William Marion Reedy

    He sits before you silent as Buddha,
    And then you say
    This man is Rabelais.
    And while you wonder what his stock is,
    English or Irish, you behold his eyes
    As big and brown as those desirable crockies
    With which as boys we used to play.
    And then you see the spherical light that lies
    Just under the iris coloring,
    Before which everything,
    Becomes as plain as day.

    If you have noticed the rolling jowls
    And the face that speaks its chief
    Delight in beer and roast beef
    Before you have seen his eyes, you see
    A man of fleshly jollity,
    Like the friars of old in gowns and cowls
    To make a show of scowls.
    And when he speaks from an orotund depth that growls
    In a humorous way like Fielding or Smollett
    That turns in a trice to Robert La Follette
    Or retraces to Thales of Crete,
    And touches upon Descartes coming back
    Through the intellectual Zodiac
    That's something of a feat.
    And you see that the eyes are really the man,
    For the thought of him proliferates
    This way over to Hindostan,
    And that way descanting on Yeats.
    With a word on Plato's symposium,
    And a little glimpse of Theocritus,
    Or something of Bruno's martyrdom,
    Or what St. Thomas Aquinas meant
    By a certain line obscure to us.
    And then he'll take up Horace's odes
    Or the Roman civilization;
    Or a few of the Iliad's episodes,
    Or the Greek deterioration.
    Or skip to a word on the plasmic jelly,
    Which Benjamin Moore and others think
    Is the origin of life. Then Shelley
    Comes in a for a look of understanding.
    Or he'll tell you about the orientation
    Of the ancient dream of Zion.
    Or what's the matter with Bryan.
    And while the porter is bringing a drink
    Something into his fancy skips
    And he talks about the Apocalypse,
    Or a painter or writer now unknown
    In France or Germany who will soon
    Have fame of him through the whole earth blown.

    It's not so hard a thing to be wise
    In the lore of books.
    It's a different thing to be all eyes,
    Like a lighthouse which revolves and looks
    Over the land and out to sea:
    And a lighthouse is what he seems to me!
    Sitting like Buddha spiritually cool,
    Young as the light of the sun is young,
    And taking the even with the odd
    As a matter of course, and the path he's trod
    As a path that was good enough.
    With a sort of transcendental sense
    Whose hatred is less than indifference,
    And a gift of wisdom in love.
    And who can say as he classifies
    Men and ages with his eyes
    With cool detachment: this is dung,
    And that poor fellow is just a fool.
    And say what you will death is a rod.
    But I see a light that shines and shines
    And I rather think it's God.