MELCHIZEDEK DISCOURSES
No honor lives in this American brood,No care for poets great as I. This truthI witness in my going to and froAnd up and down the land. Now hear atale,Revolving on the axis of this book,The latest offspring of my fruitful Muse,From which you have so well read verses,friend,—You know the famous English novelistPaid for the printing of this wondrouspoem.I came as guest unto a doctor's club—I called 'em "doctors" since it flattersthem,These spawn of Jewry, to be titled thus:The "doctor" is a god—in sooth, thesefourWill doctors be when I have found mybone.Now, plain talk, I'll describe the four toyou:The first, and most of my tale, was big,Big as the huge bulk of a well-fed bull;He seemed at first my wise interpreter,Since he alone was truly Yiddish there,—Yet he alone revealed my nakedness,And left me shorn of honor. You shallhear.The second, swarthy as a Tuscan boor,A student in a western seminary,Would prattle still of women; him I dugA greasy tale or two from the filthy past;As tho' I recked of women! I have provedThe wives of millionaires, the wives ofworkmen,And found all faithless! Only men aretrue.The third—I pass him with an idle word—A pale and peaky longling they calledpoet,Still strove to draw my fire with suddenhints.Waste blasts from wheezy bellows, brokenwords—A fool naive, unguessing of my drift.The last do I remember now with love—Ay, I could kiss him! All the eveningthrough,Wide-eyed and open-mouthed he gatheredme,Uplifting every grain of precious speech:No solitary word he spoke, for fearHe thus might stray the current of mytalk,And lose some luminous flash of thought,whereonPerchance in future days his soul mightbrood,Musing, "Alas! what treasure did I miss!"What wealthy token of that wondrousmind!"So did he wordless gape an eveningthrough.But stop.—My friend, that waiter, whereis he?How many decades since we saw him last?He surely were a fitting messengerTo bring one the Death-angel. Here hecomes.What, waiter, did you brew this greasygreen?And meted out so pettily! A gulp!Now a small portion of my glass of milk,Then to my tale. Green is a fine, fairkue!Before these youths an evening long IcastDeep lustrous gems from many hiddenyears:I strung the tender dew-pearls of myyouth,And troubled facets of my sickness; stonesThat glowed with blood-red, misty fires ofwar;And sparkling jacinth-work of poetry.