George Joslin On La Menken Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEF FGHFEIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW XYYWXZ A2A2B2IB2JRC2JD2 PC2E2F2XRG2H2EA2C2UA 2FAUA2I2J2K2 UL2AA2PFM2N2O2P2AQ2B 2R2UA2AA2S2T2KM2U2V2 U2AW2AKX2D2AY2Z2A3FU AEB3FC3FA2FD3FE3FA2F 3G3G3D3H3A2I3B2A2 J3A2VAEA2EK3L3A2G2A3 UYRR A2AA2A2 V2M3A2N3O3U2U2 A2A2RP3Q3A2A2A2A2UAY 2R3S3A2G2A2S3T3T P2A2A2U3B2V3W3X3A2F2 A2Y3JP3X3A2S3Z3A2A4B 2B4JA2O S3A2C4A2D4E4F4S3G4A2 H4BE2X2I4UEJ4K4L4UA2 P2A2EC4V3O2A2JA2A2L3 UA2A2M4B2A2N4O3A2G3G 2A2A2A2N3L4A2A3S3F3A 2A2H4A2A2A2A2S3O4A2 AUA2A2A2A2B2A2B2A2P4 A2B2A2Q4A2R4VA2A2W2I 4 A2AS3A2YVHere 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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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- | |
- | |
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 |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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