  I wandered to-day in an institute, A wonderful palace of art, And this I can say in spirit and truth, It was a delight to my heart, To see how the masters of ages past Have found a place in this shrine, Till I came to a room, methinks ’twas the last, Which the Cubist’s contortions confine. A disgrace, I said, to allow in this place, What lunatic homes should adorn, An insult to art and the human race, Of spirits degenerate born, Of colors and lines and all, But then to myself I also did say: May be ’tis the age—and its soul. A wicked word it was this to say, As I left for the congested street, And followed the masses which made their way To a place where ten thousand did meet Three times a day, to be edified With burlesque, in Jesus name, And painfully in my soul it cried: “The Cubist again, just the same!” I glanced at a paper at hour of sleep, And found a whole page about bards, Who gained a renown by a single leap, With something which all art discards, Again I said: ’tis the Cubist’s age, A prophet is he after all, Of the church and the stage and the printed page, Of the age that has bartered its soul. |
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