Page:Waifs and Strays (1917).djvu/188
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE KNIGHT IN DISGUISE[1]
CONCERNING O. HENRY (SYDNEY PORTER)
IS THIS Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
This is that dubious hero of the press
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed and dozed, then roused and read again
And vowed O. Henry funniest of men.
He always worked a triple-hinged surprise
To end the scene and make one rub his eyes.
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
We laughed and dozed, then roused and read again
And vowed O. Henry funniest of men.
He always worked a triple-hinged surprise
To end the scene and make one rub his eyes.
He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer.
He comes with megaphone and specious cheer.
His troup, too fat or short or long or lean,
Step from the pages of the magazine
With slapstick or sombrero or with cane:
The rube, the cowboy, or the masher vain.
They overact each part. But at the height
He comes with megaphone and specious cheer.
His troup, too fat or short or long or lean,
Step from the pages of the magazine
With slapstick or sombrero or with cane:
The rube, the cowboy, or the masher vain.
They overact each part. But at the height
- ↑ This poem is reprinted with one or two slight changes which we make at the author’s request, from “General William Booth Enters into Heaven, and Other Poems,” by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, published in 1916 by the Macmillan Company.
170