The hillside's dew-pearled; it is the spring;

The tawny-throated lark is on the thorn;

Cod's in His heaven watching everything,

Even pneumatic ladies in this alien corn,

This hotel ballroom full of gilded chairs;

Even the madam president, who thrills

Visibly; even the poet, now downstairs

Checking his hat, thinking of unpaid bills.

He hopes, in what the English call the lift,

They pay him well, and hopes it with good cause.

He does not hope they catch his poetry's drift.

He enters, bows, and is aware they pause,

Murmur, and execute a final shift.

There falls a patter of polite applause.

"-into another world, a world of dreams,"

The president concludes, and so sits down

Beside him on the dais, and she beams.

Elsewhere reporters write, "A gray-furred gown

Distinguished Mrs. Earle. Blue hats were seen.

Resplendent in black broadcloth, Mrs. Hall

L

Accompanied her sister, who, in green,

Sat next to Mrs. Dexter, near the wall."

He clears his throat, rumples his raven hair,

And reads that clever poem, "A Modern Myth."

Like Browning," someone whispers, creaking a chair.

Browning, ah, yes-we studied him at Smith."

God's in His heaven; He can see them there,

And thinks which lightning He should smite them with.