_ (Fothergil Finch, the Vers Libre Bard)
OH, the Beautiful Mud! I always leave it on
my boots. It is sacred to me. Because in
it are the souls of lilies!
The Hog should be a sacred beast. Hogs are
Beautiful! They are close to the Mire! Oh, to be
a Swine!
What is more eloquent than a Sneeze? The
Sneeze is the protest of the Free Spirit against the
Smug Citizen who never exposes himself to a cold.
Oh, Beautiful Sneezes! Oh, to make my life one
loud explosive Sneeze in the face of Conventionality!
What is so free, so untrammeled, so ungyved, so
unconventional, as an Influenza Germ? From
throat to throat it floats, full of the spirit of true
democratic brotherhood, making the masses equal
with the classes, careless, winged ungyved! Oh,
the Beautiful Germ! Oh, to be an Influenza Germ!
What is so naive as a Hiccough! Oh, to be ingenuous,
unspoiled, beautiful, barbaric! Oh, the
hiccoughs, the beautiful hiccoughs, the hiccoughs
of Art uttered against the hurricane of time.
Bugs are Beautiful! Oh, the beautiful, sleek
slithery bugs. Oh, to be a water-bug of poesy skipping
across the flood of oblivion! Oh, to be a Bug!
I went down to the waterfront where they sell
fish and there I saw a fisherman who had caught a
Dogfish, and he cursed, but I said to him, "Do not
curse the Dogfish! The Dogfish is Symbolical! The
Dogfish is beautiful! Beautiful!"
Oh, the lovely Garbage Scows! I went down the
bay, and there I saw them dump the Garbage Scows!
I said to the man who sailed my boat: "What does
the Garbage Scow MEAN to you?" He was a
Philistine; he was Bourgeois; he was Smug; he was
Conventional, and he said: "A Garbage Scow means a
Garbage Scow to me!" But I said to him: "You
are Academic; you are Conservative! Garbage
Scows are lovely Symbols! Oh, my Argosies of
Dream! Oh, my beautiful Garbage Scows! Some
day even the Philistines of Benighted America will
see the Spiritual Significance of the Lovely Garbage
Scow!"
I found a Glue Factory, a Free Untrammeled
Glue Factory! I was expressing itself. It was
asserting its individuality. It was saying to the
Blind Complacent Pillars of Polite Society: "My
aroma is not your aroma, but my aroma is my
own!" Oh, the Courageous Glue Factory, the Free,
Unfettered Glue Factory! A thousand Glue Factories,
from Main to Oregon, are thus rebuking Class
Prejudice and Bourgeois Smugness. Like
Poets, like Prophets of the New Art, they stand,
Glue Factory after Glue Factory, expressing their
Egos, Being Themselves, undaunted, unshackled,
strong, independent, virile! Oh, to be the Poet of
the Super Glue Factory!
With violets in my hands I wandered to the
wilds, and there I met a Buzzard. He was Being
Himself! I wove a wreath of the violets and I
crowned the Buzzard, and the Buzzard said, "Why
do you crown me?" And I said, "Oh, Lovely Buzzard,
are you not Being Yourself? Are you not
rebuking the Trivial Conventionalities of our Organized
Society? I know your Dream, O Buzzard!
Accept this Crown of Violets from our little
group!"
Come with me to the zoo, and I will bare our
Souls to the Hyena, and the Hyena will commune
with us, and we will know the meaning of Life!
Oh, the lovely Hyena. _