBERTON,