THE BALLAD OF MR. COOKE

Where the sturdy 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-disheveled 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 noble folk;

‘ Seven Oaks,’ and then‘ Se'nnoak,’

Lastly‘ Snook,’

Is the way my name I trace.

Shall a youth of noble 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.

Misty was the midnight air,

And the cliff was bleak and bare,

When he came to do and dare,

Just like Cooke.

Through the darkness, o'er the flow,

Stretched the line where he should go,

Straight across as flies the crow

Or the rook.

One wild glance around he cast;

Then he faced the ocean blast,

And he strode the cable last

Touched by Cooke.

Vainly roared the angry seas,

Vainly blew the ocean breeze;

But, alas! the walker's knees

Had a crook;

And before he reached the rock

Did they both together knock,

And he stumbled with a shock —

Unlike Cooke!

Downward dropping in the dark,

Like an arrow to its mark,

Or a fish-pole when a shark

Bites the hook,

Dropped the pole he could not save,

Dropped the walker, and the wave

Swift engulfed the rival brave

Of J. Cooke!

Came a roar across the sea

Of sea-lions in their glee,

In a tongue remarkably

Like Chinook;

And the maddened sea-gull seemed

Still to utter, as he screamed,

“Perish thus the wretch who deemed

Himself Cooke!”

But on misty moonlit nights

Comes a skeleton in tights,

Walks once more the giddy heights

He mistook;

And unseen to mortal eyes,

Purged of grosser earthly ties,

Now at last in spirit guise

Outdoes Cooke.

Still the sturdy ocean breeze

Sweeps the spray of roaring seas,

Where the Cliff House balconies

Overlook;

And the maidens in their prime,

Reading of this mournful rhyme,

Weep where, in the olden time,

Walked J. Cooke.