 | Voices and visions |  |
106
A MILLIONAIRE'S FUNERAL
Stand with me here where these rich draperies fall,
Shadowing this alcoved orchid. We can mark
The costly and simple coffin, and the face
It holds, part visible, with waxen brow
And pale pinched nostrils, from the satined sides.
Shadowing this alcoved orchid. We can mark
The costly and simple coffin, and the face
It holds, part visible, with waxen brow
And pale pinched nostrils, from the satined sides.
This was a bad man. (Start not; I speak low.)
For years he clad his life in sordidness,
The idolater of gain. He played with chance
Like the coarse gambler, rattling random dice,
Brooding o'er slippery and fortuitous cards.
Yet loftier was he—grander, if you please—
Just as an arch-fiend might above his imps
Loom in sheer evil. Dice and cards to him
Were fluctuant millions, ever lost or won
In that gross bevy of gamesters not far off,
Our New York Wall Street. Rainbow-tinted dreams
Of some half-baby Aladdin might not cope
With his gold splendours of rank loot and luck.
Anarchy spawned him. The metropolis
Reeked, in his youth, with those vile fumes of fraud
Which mean the lingering fever-heats that fold
A nation while it wakes from war's hot trance.
He seized the occasion; judges had grown base
Barterers of justice; these he bribed with zeal.
The rulers of his land had flung in slime
Their sacred national trust, and these he lured
To infamies. His railroads poured their steam
With big vuluminous deceptive clouds
Into the people's eyes. Throngs watched him wear
The stolen insignia of philanthropy
And gaped, some reverent, some with covert scorn.
For years he clad his life in sordidness,
The idolater of gain. He played with chance
Like the coarse gambler, rattling random dice,
Brooding o'er slippery and fortuitous cards.
Yet loftier was he—grander, if you please—
Just as an arch-fiend might above his imps
Loom in sheer evil. Dice and cards to him
Were fluctuant millions, ever lost or won
In that gross bevy of gamesters not far off,
Our New York Wall Street. Rainbow-tinted dreams
Of some half-baby Aladdin might not cope
With his gold splendours of rank loot and luck.
Anarchy spawned him. The metropolis
Reeked, in his youth, with those vile fumes of fraud
Which mean the lingering fever-heats that fold
A nation while it wakes from war's hot trance.
107
Barterers of justice; these he bribed with zeal.
The rulers of his land had flung in slime
Their sacred national trust, and these he lured
To infamies. His railroads poured their steam
With big vuluminous deceptive clouds
Into the people's eyes. Throngs watched him wear
The stolen insignia of philanthropy
And gaped, some reverent, some with covert scorn.
This was a bad man. If America
Had more such insolent egotists as he,
Heaven save our proud republic! Their cold souls
Are ice whose chill would freeze all patriot warmth
Which pulsed, a century since, in our loved land.
Between himself and many an outcast doomed
To shorn head and guilt's flaring livery dwells
One difference: they were thieves begot of slums;
He was the statelier kind of thief that stole
Pictorially—a Claud Duval who drave
The pistol-muzzle of his brigandage
Into the vehicle-window of the State—
A fierce Dick Turpin of finance, who clothed
His crime in galliard swagger, tinged it red
With bluff romanticism. As ripe result,
You see the mass abhor one thief and lift
The other to that same bad eminence
Glorious dead Milton made his Satan scale.
Had more such insolent egotists as he,
Heaven save our proud republic! Their cold souls
Are ice whose chill would freeze all patriot warmth
Which pulsed, a century since, in our loved land.
Between himself and many an outcast doomed
To shorn head and guilt's flaring livery dwells
One difference: they were thieves begot of slums;
He was the statelier kind of thief that stole
Pictorially—a Claud Duval who drave
The pistol-muzzle of his brigandage
Into the vehicle-window of the State—
A fierce Dick Turpin of finance, who clothed
His crime in galliard swagger, tinged it red
With bluff romanticism. As ripe result,
You see the mass abhor one thief and lift
The other to that same bad eminence
Glorious dead Milton made his Satan scale.
Dare we to doubt the civic wrong he wrought?
Perchance the mob doubts, but the mob has gone
Sheep-like and plaintless for so many a year
Into the shambles of gross bigot faiths
Built for it by such despot slaughterers! ... Mark!
The clergyman comes now; draw back a step.
Ah, how incongruous that the saintly name
Of Christ should sound above this greed-racked flesh!
Still, charity is the noblest human trait;
Let us have mercy on him at this last hour;
Let us recall the age that moulded him;
Let us be mindful of heredity,
With all its deadly and subtle flows of force.
This railroad-wrecker, this corruptionist,
This bane of widow and orphan whose past tears
Have dropped so copious that if all were blent,
Their salt tides might have drowned him, this dacoit,
Revelling in cut-purse arrogance ... who knows
The mystic ante-natal trends that met
To make him what he was? A scorpion tempts
Our loathing, not our spleen; we shun it, packed
With venomous ill, nor think to blame the sting
It carries. That we accept, like destiny.
Perchance the mob doubts, but the mob has gone
108
Into the shambles of gross bigot faiths
Built for it by such despot slaughterers! ... Mark!
The clergyman comes now; draw back a step.
Ah, how incongruous that the saintly name
Of Christ should sound above this greed-racked flesh!
Still, charity is the noblest human trait;
Let us have mercy on him at this last hour;
Let us recall the age that moulded him;
Let us be mindful of heredity,
With all its deadly and subtle flows of force.
This railroad-wrecker, this corruptionist,
This bane of widow and orphan whose past tears
Have dropped so copious that if all were blent,
Their salt tides might have drowned him, this dacoit,
Revelling in cut-purse arrogance ... who knows
The mystic ante-natal trends that met
To make him what he was? A scorpion tempts
Our loathing, not our spleen; we shun it, packed
With venomous ill, nor think to blame the sting
It carries. That we accept, like destiny.
See yonder pale girl at the coffin's edge,
With bright hair brighter from her garb's black folds;
His only child. Of all his kith or kin
Alone she is left, too. Note her plaintive eyes
Brim with large tears, like over-plenteous dew
Burdening twin blooms. At least this delicate girl
Has loved him, and can weep that he is dead!
Perchance no life was ever lived in vain
If just one sentient human soul could grieve
Above its grave. ... And yet even Nero dead
(Save history blunders) knew such fate benign.
With bright hair brighter from her garb's black folds;
His only child. Of all his kith or kin
Alone she is left, too. Note her plaintive eyes
Brim with large tears, like over-plenteous dew
Burdening twin blooms. At least this delicate girl
Has loved him, and can weep that he is dead!
Perchance no life was ever lived in vain
If just one sentient human soul could grieve
109
(Save history blunders) knew such fate benign.
Well, better we should lapse not, you and I,
Into harsh dictatorial pessimisms.
They serve no end. We'll both stay merciful.
Come; the crowd parts; the coffin-lid has fallen:
Once more dust claims this towering plutocrat.
Into harsh dictatorial pessimisms.
They serve no end. We'll both stay merciful.
Come; the crowd parts; the coffin-lid has fallen:
Once more dust claims this towering plutocrat.
| Voices and visions | |