To a Discarded Mirror (original)

(scroll down to view reversed image)



Christopher Morley

To a Discarded Mirror (reversed)

Christopher Morley

To a Telephone Operator Who Has a Bad Cold

H'OW hoarse and husky in my ear

Your usually cheerful chirrup:

You have an awful cold, my dear--

Try aspirin or bronchial syrup.

When I put in a call to-day

Compassion stirred my humane blood red

To hear you faintly, sadly say

The number: Burray Hill dide hudred!

I felt (I say) quick sympathy

To hear you croak in the receiver--

Will you be sorry too for me

A month hence, when I have hay fever?

Christopher Morley

Nursery Rhymes for the Tender-Hearted

(Dedicated to Don Marquis)

SCUTTLE, scuttle, little roach--

How you run when I approach:

Up above the pantry shelf.

Hastening to secrete yourself.

Most adventurous of vermin,

How I wish I could determine

How you spend your hours of ease,

Perhaps reclining on the cheese.

Cook gas gone, and all is dark--

Then the kitchen is your park:

In the garbage heap that she leaves

Do you browse among the tea leaves?

How delightful to suspect

All the places you have trekked:

Does your long antenna whisk its

Gentle tip across the biscuits?

Do you linger, little soul,

Drowsing in out sugar bowl?

Or, abandonment most utter,

Shake a shimmy on the butter?

Do you chant your simple tunes

Swimming in the baby's prunes?

Then, when dawn comes, do you slink

Homeward to the kitchen sink?

Timid roach, why be so shy?

We are brothers, you and I.

In the midnight, like yourself,

I explore the pantry shelf!

Christopher Morley

The Last Sonnet

SUPPOSE one knew that never more might one

Put pen to sonnet, well loved task; that now

These fourteen lines were all that he could allow

To say his message, be forever done;

How he would scan the word, the line, the rhyme,

Intent to sum in dearly chosen phrase

The windy trees, the beauty of his days,

Life's pride and pathos in one verse sublime.

How bitter then would be regret and pang

For former rhymes he dallied to refine,

For every verse that was not crystalline. . . .

And if belike this last one feebly rang,

Honor and pride would cast it to the floor

Facing the judge with what was done before.

Christopher Morley

The Telephone Directory

NO Malory of old romance,

No Crusoe tale, it seems to me,

Can equal in rich circumstance

The telephone directory.

No ballad of fair ladies' eyes,

No legend of proud knights and dames,

Can fill me with such bright surmise

As this great book of numbered names!

How many hearts and lives unknown,

Rare damsels pining for a squire,

Are waiting for the telephone

To ring, and call them to the wire.

Some wait to hear a loved voice say

The news they will rejoice to know

At Rome 2637 J

Or Marathon 1450!

And some, perhaps, are stung with fear

And answer with reluctant tread

The message they expect to hear

Means life or death or daily bread.

A million hearts here wait our call,

All naked to our distant speech--

I wish that I could ring them all

And have some welcome news for each!

Christopher Morley

At a Movie Theatre

HOW well he spoke who coined the phrase

The Picture Palace! Aye, in sooth

A palace, where men's weary days

Are crowned with kingliness of youth.

Strange palace! Crowded, airless, dim,

Where toes are trod and strained eyes smart,

We watch a wand of brightness limn

The old heroics of the heart.

Romance again hath us in thrall

And Love is sweet and always true,

And in the darkness of the hall

Hands clasp -- as they were meant to do.

Remote from peevish joys and ills

Our souls, pro tem, are purged and free:

We see the sun on western hills,

The crumbling tumult of the sea.

We are the blond that maidens crave,

Well balanced at a dozen banks;

By sleight of hand we haste to save

A brown-eyed life, nor stay for thanks!

Alas, perhaps our instinct feels

Life is not all it might have been,

So we applaud fantastic reels

Of shadow, cast upon a screen!

Christopher Morley

Do You Ever Feel Like God?

ACROSS the court there rises the back wall

Of the Magna Carta Apartments.

The other evening the people in the apartment opposite

Had forgotten to draw their curtains.

I could see them dining: the well-blanched cloth,

The silver and glass, the crystal water jug,

The meat and vegetables; and their clean pink hands

Outstretched in busy gesture.

It was pleasant to watch them, they were so human;

So gay, innocent, unconscious of scrutiny.

They were four: an elderly couple,

A young man, and a girl -- with lovely shoulders

Mellow in the glow of the lamp.

They were sitting over coffee, and I could see their hands talking.

At last the older two left the room.

The boy and girl looked at each other. . . .

Like a flash they leaned and kissed.

Good old human race that keeps on multiplying!

A little later I went down the street to the movies,

And there I saw all four, laughing and joking together.

And as I watched them I felt like God--

Benevolent, all-knowing, and tender.

Christopher Morley

Rapid Transit

(To Stephen Vincent Benet)

CLIMBING is easy and swift on Parnassus!

Knocking my pipe out, I entered a book shop;

There found a book of verse by a young poet.

Comrades at once, how I saw his mind glowing!

Saw in his soul its magnificent rioting--

Then I ran with him on hills that were windy,

Basked and laughed with him on sun-dazzled beaches,

Glutted myself on his green and blue twilights,

Watched him disposing his planets in patterns,

Tumbling his colors and toys all before him.

I questioned life with him, his pulses my pulses;

Doubted his doubts too, and grieved for his anguishes.

Salted long kinship and knew him from boyhood--

Pulled out my own sun and stars from my knapsack,

Trying my trinkets with those of his finding--

And as I left the bookshop

My pipe was still warm in my hand.

Christopher Morley

The Intruder

AS I sat, to sift my dreaming

To the meet and needed word,

Came a merry Interruption,

With insistence to be heard

Smiling stood a maid beside me,

Half alluring and half shy;

Soft the white hint of her bosom--

Escapade was in her eye.

"I must not be so invaded,"

(In anger then I cried)--

"Can't you see that I am busy?

Tempting creature, stay outside!

"Pearly rascal, I am writing:

I am now composing verse--

Fie on antic invitation:

Wanton, vanish--fly--disperse!

"Baggage, in my godlike moment

What have I to do with thee?"

And she laughed as she departed--

"I am Poetry," said she.

Christopher Morley