The golden whales of California, and other rhymes in the American language

Chapter 34: DANCING FOR A PRIZE

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About This Book

The collection gathers lyrical and narrative poems that range from long, scene-setting pieces celebrating California's landscapes and the new art of the moving picture to playful rhymed scenarios and verse games. It interleaves meditations on history, myth, science, and religion with comic sketches and dialectal songs, moves into wartime reflections and elegies for fallen poets, and closes with local, Midwestern vignettes and personal tributes. The poet shifts between high-lyric description, satirical invective, and vernacular rhythms, experimenting with form and voice to present an uneven but energetic portrait of American life, technology, and regional identity in early twentieth-century verse.

DANCING FOR A PRIZE

Three fairies by the Sangamon

Were dancing for a prize.

The rascals were alike indeed

As they danced with drooping eyes.

I gave the magic acorn

To the one I loved the best,

The imp that made me think of her

My heart’s eternal guest,

My lady of the tea-rose, my lady far away,

Queen of the fleets of No-Man’s-Land

That sail to old Cathay.

How did the trifler hint of her?

Ah, when the dance was done

They begged me for the acorn,

Laughing every one.

Two had eyes of midnight,

And one had golden eyes,

And I gave the golden acorn

To the scamp with golden eyes.

Confessor Dandelion,

My priest so grey and wise

Whispered when I gave it

To the girl with golden eyes:

“She is like your Queen of Glory

On China’s holy strand

Who drove the coiling dragons

Like doves before her hand.”