AFTER HENLEY <br /> <br />Where are the wheezes they essayed <br />And where the smiles they made to flow? <br />Where's Caron's seltzer siphon laid, <br />A squirt from which laid Herbert low? <br />Where's Charlie Case's comic woe <br />And Georgie Cohan's nasal drawl? <br />The afterpiece? The olio? <br />Into the night go one and all. <br /> <br />Where are the japeries, fresh or frayed, <br />That Fields and Lewis used to throw? <br />Where is the horn that Shepherd played? <br />The slide trombone that Wood would blow? <br />Amelia Glover's l.f. toe? <br />The Rays and their domestic brawl? <br />Bert Williams with "Oh, I Don't Know?" <br />Into the night go one and all. <br /> <br />Where's Lizzy Raymond, peppy jade? <br />The braggart Lew, the simple Joe? <br />And where the Irish servant maid <br />That Jimmie Russel used to show? <br />Ben Harney's where? And Artie Hall? <br />Nash Walker, Darktown's grandest beau? <br />Into the night go one and all. <br /> <br />L'ENVOI <br /> <br />Prince, though our children laugh "Ho! Ho!" <br />At us who gleefully would fall <br />For acts that played the Long Ago, <br />Into the night go one and all.<br /><br />Franklin P. Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-of-ancient-acts/
