POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
Cotillions of smoke swirl the curtains and walls
By a swart old Tertullian, all gnarled and knotty;
And then in quadrilles, as it stifles and crawls
On a muscular torso by Buonarotti.
Here Leviathan gores through a shock of harpoons—
There, Lazarus mumbles his crust on the sod—
Afar, in this carnival dance of cartoons,
Hypatia glares on the crucified God!
Here, Scanderberg gashes the Ottemite van—
There, the dulcimer damsel of Kubla is heard—
Hard by, a neat sketch of the crafty old man
We have sent to inveigle Napoleon the Third.
There are foils on the arras and shields on the stair,
While an arquebuse bosses the lank balustrade;
And trailing just over that worm-eaten chair
Is a woman’s white dress with its bodice and braid.
The visions of youth are the wizards of thought,
No matter how gusty, no matter how good;
How many have married the woman they sought—
How seldom we marry the woman we should!
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