Match a toad with a far-winged hawk...
Match a toad with a far-winged hawk,
A scarlet rose with a thistle stalk;
A stagnant pond with the white sea-tide—
You match the friendship of Bob and Clyde.
Clyde was a plucker of gems divine—
Bob was half a poet, half devil-swine.
One of them mounted the gods' own peak,
Out of the world's vile muck and reek,
Up from the world-path's ruck and slime,
Climbed on a ladder of godlike rhyme.—
One of them made his bid for fame,
Scorched his wing at the Muses' flame,
Warped his soul like a brooding devil
Found at last, and kept to, his level.
A friendship strange—yet it lasted on
Till their lives had faded to dusk from dawn.
Friendship of a falcon for a mugger—
Gods' own poet and third-rate slugger.
Lived their lives, friend unto friend—
Each in his own way met his end.
One of them passed like a Median king—
One of them died in a boxing ring.
One of them passed on a distant shore
Where the breakers answered the sea-wind's roar.
High on the crags he stood at bay,
Laughed like a god o'er the din of the fray;
Crimson the cliffs and red his sword,
One man facing a blood-crazed horde;
Man after man fell to his blade,
Laughed as he faced them, unafraid.
They swarmed like demons; what did he care?
Beauty and glory and pride were there;
Crag and mountain, ocean and sky,
Glorying to see a strong man die.
Laughed on the crags like a white limbed god,
For he knew the ways that the godlings trod—
He had scaled all peaks of glory. Last
With a snatch of song on his lips he passed.
One heard the tumult of throngs outbreak
As he writhed on the matt like a wounded snake,
Striving to get his legs beneath—
Red oaths ebbed through his broken teeth—
Above him the ring-light's garishblaze,
Sordid faces leered through the haze,
Foreign voices venting foul spleen,
Scents of unwashed forms obscene—
Shouts that flickered the ring-light's shine
"Stand up and fight, you yellow swine!"
Then the darkness loomed like a mighty tide
And he gasped out a crimson curse and died.
Thus they lived their lives friend unto friend,
And each in his own way met his end.
Match a toad with a far-winged hawk,
A crimson rose with a thistle stalk;
A stagnant pond with the ocean's tide—
You match the friendship of Bob and Clyde.
Friend unto friend, they lived their days,
Friend unto friend they walked their ways.