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by Benjamin DeCasseres Copyright 1938 by Benjamin DeCasseres Dedicated to The Friends of Don Marquis Speed, I bid you, speed the earth Onward with a shout of mirth! --Don Marquis DON MARQUIS I There was a man in the land of America whose name was Don, and that man was upright and eschewed evil. Now there was a day when the Sons of Light came to present themselves before the Great Impresario of Spectacles, and Satan came also among them. And the Great Impresario said unto Satan: "Hast thou considered Don, that there is none like him, that he is an upright man, one that escheweth evil, one that is beloved of all men and who giveth to his last?" Satan then answered: "What wouldst thou with him, Sire?" And the Great Impresario said unto Satan: "Strip him of all he hath in the manner of Job". And Satan then was puzzled, for he knew no sin that Don had committed or why he should thus be in ill-favor with the Great Impresario. And so he asked: "But why must this be, Sir? Don is impregnable against all my wiles. Even I, the Supreme Tempter, honor him, knowing that he is sublime in his nature." Then the Great Impresario, turning his back on Satan, said: "Do as I bid thee! This man hath in him the unpardonable sin: a sense of humor touching things sacred and divine. Go and do!" And so that man Don, in the land of America, who was upright and eschewed evil and who was beloved of all men and who gave to his last, had his son taken from him, and then his wife, and then his daughter, and then he was stricken blind, and then he had his second wife taken from him, and then he was paralyzed, and then his speech was taken from him, and then his mind was darkened. and then he was paralyzed again--and thus, utterly helpless and stricken, his properties and moneys were drained from him, and he lay in great agony and weakness until the Great Impresario and his man Satan, seeing that no further evil could be done unto Don, who was upright, eschewed evil, who was beloved by all men and who gave to his last, sent his soul into the Valley of the Shadow. Again there was a day when the Sons of Light came to present themselves before the Great Impresario of Spectacles, and Satan came also among them, and with him came Don. And Satan said unto the Great Impresario: "Behold, Sire, I have brought before thee the man Don who was upright, who eschewed evil and who was beloved of all men and who gave to his last and who has been stripped of all things." And then Don spake unto the Great Impresario and said: "Sire, why didst thou do this things to me? I wronged no man in my lifetime and my heart was heavy with love and pity for all who suffered and my hand was ever ready to give. "But thou, laying on me one great disaster after another as of one who had offended thee overmuch, didst take from me my children, my wives, my sight, my mind, my limbs, my goods and nailed me to a mountain of torture and suffering as was done to Prometheus. Wherefore?" And the Great Impresario of Spectacles of a sudden great gray on his throne, and Satan shriveled up like a man of a thousand thousand years, and the heavens beyond and above and around were slowly flooded as with a silver light. And rising in the light, filling the heavens to the remotest angles of space, advancing in a gradually closing semicircle over the Great Impresario of Spectacles, came the Angels of Laughter, and they filled the heavens with more numbers than the stars. And as with one voice the heavens, the stars and the spaces were shaken with the Chant of the Angels of Laughter, and they then shouted: "Thou, Sire, hath stripped Don, who was upright, who eschewed evil, who was beloved of all men and who gave unto his last, of all but one thing, his sense of Humor, and that clothes him now in triple brass. "This man is saved, and is even now become one of us, for Laughter is the highest form of Thought and Love. "Thy kingdoms of Good and Evil, O Great Impresario of Spectacles, are at an end for this earth-freed spirit, for a greater thing hath been found by Don Marquis, the Kingdom of Cosmic Mirth, the Laughter that topples gods from their thrones, and against that nought shall prevail!" And Don the well-beloved, Don the sublime, Don the Poet, Don the Wit, Don who was stripped of all things in the manner of Job was lifted high into the Light by the healing Angels of Laughter, and his soul was carried into the Valhalla of Triumphant Mirth, where he shall reign as a shining spiritual presence while there still lives on Earth a single man or woman who knew DON MARQUIS. -- Benjamin DeCessares was a writer, author, poet, journalist, contemporary, and a friend of Don Marquis. |
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