Then there came rushing to the shock of war Mr. McNicoll of the C. P. R. He wore suspenders and about his throat High rose the collar of a sealskin coat. He had on gaiters and he wore a tie, He had his trousers buttoned good and high; About his waist a woollen undervest Bought from a sad-eyed farmer of the West. (And every time he clips a sheep he sees Some bloated plutocrat who ought to freeze.) Thus in the Stock Exchange he burst to view, Leaped to the post, and shouted, “Ninety-two!”
There! That’s Homer, the real thing! Just exactly as it sounded to the rude crowd of Greek peasants who sat in a ring and guffawed at the rhymes and watched the minstrel stamp it out into “feet” as he recited it!
Let me take another example, this time from the so-called Catalogue of the Ships, which fills up nearly an entire book of Homer. This famous passage names all the ships, one by one, and names the chiefs who sailed on them, and names the particular town, or hill, or valley that each came from. It has been much admired. It has that same majesty of style that has been brought to an even loftier pitch in the New York Business Directory and the City Telephone Book. It runs along, as I recall it, something after this fashion:
And first indeed oh, yes, was the ship of Homistogetes, the Spartan, long and swift, having both its masts covered with cowhide and two banks of oars. And he, Homistogetes, was born of Hermogenes and Ophthalmia, and was at home in Syncope beside the fast-flowing Paresis. And after him came the ship of Preposterus, the Eurasian, son of Oasis and Hysteria,
Instead of this I substitute, with the permission of the New York Central Railway, a more modern example, the official catalogue of their locomotives, taken almost word for word from the list compiled by their Chief Superintendent of Rolling Stock and rendered into Homeric verse. I admit that he wrote it in hot weather.
Out in the yard and steaming in the sun Stands locomotive engine number forty-one; Seated beside the windows of its cab Are Pat McGraw and Peter James McNab. Pat comes from Troy and Peter from Cohoes, And when they pull the throttle, off she goes; And as she vanishes there comes to view Steam locomotive engine number forty-two. Observe her mighty wheels, her easy roll, With William J. McArthur in control. They say her engineer some time ago Lived on a farm outside of Buffalo, Whereas her fireman, Henry Edward Foy, Attended school in Springfield, Illinois. Thus does the race of men decay and rot-- SOME MEN CAN HOLD THEIR JOBS AND SOME CAN NOT.