Part 8 (1/2)

Not a flagstaff or a sentry, Not a wharf or port of entry,-- Only--to cut matters shorter-- Just a patch of muddy water In the open ocean lying, And a gull above it flying.

The Ballad of Mr. Cooke.

A Legend of the Cliff House, San Francisco.

Where the st.u.r.dy ocean breeze Drives the spray of roaring seas That the Cliff-House balconies Overlook:

There, in spite of rain that balked, With his sandals duly chalked, Once upon a tight-rope walked Mr. Cooke.

But the jester's lightsome mien, And his spangles and his sheen, All had vanished, when the scene He forsook;----

Yet in some delusive hope, In some vague desire to cope, One still came to view the rope Walked by Cooke.

Amid Beauty's bright array, On that strange eventful day, Partly hidden from the spray, In a nook,

Stood Florinda Vere de Vere; Who with wind-dishevelled hair, And a rapt, distracted air, Gazed on Cooke.

Then she turned, and quickly cried To her lover at her side, While her form with love and pride Wildly shook,

”Clifford Snook! oh, hear me now!

Here I break each plighted vow: There's but one to whom I bow, And that's Cooke!”

Haughtily that young man spoke: ”I descend from n.o.ble folk.

'Seven Oaks,' and then 'Se'nnoak,'

Lastly Snook,

Is the way my name I trace: Shall a youth of n.o.ble race In affairs of love give place To a Cooke?”

”Clifford Snook, I know thy claim To that lineage and name, And I think I've read the same In Horne Tooke;

But I swear, by all divine, Never, never to be thine, 'Till thou canst upon yon line Walk like Cooke.”

Though to that gymnastic feat He no closer might compete Than to strike a _balance_-sheet In a book;

Yet thenceforward, from that day, He his figure would display In some wild athletic way, After Cooke.

On some household eminence, On a clothes-line or a fence, Over ditches, drains, and thence O'er a brook,

He, by high ambition led, Ever walked and balanced; Till the people, wondering, said, ”How like Cooke!”

Step by step did he proceed, Nerved by valor, not by greed, And at last the crowning deed Undertook: