In sordid substance I am but a sheet,
A fabric of some fireproof stuff. 
And yet, in every port where ships can ride,
In every nook where there is breath of life,
Intrepid men face death
To catch for me the fleeting phases of the world
Lest I lose some charming facet of my face. 
And all the masters of all time
Have thrummed their harps
And bowed their violins
To fashion melodies that might be played
The while I tell my tales. 
O you who hold the mirror up to nature,
Behold my cosmic scope: 
I am the mirror of the whirling globe.

BROADWAY—­NIGHT

I saw the rich in motor cars
Held in long lines
Until cross-streams of cars flowed by;
I saw young boys in service clothes
And flags flung out from tradesmen’s doors;
I saw some thousand drifting men
Some thousand aimless women;
I saw some thousand wearied eyes
That caught no sparkle from the myriad lights
Which blazoned everywhere;
I saw a man stop in his walk
To pet an old black cat.

MATINEE

They pass the window
Where I sit at work,
In silks and furs
And boots and hats
All of the latest mode. 
They chatter as they pass
Of various things
But hardly hear the words they speak
So tense are they
Upon a life they know begins for them
At 2:15.

Within the theatre
The air is pungent with the mixed perfumes,
More scents than ever blew from Araby. 
And there’s a rapid hum
Of some six hundred secrets;
Then sudden hush
As tongues and violins cease.

The play is on.

There is a hastening of the beat
Of some six hundred hearts. 
There’re twitches soon about the lips,
And later copious tears
From waiting eyes;
But all this time
There are six hundred separate souls
The playwright’s puppet has to woo,
To win, to humor, or to cajole,
Until, with master stroke
Of Devil knowledge,
Or old Adam’s,
He crushes in his manful arms
The languid heroine
And forcing back her golden head
Implants the kiss.

And then against his heaving breast
The hero feels the beatings of six hundred hearts
In mighty unison,
And on his lips there is the pulse
Of that one lingering kiss
Returned six-hundred fold.

PAVLOWA

I was working on The Daily News
When I first heard of her,
And from that time
Until the day she came to town
I longed to see her dance. 
The night the dancer and her ballet came
The Desk assigned me to my nightly run
Of hotels, clubs, and undertakers’ shops;
I was so green
I had not learned
The art of using telephones
To make it seem
That I was hot upon the trail of news
While loafing otherwhere. 
How could I do my trick
And also see her dance? 
So I left bread and butter flat,
To feast my eyes, which had been prairie-fed,
Upon this vision from another world.