Classic Poem

XII

On Winter nights, when the clean snow falls down
Like white flowers from the meadows of the sky,
You hear the motors thundering on their way
To fashionable caravanseries,
The theatre or the opera, or the ball.
In bright array the shimmering women sit
Where clinking glasses make their pleasant sound,
And laughter is the gay room's only creed.
Music and lights and beauty — yes, and love —
They make good company on windy nights
When one must somehow manage to forget
The bitterness the season has brought on.
Well, mirth is found here — mirth and revelry;
Let red wine flow, and let the champagne shine
First in its goblet, then in many eyes,
Till the great room seems greater than before,
The music sweeter, women lovelier;
And Love itself, that is the best of all,
Bigger than heaven and earth rolled into one!

This is the way to kill life's youthful hours —
These are the places to erase the thought
Of poverty and penury and grief —
Here where mad, jocund conversation hums,
And masks but lure one to imagine all
The tragedy behind such flimsy screens.
It lends an interest to Life to know
That there beside that grande dame proudly pale,
Sits a young courtesan whose story is
The common topic of a trivial world.
They would not dine together in her home,
They would not sit in the same costly box
At either Opera House; but here — well, this
Alters the case, each one would quickly say;
The harlot gives the grande dame something strange
To think of through this tedious dining hour,
And then — who knows? — perhaps the painted girl
Finds very much to ruminate upon
When her quick eyes consider the Lady's face!
How many a flash of understanding whirls
Across this gilded room, one may not know;
But always when I sit in such a place,
And see the comprehension in the eyes
Of men and women of divided spheres,
I think that no such distance separates
The half-world and the world as that which flings
The rich and poor immeasurably apart!

When it is time to go they hurry out
To find their motors, and they mark how cold
The wind is; but they seldom toss a coin
To the poor newsboy, shivering near the door.

Out on the jewelled Avenue they see
A priest upon his way to say a prayer
Over a dying man; and for one brief;
Incalculable instant, who may guess
What thoughts are in the merry revellers' minds?
They may have craved the peace he seems to know,
The calm and quiet of his spiritual face;
And to the priest there may have come a wish,
However vague, to snatch one moment's joy
From this apparent happiness and mirth.

They pass the Bread Line — but they do not care,
Flushed now with wine, at ease with all the world;
They hear a street evangelist's faint whine,
And the Salvation Army's simple songs;
They laugh at these — they are not picturesque —
And yet, perhaps, they serve their purposes!
So speed these careless groups upon their way,
Poorer than all the mendicants they pass,
And sad in their false joy and harlotry,
Rich only in their prejudice and pride.