How Fair Cinderella Disposed Of Her Shoe
The vainest girls in forty states
Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates;
They warbled slightly off the air,
Romantic German songs,
And each of them upon her hair
Employed the curling tongs,
And each with ardor most intense
Her buxom figure laced,
Until her wilful want of sense
Procured a woeful waist:
For bound to marry titled mates
Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates.
Yet, truth to tell, the swains were few
Of Gwendolyn (and Gladys, too).
So morning, afternoon, and night
Upon their sister they
Were wont to vent their selfish spite,
And in the rudest way:
For though her name was Leonore,
That's neither there nor here,
They called her Cinderella, for
The kitchen was her sphere,
Save when the hair she had to do
Of Gwendolyn (and Gladys, too).
Each night to dances and to fetes
Went Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates,
And Cinderella watched them go
In silks and satins clad:
A prince invited them, and so
They put on all they had!
But one fine night, as all alone
She watched the flames leap higher,
A small and stooping fairy crone
Stept nimbly from the fire.
Said she: 'The pride upon me grates
Of Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates.'
'I'll now,' she added, with a frown,
'Call Gwendolyn and Gladys down!'
And, ere your fingers you could snap,
There stood before the door
No paltry hired horse and trap,
Oh, no! - a coach and four!
And Cinderella, fitted out
Regardless of expense,
Made both her sisters look about
Like thirty-seven cents!
The prince, with one look at her gown,
Turned Gwendolyn and Gladys down!
Wall-flowers, when thus compared with her,
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys were.
The prince but gave them glances hard,
No gracious word he said;
He scratched their names from off his card,
And wrote hers down instead:
And where he would bestow his hand
He showed them in a trice
By handing her the kisses, and
To each of them an ice!
In sudden need of fire and fur
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys were.
At ten o'clock, in discontent,
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys went.
Their sister stayed till after two,
And, with a joy sincere,
The prince obtained her crystal shoe
By way of souvenir.
'Upon the bridal path,' he cried,
'We'll reign together! Since
I love you, you must be my bride!'
(He was no slouch, that prince!)
And into sudden languishment
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys went.
The Moral: All the girls on earth
Exaggerate their proper worth.
They think the very shoes they wear
Are worth the average millionaire;
Whereas few pairs in any town
Can be half-sold for half a crown!
Phoebus Apollo
Hear us, Phoebus Apollo, who are shorn of contempt and pride,
Humbled and crushed in a world gone wrong since the smoke on thine altars died;
Hear us, Lord of the morning, King of the Eastern Flame,
Dawn on our doubts and darkness and the night of our later shame!
There are strange gods come among us, of passion, and scorn, and greed;
They are throned in our stately cities, our sons at their altars bleed:
The smoke of their thousand battles hath blinded thy children's eyes,
And our hearts are sick for a ruler that answers us not with lies,
Sick for thy light unblemished, great fruit of Latona's pain
Hear us, Phoebus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
Our eyes, of earth grown weary, through the backward ages peer,
Till, wooed by our eager craving, the scent of thy birth grows clear
And across the calm Ægean, gray-green in the early morn,
We hear the cry of the circling swans that salute the god new-born
The challenge of mighty Python, the song of thy shafts that go
Straight to the heart of the monster, sped from the loosened bow.
Again through the vale of Tempe a magical music rings
The songs of the marching muses, the ripple of fingered strings!
But this is our dreaming only; we wait for a stronger strain:
Hear us, Phoebus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
There are some among us, Diviner, who know not thy way or will,
Some of thy rebel children who bow to the strange gods still;
Some that dream of oppression, and many that dream of gold,
Whose ears are deaf to the music that gladdened the world of old.
But we, the few and the faithful, we are weary of wars unjust,
There is left no god of our thousand gods that we love, believe, or trust;
In our courts is justice scoffed at, in our senates gold has sway,
And the deeds of our priests and preachers make mock of the words they say!
Cardinals, kings, and captains, there is left none fit to reign:
Hear us, Phoebus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
We have hearkened to creeds unnumbered, we have given them trial and test,
And the creed of thy Delphic temple is still of them all the best;
Thy clean-limbed, lithe disciples, slender, and strong, and young,
The swing of their long processions, the lilt of the songs they sung,
Thine own majestic presence, pursuing the nymph of dawn,
In thy chariot eastward blazing, by the swans and griffons drawn;
The spell of thy liquid music, once heard in the speeding year:
These are the things, Great Archer, that we yearn to see and hear,
For beside thy creed untarnished all others are stale and vain!
Hear us, Phoebus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
Monarch of light and laughter, honor, and trust, and truth,
God of all inspiration, King of eternal youth,
Whose words are fitted to music as jewels are set in gold,
There is need of thy splendid worship in a world grown grim and old!
We have drunk the wine of the ages, we are come to the dregs and lees,
And the shrines are all unworthy where we bend reluctant knees;
The brand of the beast is on us, we grovel, and grope, and err,
Wake, Great god of the Morning, the moment has come to stir!
The stars of our night of evil on a wan horizon wane:
Hear us, Phoebus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
