Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
PilgrimageEllwood Colahan
I
To Faure’s rotisserie somewhere up town.
He didn’t mention winds and worlds and stars,
But subjugated poetry to wine
And burnt up time and money in cigars.
But I, young I, saw but the quick hot coals
Purging their fiery passion on the grate.
I thought: Beloved gossiper of souls,
If only I could be insatiate
As you could be, and scourge you fiercely on—
Leaping from dawn to dawn,
Your unstopped pipes forever at your lips
In free, untrammeled quest!
And heard his laughter at some still-born jest,
And wondered if this were the great, strange child
Who dreamt our dreams for us who only slept;
If this were he who wept when others smiled
And, further visioned, smiled when others wept.
Then suddenly my pulses throbbed anew,
I could have howled for joy!—sure enough
He’d bent and scribbled something on his cuff!
The kind of soup, perhaps—but for myself
The toppling Joss was back upon its shelf!