George Joslin On La Menken Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Edgar Lee Masters

George Joslin On La Menken Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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Here Coroner Merival look at this picture	A
Whom does it look like Eyes too crystalline	B
A head like Byron's tender mouth and neck	C
Slender and white a pathos as of smiles	D
And tears kept back by courage Yes you know	E
It looks like Elenor Murray	F
	-
Well you see	F
I read each day about the inquest good	G
Dig out the truth begin a system here	H
Of making family records let us see	F
If we can do for people when we know	E
How best to do it what is done for stock	I
So build up Illinois the nation too	J
I read about you daily And last night	K
When Elenor Murray's picture in the Times	L
Looked at me I began to think Good Lord	M
Where have I seen that face before I thought	N
Through more than fifty years departed sent	O
My mind through Europe and America	P
In all my travels meetings episodes	Q
I could not think At last I opened up	R
A box of pamphlets photographs mementos	S
Picked up since and behold	T
I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken	U
Here is your Elenor Murray born again	V
As here might be your blackbird of this year	W
With spots of red upon his wings the same	X
As last year's blackbird like a pansy springing	Y
Out of the April of this year repeating	Y
The color form of one you saw last year	W
Repeating and the same but not the same	X
No two alike you know I'll come to that	Z
	-
Well then La Menken as a boy in Paris	A2
I saw La Menken I'll return to this	A2
But just as Elenor Murray has her life	B2
Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock	I
And everyone has something in his life	B2
Which takes him makes him is the image too	J
Of fate prefigured La Menken has Mazeppa	R
Her notable first part as actress emblem	C2
Of spirit character and of omen too	J
Of years to come the thrill of life the end	D2
	-
Who is La Menken Symbol of America	P
One phase of spirit She was venturesome	C2
Resourceful daring hopeful confident	E2
And as she wrote of self a vagabond	F2
A dweller in tents a reveler and a flame	X
Aspiring but disreputable coming up	R
With leaves that shamed her stalk could not be shed	G2
But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued	H2
In time of blossom There are souls you know	E
Who have shed shapeless immaturities	A2
Betrayals of the seed before the blossom	C2
Comes to proclaim a beauty a perfection	U
Or risen with their stalk until such leaves	A2
Were hidden in the grass or soil not she	F
Nor even your Elenor Murray as I read her	A
But being America and American	U
Brings good and bad together blossom and leaves	A2
With prodigal recklessness in vital health	I2
And unselective taste and vision mixed	J2
Of beauty and of truth	K2
	-
Who was La Menken	U
She's born in Louisiana in thirty five	L2
Left fatherless at seven mother takes her	A
And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans	A2
She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba	P
Then gives up dancing studies tragedy	F
And plays Bianca Fourteen years of age	M2
Weds Menken who's a Jew divorced from him	N2
Then falls in love with Heenan pugilist	O2
They quarrel and separate it's in this pamphlet	P2
Just as I tell you you can take it Coroner	A
Now something happens nothing in her birth	Q2
Or place of birth to prophesy her life	B2
Like Starved Rock to this Elenor being grown	R2
A hand instead is darted from the curtain	U
That hangs between to day to morrow sticks	A2
A symbol on her heart and whispers to her	A
You're this my woman Well the thing was this	A2
She played Mazeppa take your dummy off	S2
And lash me to the horse They were afraid	T2
But she prevailed was nearly killed the first night	K
And after that succeeded was the rage	M2
And for her years remaining found herself	U2
Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will	V2
Which ran and wandered till she knew herself	U2
With stronger will than vision passion stronger	A
Than spirit to judge the richness of the world	W2
Love beauty living greater than her power	A
And all the time she had the appetite	K
To eat devour it all Grown sick at last	X2
She diagnosed her case wrote to a friend	D2
The soul and body do not fit each other	A
A human spirit in a horse's flesh	Y2
This is your Elenor Murray in a way	Z2
But to return to pansies run your hand	A3
Over a bed of pansies here's a pansy	F
With petals stunted here's another one	U
All perfect but one petal here's another	A
Too streaked or mottled all are pansies though	E
And here is one full petaled strikes the eye	B3
With perfect color markings Elenor Murray	F
Has something of the color and the form	C3
Of this La Menken but is less a pansy	F
And Sappho Rachel Bernhardt are the flowers	A2
La Menken strove to be and could not be	F
Ended with being only of their kind	D3
And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray	F
And people wept when poor La Menken died	E3
Both lived and had their way I hate this pity	F
It makes you overlook there are two hours	A2
The hour of joy the hour of finding out	F3
Your joy was all mistake or led to pain	G3
We who inspect these lives behold the pain	G3
And see the error do not keep in mind	D3
The hour of rapture and the pride indeed	H3
With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens	A2
Have lived that hour elation pride and scorn	I3
For any other way this is the life	B2
I hear them say	A2
	-
Well now I go along	J3
La Menken fills her purse with gold she sends	A2
Her pugilist away tries once again	V
And weds a humorist an Orpheus Kerr	A
And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco	E
And Sacramento gathers in the eagles	A2
She goes to Europe then with husband No	E
James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage	K3
She lands in London takes a gorgeous suite	L3
In London's grandest hostlery entertains	A2
Charles Dickens Prince Baerto and Charles Read	G2
The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne Sand	A3
And Jenny Lind and has a liveried coachman	U
And for a crest a horse's head surmounting	Y
Four aces if you please And plays Mazeppa	R
And piles the money up	R
	-
Then next is Paris	A2
And there I saw her	A
When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece	A2
The Prince Imperial were in a box	A2
	-
She wandered to Vienna there was ill	V2
Came back to Paris died a stranger's grave	M3
In Pere la Chaise was given afterwards	A2
Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried got	N3
A little stone with these words carved upon it	O3
Thou Knowest meaning God knew while herself	U2
Knew nothing of herself	U2
	-
But when in Paris	A2
They sold her picture taken with her arms	A2
Around Dumas and photographs made up	R
Of postures ludicrous obscene as well	P3
Of her and great Dumas I have them home	Q3
Can show you sometime Well she loved Dumas	A2
Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens	A2
By his permission mark you don't you see	A2
Your Elenor Murray here This Elenor Murray	A2
A miniature imperfect of La Menken	U
She loved sensation all her senses thrilled her	A
A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh	Y2
A coquette quick of wit intuitive	R3
Kind generous unaffected mystical	S3
Teased by the divine in life and melancholy	A2
Of deep emotion sometimes One has said	G2
She had a nature spiritual religious	A2
Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle	S3
Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church	T3
And did not keep the faith if truth be told	T
	-
Now look here is a letter in this pamphlet	P2
La Menken writes a poet for she hunts	A2
For seers and for poets lofty souls	A2
And who does that A woman wholly bad	U3
Why no a woman to be given life	B2
Fit for her spirit in another realm	V3
By God who will take notice I believe	W3
Now listen if you will I know your soul	X3
It has met mine somewhere in starry space	A2
And you must often meet me vagabond	F2
Of fancy without aim a dweller in tents	A2
Disreputable before the just Just think	Y3
I am a linguist write some poems too	J
Can paint a little model clay as well	P3
And yet for all these gropings of my soul	X3
I am a vagabond of little use	A2
My body and my soul are in a scramble	S3
And do not fit each other let them carve	Z3
Those words upon my stone but also these	A2
Thou Knowest for God knows me knows I love	A4
Whatever is good and beautiful in life	B2
And that my soul has sought them without rest	B4
Farewell my friend my spirit is with you	J
Vienna is too horrible but know Paris	A2
Then die content	O
	-
Now Coroner Merival	S3
You're not the only man who wants to see	A2
Will work to make America a republic	C4
Of splendors freedoms happiness success	A2
Though I am seventy six cannot do much	D4
Save talk as I am talking now bring forth	E4
Proofs revelations from the years I've lived	F4
I care not how you view the lives of people	S3
As pansy beds or what not lift your faith	G4
So high above the pansy bed it sees	A2
The streaked and stunted pansies filling in	H4
The pattern that the perfect pansies outline	B
Therefore are smiling even indifferent	E2
To this poor conscious pansy dying at last	X2
Because it could not be the flower it wished	I4
My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken	U
Goes out in sorrow even while I know	E
They shook their leaves in April laughed and thrilled	J4
And either did not know or did not care	K4
The growing time was precious and if wasted	L4
Could never be regained Look at La Menken	U
At seven years put in the ballet corps	A2
And look at Elenor Murray getting smut	P2
Out of experience that made her wise	A2
What shall we do about it let it go	E
And say there is no help or say a republic	C4
Set up a hundred years ago raised to the helm	V3
Of rulership as president a list	O2
Of men more able than the emperors	A2
Kings rulers of the world and statesmen too	J
The equal of the greatest money makers	A2
And domineers of finance and economies	A2
Phenomenal in time say I repeat	L3
A country like this one must let its children	U
Waste as they wasted in the darker years	A2
Of Europe Shall we let these trivial minds	A2
Who see salvation progress in restraint	M4
Pre empt the field of moulding human life	B2
Or shall we take a hand and put our minds	A2
Upon the task as recently we built	N4
An army for the war equipped and fed it	O3
An army better than all other armies	A2
More powerful more apt of hand and brain	G3
Of thin tall youths who did stop but said	G2
Like poor La Menken strap me to the horse	A2
I'll do it if I die so giving to peace	A2
The skill and genius which we use in war	A2
Though it cost twenty billion and why not	N3
Why every dollar every drop of blood	L4
For war like this to guard democracy	A2
And not so much or more to build the land	A3
Improve our blood make individual	S3
America and her race And first to rout	F3
Poverty and disease give youth its chance	A2
And therapeutic guidance Soldier boys	A2
Have huts for recreation clergymen	H4
And is it more less worth to furnish hands	A2
Intimate hearts intimate for the use	A2
Of your La Menkens Elenor Murrays youths	A2
Who feel such vigor in their restless wings	A2
They tumble out of crowded nests and fly	S3
To fall in thickets dash themselves against	O4
Walls trees	A2
	-
I have a vision Coroner	A
Of a new Republic brighter than the sun	U
A new race loftier faith this land of ours	A2
Made over as to people boys and girls	A2
Conserved like forests water power or mines	A2
Watched tested put to best use keen economies	A2
Practiced in spirits waste of human life	B2
Hope aspiration talent virtues powers	A2
Avoided by a science science of life	B2
Of spirit what you will Enough of war	A2
And billions for the flag all well enough	P4
Some billions now to make democracy	A2
Democracy in truth with us and life	B2
Not helter skelter hitting as it may	A2
And missing much as this La Menken did	Q4
I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies	A2
That have no use but just to piece the pattern	R4
Let's try and if we try and fail why then	V
Our human duty ends the God in us	A2
Will have it just this way no other way	A2
And then we may accept so poor a world	W2
A republic so unfinished	I4
	-
	-
	-
Will Paget is another writer of letters	A2
To Coroner Merival The coroner	A
Spends evenings reading letters keeps a file	S3
Where he preserves them And the blasphemy	A2
Of Paget makes him laugh He has an evening	Y
And reads this letter to the jurymen	V