As I went marching, torn-socked, free, [_Steadily_] With my red heart marching all agog in front of me And my throbbing heels And my throbbing feet Making an impression on the Hoboken street [_With energy_] Then I saw a pear-tree, a fowl, a bird, And the worst sort of noise an Illinoiser ever heard! [_With surprise_] Banks--of--poets--round--that--tree-- _All_ of the Poetry Society but _me_! All a-cackle, addressed it as a grackle [_Chatteringly Showed me its hackle (that proved it was a fly) like parrots_] Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, [_Cooingly, yet Gosh, what a packed street! with impatience_] The Secretary, _President_ and TREASURER went by! "That's not a grackle," said I to all of him, Seething with their poetry, iron-tongued, grim, "_That's an English sparrow on that limb!_" And they all went home No more to roam. And I watched their unmade poetry raise up like foam [_Intemperately_] And I took my bandanna again on my stick [_With calm majesty_] And I walked to the grocery and took my pick And I bought crackers, canned shrimps, corn, [_With domesticity Codfish like flakes of snow at morn, for the moment_] Buns for breakfast and a fountain-pen Laid down change and marched out again And I walked through Hoboken, torn-socked, free, _With my red heart galumphing all agog in front of me!_ [Illustration] DIES ILLA: A BIRD OF A MASQUE Being a Collaboration by Percy Mackaye, Isabel Fiske Conant and Josephine Preston Peabody. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ THE GRACKLE (who does not appear at all) THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP THE SPIRIT OF MODERN POETRY CHORUS OF ELDERLY LADIES WHO APPRECIATE POETRY CHORUS OF CORRESPONDENCE, KINDERGARTEN, GRAMMAR, HIGH-SCHOOL AND COLLEGE CLASSES IN VERSE-WRITING CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN RUNNING POETRY MAGAZINES CHORUS OF POETRY CRITICS CHORUS OF ASSORTED CULTURE-HOUNDS THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR THE POETIC RENAISSANCE IN AMERICA THE NON-POETRY WRITING PUBLIC (COMPOSED OF TWO CITIZENS WHO HAVE NEVER LEARNED TO READ OR WRITE) SEMI-CHORUSES OF MAGAZINE EDITORS AND BOOK-PUBLISHERS ATÉ, GODDESS OF DISCORD THE MUSE TIME: _Next year._ PLACE: _Everywhere._ SCENE: _A level stretch of monotony._ THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP (_Entering despairingly_) Alas--in vain! Yet I have barred the way As best I might, that this great horror fall Not on the world. _Returned with many thanks_ _And not because of lack of merit,_ I Have said to twenty million poets ... nay ... Profane it not, that word ... to twenty million Persons who wasted stamps and typewriting And midnight oil, to add unto the world More Bunk.... In vain--in vain! (_She sinks down sobbing._)