Shapes of Clay

TOM JONESMITH (loquitur): I've slept right through

The night—a rather clever thing to do.

How soundly women sleep (looks at his wife.)

They're all alike. The sweetest thing in life

Is woman when she lies with folded tongue,

Its toil completed and its day-song sung.

(Thump) That's the morning paper. What a bore

That it should be delivered at the door.

There ought to be some expeditious way

To get it to one. By this long delay

The fizz gets off the news (a rap is heard).

That's Jane, the housemaid; she's an early bird;

She's brought it to the bedroom door, good soul.

(Gets up and takes it in.) Upon the whole

The system's not so bad a one. What's here?

Gad, if they've not got after—listen dear

(To sleeping wife)—young Gastrotheos! Well,

If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell

She'll shriek again—with laughter—seeing how

They treated Gast. with her. Yet I'll allow

'T is right if he goes dining at The Pup

With Mrs. Thing.

WIFE (briskly, waking up):

With her? The hussy! Yes, it serves him right.

JONESMITH (continuing to "seek the light"):

What's this about old Impycu? That's good!

Grip—that's the funny man—says Impy should

Be used as a decoy in shooting tramps.

I knew old Impy when he had the "stamps"

To buy us all out, and he wasn't then

So bad a chap to have about. Grip's pen

Is just a tickler!—and the world, no doubt,

Is better with it than it was without.

What? thirteen ladies—Jumping Jove! we know

Them nearly all!—who gamble at a low

And very shocking game of cards called "draw"!

O cracky, how they'll squirm! ha-ha! haw-haw!

Let's see what else (wife snores). Well, I'll be blest!

A woman doesn't understand a jest.

Hello! What, what? the scurvy wretch proceeds

To take a fling at me, condemn him! (reads):

Tom Jonesmith—my name's Thomas, vulgar cad!—Of

the new Shavings Bank—the man's gone mad!

That's libelous; I'll have him up for that—Has

had his corns cut. Devil take the rat!

What business is 't of his, I'd like to know?

He didn't have to cut them. Gods! what low

And scurril things our papers have become!

You skim their contents and you get but scum.

Here, Mary, (waking wife) I've been attacked

In this vile sheet. By Jove, it is a fact!

WIFE (reading it): How wicked! Who do you

Suppose 't was wrote it?

JONESMITH: Who? why, who

But Grip, the so-called funny man—he wrote

Me up because I'd not discount his note.

(Blushes like sunset at the hideous lie—

He'll think of one that's better by and by—

Throws down the paper on the floor, and treads

A lively measure on it—kicks the shreds

And patches all about the room, and still

Performs his jig with unabated will.)

WIFE (warbling sweetly, like an Elfland horn):

Dear, do be careful of that second corn.

STANLEY.

Noting some great man's composition vile:

A head of wisdom and a heart of guile,

A will to conquer and a soul to dare,

Joined to the manners of a dancing bear,

Fools unaccustomed to the wide survey

Of various Nature's compensating sway,

Untaught to separate the wheat and chaff,

To praise the one and at the other laugh,

Yearn all in vain and impotently seek

Some flawless hero upon whom to wreak

The sycophantic worship of the weak.

Not so the wise, from superstition free,

Who find small pleasure in the bended knee;

Quick to discriminate 'twixt good and bad,

And willing in the king to find the cad—

No reason seen why genius and conceit,

The power to dazzle and the will to cheat,

The love of daring and the love of gin,

Should not dwell, peaceful, in a single skin.

To such, great Stanley, you're a hero still,

Despite your cradling in a tub for swill.

Your peasant manners can't efface the mark

Of light you drew across the Land of Dark.

In you the extremes of character are wed,

To serve the quick and villify the dead.

Hero and clown! O, man of many sides,

The Muse of Truth adores you and derides,

And sheds, impartial, the revealing ray

Upon your head of gold and feet of clay.