Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/53

The squalor or the folly of a man
Than a consciousness—though even the crude laugh
Of indigent Priapus follow it—
That I get good of him. The poet made
Six golden sonnets. Well, Count Pretzel made
No golden sort of product I remember
Except a shield of wisdom for the mind
Of Captain Craig—whatever you may think
Of him or of his armor. If you like him,
Then some time in the future, past a doubt,
You will have him in a book, make metres of him,—
To the great delight of Mr. Killigrew,
And the grief of all your kinsmen. Christian shame
And self-confuted Orientalism
For the more sagacious of them; vulture-tracks
Of my Promethean bile for the rest of them;
And that will be a joke. There's nothing quite
So funny as a joke that's lost on earth
And laughed at by the gods. Your devil knows it.

"I come to like your Mr. Killigrew,
And I rejoice that you speak well of him.
The sprouts of human blossoming are in him,
And useful eyes—if he will open them;