TWO POEMS

ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE

THE AMOEBA OF THE FUTURE

INCE the earliest dawn of history, O my attentive friends,

The human race has progressed steadily Downward.

Instead of being better than the Greeks, We are worse than the geodes.

We have all the vices and none of the simple virtues Of the orang-outang.

So I look back with a singular longing, With an awe that is envy,

To the prime estate from which we fell In such long, reverberant disaster;

My heart goes back to our great ancestor who was both father and mother to us—

My heart goes out to the sublime amoeba.

My friends, in the watches of the night Think of the amoeba;

Think of the sweet, the idyllic, the utterly saint-like Life of the amoeba we adore.

It never consumes itself with introspection,

Or attempts to make its neighbors righteous by legislation;

It organises no charities of cultureclubs, .

Nor does it institute elaborate organisations

To march out and kill its fellows.

The fear of hell is a conception of which It could never have been guilty.

And because it foresaw the possibility of the phrase "ruined woman"

It refrained from developing lips or a tongue.

Onward, comrades!

Onward to meet the amoeba of the future!

THE REJECTED LOVER

She said—"I cannot love you; no.

Here are three violets: take them: go."

She said—"I cannot love you; hence Here are three kisses for recompense."

She said—"I cannot love you: stay And hear me tell you, all the day."

And when night came, she whispered low—

"I love you not: why don't you go?"