WILLIAM MARION REEDY
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e sits before you silent as Buddha,And then you sayThis man is Rabelais.And while you wonder what his stock is,English or Irish, you behold his eyesAs big and brown as those desirable crockiesWith which as boys we used to play.And then you see the spherical light that liesJust under the iris coloring,Before which everything,Becomes as plain as day. If you have noticed the rolling jowlsAnd the face that speaks its chiefDelight in beer and roast beefBefore you have seen his eyes, you seeA man of fleshly jollity,Like the friars of old in gowns and cowlsTo make a show of scowls.And when he speaks from an orotund depth that growlsIn a humorous way like Fielding or SmollettThat turns in a trice to Robert La FolletteOr retraces to Thales of Crete,And touches upon Descartes coming backThrough the intellectual ZodiacThat's something of a feat.And you see that the eyes are really the man,For the thought of him proliferatesThis way over to Hindostan,And that way descanting on Yeats.With a word on Plato's symposium,And a little glimpse of Theocritus,Or something of Bruno's martyrdom,Or what St. Thomas Aquinas meantBy a certain line obscure to us.And then he'll take up Horace's odesOr the Roman civilization;Or a few of the Iliad's episodes,Or the Greek deterioration.Or skip to a word on the plasmic jelly,Which Benjamin Moore and others thinkIs the origin of life. Then ShelleyComes in a for a look of understanding.Or he'll tell you about the orientationOf the ancient dream of Zion.Or what's the matter with Bryan.And while the porter is bringing a drinkSomething into his fancy skipsAnd he talks about the Apocalypse,Or a painter or writer now unknownIn France or Germany who will soonHave fame of him through the whole earth blown. It's not so hard a thing to be wiseIn the lore of books.It's a different thing to be all eyes,Like a lighthouse which revolves and looksOver the land and out to sea:And a lighthouse is what he seems to me!Sitting like Buddha spiritually cool,Young as the light of the sun is young,And taking the even with the oddAs a matter of course, and the path he's trodAs a path that was good enough.With a sort of transcendental senseWhose hatred is less than indifference,And a gift of wisdom in love.And who can say as he classifiesMen and ages with his eyesWith cool detachment: this is dung,And that poor fellow is just a fool.And say what you will death is a rod.But I see a light that shines and shinesAnd I rather think it's God.
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