Beasts do, at any rate; especially Wild devils caged. They have the coolest way Of being something else than what you see: You pass a sleek young zebra nosing hay, A nylghau looking bored and distingué,--
And think you 've seen a donkey and a bird. Not on your life! Just glance back, if you dare. The zebra chews, the nylghau has n't stirred; But something 's happened, Heaven knows what or where, To freeze your scalp and pompadour your hair.
I 'm not precisely an æolian lute Hung in the wandering winds of sentiment, But drown me if the ugliest, meanest brute Grunting and fretting in that sultry tent Did n't just floor me with embarrassment!
'T was like a thunder-clap from out the clear, One minute they were circus beasts, some grand, Some ugly, some amusing, and some queer: Rival attractions to the hobo band, The flying jenny, and the peanut stand.
Next minute they were old hearth-mates of mine! Lost people, eyeing me with such a stare! Patient, satiric, devilish, divine; A gaze of hopeless envy, squalid care, Hatred, and thwarted love, and dim despair.
Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke,-- Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar Down ocean caves when behemoth awoke, Or through fern forests roared the plesiosaur Locked with the giant-bat in ghastly war.
And suddenly, as in a flash of light, I saw great Nature working out her plan; Through all her shapes from mastodon to mite Forever groping, testing, passing on To find at last the shape and soul of Man.
Till in the fullness of accomplished time, Comes brother Forepaugh, upon business bent, Tracks her through frozen and through torrid clime, And shows us, neatly labeled in a tent, The stages of her huge experiment;
Blabbing aloud her shy and reticent hours; Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods; Publishing fretful seasons when her powers Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes, Or when her mordant laughter shook the woods.
Here, round about me, were her vagrant births; Sick dreams she had, fierce projects she essayed; Her qualms, her fiery prides, her crazy mirths; The troublings of her spirit as she strayed, Cringed, gloated, mocked, was lordly, was afraid,
On that long road she went to seek mankind; Here were the darkling coverts that she beat To find the Hider she was sent to find; Here the distracted footprints of her feet Whereby her soul's Desire she came to greet.