Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/122

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN

The sneer is gone from Casey's lips, his teeth are clenched in hate, He pounds with hideous violence his bat upon the plate; And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

Casey is a classic, I repeat. Certainly it is the only great American comic poem. The best of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Eugene Field, Wallace Irwin and Carolyn Wells; Bret Harte's "Truthful James", John T. Trowbridge's "Darius Green and His Flying Machine", William Allen Butler's "Nothing to Wear", Gelett Burgess' "The Purple Cow", all fall short of Thayer's poem. All are masterpieces of a kind, but Casey is a comic epic, the saga of baseball.