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Title: The Island
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
You, my friend, in your long-tailed coat,
With your white cravat at your withered throat,
Praying by proxy of him you hire,
Worshiping God with a quartet choir,
Bumping your head on the pew in front,
Assenting "Amen!" with an unctuous grunt,
Are you sure it is you
In the pew?
Look!
You're away on a lonely isle,
Where the scant breech-clout is the only style,
Where the day of the week forgets its name,
Where god and devil are all the same.
Look at yourself in your careless clout,
And tell me, then, would you be devout?
One on the island, one in the pew--
How do you know which is you?
You, dear maiden, with eyes askance
At the little soubrette and her daring dance,
Thanking God that His ways are wide
To allow you to pass on the other side,
You, as you ask, "Will the world approve?"
At the hint of a wabble out of the groove,
Look!
On that isle of the lonely sea
Are you, the saucy soubrette and he.
And the little grooves that you circle in
Are forever as though they never had been.
Now you are naked of soul and limb:
Will you say what you will not dare--for him?
Which of the women is real?
The one you appear, or the one you feel?
You, good sir, with your neck a-stretch,
As the van goes by with the prison wretch,
Asking naught of his ills or hurts,
Judging "he's getting his just deserts,"
Pluming yourself that the moral laws
Are centred in you as effect and cause.
Look!
At the island, and there you are
With the long, strong arm which reaches far,
And there are the natives who kneel and bow,
And where are your meum et tuum now?
Are you sure that the balance swings quite true?
Or does it a little incline to you?
Answer or not as you will, but oh,
I have an island, too, and so
I know, I know.
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: Island
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