He's played with Booth, He's shared applause with Jefferson, He's run the gamut of the soul Imparting substance to the shadow men Masters have fashioned with their quills And set upon the boards. Great men-of-iron were his favored roles, (Once he essayed Napoleon). And now, unknowing, he plays his greatest tragedy: Dressed in a garb to look like service clothes, Cheeks lit by fire--of make-up box, He marches with a squad of sallow youths And bare-kneed girls, Keeping step to tattoo of the drums Beat by some shapely maids in tights, While close by in the silent streets There march long files of purposed men Who go to death, perhaps, For the same cause he travesties Within the playhouse walls. BLUCH LANDOLF'S TALE When I was old enough to walk I rode a circus horse; My first teeth held me swinging from a high trapeze. About the age young men go out to colleges I trudged the sanded vasts of Northern Africa, Top-mounter in a nomad Arab tumbling troupe. I was Christian, that is white and Infidel, So old Abdullah took me in his tent And stripping off my white man's clothes Painted me with dye made from the chestnut hulls, Laughing the while about the potency of juice That would prove armour 'gainst some zealot's scimitar. Four camels made our caravan And these we also used for "props." When we played a Morocco town The chieftain met us at the hamlet's edge Asked of Abdullah what his mission there, Then let us enter He leading our caravan to the chieftain's hut, Where we sat upon the sand The thirty odd of us Surrounded by as many lesser chiefs. The hookah solemnly was passed around And then the hamlet chief would speak; "Stranger, why have you forsaken home And drawn believers after you, You bear no spices, oil, or woven cloth, No jewels nor any merchantry?" And then Abdullah: "True, Allah's precious son, We trade in naught men feed their bellies on But we have wares to thrill brave men, To make your youth see what use bodies are, To make your women blush That they have no such men." "What are these magic wares?" "Why we have here an Arab youth Who seems possessed of wings, Jumping three camels in a row." "So! In this very village there's a lad Who jumps four camels With half the wind it takes you, telling of your boy." Scoff followed boast and back again Until the chief arose, Saying to the lesser chiefs That they should call the local tribe To meet beside the caravanserai Before another sun went down To see if these vain wandering men Could do one half the deeds they boasted. So we met at sundown, Our brown men stripped Except for linen clouts. We tumbled, jumped, made human pyramids, And whirled as only Dervish whirl.