Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/383

All Life in a Life :And now this City was just what you'd find A city anywhere— A turmoil and a Vanity Fair, A sort of heaven and a sort of Tophet. There were so many leaders of his kind The city didn't care For one additional prophet. He said some extravagant things And planted a few stings Under the rich man's hide. And one of the sensational newspapers Gave him a line or two for cutting capers In front of the Palace of Justice and the Church. But all the first-grade people took the other side Of the street when they saw him coming, With a rag-tag crowd singing and humming, And curious boys and men up in a perch Of a tree or window taking the spectacle in, And the Corybantic din Of a Salvation Army, as it were, And whatever he dreamed when he lived in a little town The intelligent people ignored him, and this is the stir, And the only stir, he made in the city.


 * But there was a certain sinister

Fellow who came to him hearing of his renown And said, "You can be mayor of this city— We need a man like you for mayor." And others said, "You'd make a lawyer or a politician—