Sylvan Poor

Ten years have gone, ten years and more,
Since Sylvan sat beside my door,
Displaying with a fatal knack
The geegaws in his mental pack.
Ten years! Both he and they have gone —
Faster than his own tongue ran on.

He had a fawnlike cast of face
That made the preacher doubt his race
When he immersed him into grace —
The water dried and left no trace —
For doubt of Sylvan in him grew
Until he doubted all he knew.

He argued when he was half grown
That nothing could be surely known,
" And if it might be — well, what then? "
He argued with all kinds of men;
He even argued with the women,
A sin that never is forgiven.

He soaped the stairs that lead to Hades
By refutation of the ladies.
This gift of tongues, this talent Greek,
This spark struck out of Turtle Creek,
With it the flint and he the steel
To strike against the common weal,
Was first admired, then overrated;
Then used, abused; then feared, thus hated.

Neighbors, a few, condoned the scars
On tattered wings that beat the bars;
Honored the indomitable Festus
Who tried to kindle the asbestos,
But every Pennsylvania town
Has means of holding Sylvans down.

At Turtle Creek the wisest wights
Preimpted its riparian rights,
Making it safe from every motion
Of wave or tide in Sylvan's ocean,
Till nothing lacked but bell and candle
To sound alarm, and fire the scandal.

One step across the line called " wrong " ...
Sylvan would not be with us long.

Just what it was we never knew,
Unfortunate at worst — if true —
" Free love, " perhaps? The story grew,
Through Turtle Creek the rumor flew.
Frame houses quivered with excitement
Only increased by an indictment.

And at the trial all he had said
From boyhood gathered to a head
Of evidence which swept the jury
By perjured hearsay to a fury
That criticized for half a year
The judge who thought the case " not clear. "

We who remained to tend the looms,
For Sylvan went to make new brooms,
Wondered if they would sweep old floors
As clean as his new metaphors.
Then wonder died like sudden kindness
And Turtle Creek went on in blindness.

Poor Sylvan Poor, poor saint — poor sinner?
Poor Sylvan Poor ... let's go to dinner!