Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

. A NIGHT'S WORK. slowly got to his feet. The huge girder was lying on the ground not two feet from him. Big Tim was sitting beside it with his left hand crushed and bleeding. His face was strangely white, but his eyes blazed more fiercely than ever. He was screaming at the men who at his com- mand were going reluctantly back to their furnaces. Billy could not shake off his terrible fear and antagonism, but he dragged himself slowly toward the man. He opened his lips to speak, but as he caught Tim’s glance his words faltered. For as he looked the blaze in Tim’s eyes faded, and Billy found himself looking straight into 6 U U SIX POETS GAZED 387 \ the man’s soul, grim and naked. It was \ not the soul of a brute, as he had thought, but a human soul struggling to break through the rocklike walls of its environ- ment and find companionship with its kind. There was such hunger and longing and ‘unutterable loneliness that the tears came to Billy’s eyes. He laid his hand on the giant’s shoul- der. ‘“Yow’re hurt, Tim,” he said, “and you saved my life.” Tim shrugged awkwardly as he strug- gled for words. ‘Twas nothin’,” he said, “for Sam White’s boy.” i U U UPON THE MOON Six poets gazed upon the moon, And each one saw a different thing; One saw a monarch’s wrinkled face, And one a perfect silver ring. And one beheld a castled land, Where everything was Arctic white, And one a tattered beggar man, Who wandered by a lantern’s light. Another limned a laughing girl, Who danced on whirling clouds of snow; Another traced a treasure ship, That rode with jeweled sails aglow. SIX poets gazed upon the moon, And each one saw a different thing; Six poets made six different songs, And each one soared on magic wing. Now what I want to know is this, When six good poets disagree, How can we common mortals tell If things are what they seem to be? Or is it best that each one sees As poets, things are not the same, For if the moon were just the moon, Then life would be a dreary game! Morris Abel Beer, « cCoMmicboOoks.€O