Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/52

Green leaf to yellow leaf—or chlorophyl
To xanthophyl, to be more scientific,—
So speed me one more stein. You may believe
That I'm a mendicant, but I am not:
For though it look to you that I go begging,
The truth is I go giving—giving all
My strength and all my personality,
My wisdom and experience—myself,
To make it final—for your preservation;
Though I be not the one thing or the other,
Though I strike between the sunset and the dawn,
Though I be cliff-rubbed wreckage on the shoals
Of Circumstance,—doubt not that I comprise,
With all of my disintegrated zeal,
Far more than my appearance. Here he comes;
Now drink to good old Pretzel! Drink down Pretzel!
Quousque tandem, Pretzel, and O Lord,
How long! But let regret go hang: the good
Die first, and of the poor did many cease
To be. Beethoven after Wordsworth. Prosit!
There were geniuses among the trilobites,
And I suspect that I was one of them.’

"How much of him was earnest and how much
Fantastic, I know not; nor do I need
Profounder knowledge to exonerate