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TOWARD THE GULF
By Edgar Lee Masters
CONTENTS
TOWARD THE GULF THE LAKE BOATS CITIES OF THE PLAIN EXCLUDED MIDDLE SAMUEL BUTLER, ET AL JOHNNY APPLESEED THE LOOM DIALOGUE AT PERKO'S SIR GALAHAD ST. DESERET HEAVEN IS BUT THE HOUR VICTOR RAFOLSKI ON ART THE LANDSCAPE TO-MORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY SWEET CLOVER SOMETHING BEYOND THE HILL FRONT THE AGES WITH A SMILE POOR PIERROT MIRAGE OF THE DESERT DAHLIAS THE GRAND RIVER MARSHES DELILAH THE WORLD-SAVER RECESSIONAL THE AWAKENING IN THE GARDEN AT THE DAWN HOUR FRANCE BERTRAND AND GOURGAUD TALK OVER OLD TIMES DRAW THE SWORD, O REPUBLIC DEAR OLD DICK THE ROOM OF MIRRORS THE LETTER CANTICLE OF THE RACE BLACK EAGLE RETURNS TO ST. JOE MY LIGHT WITH YOURS THE BLIND "I PAY MY DEBT FOR LAFAYETTE AND ROCHAMBEAU" CHRISTMAS AT INDIAN POINT WIDOW LA RUE DR. SCUDDER'S CLINICAL LECTURE FRIAR YVES THE EIGHTH CRUSADE THE BISHOP'S DREAM OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE NEANDERTHAL THE END OF THE SEARCH BOTANICAL GARDENS
TO WILLIAM MARION REEDY
It would have been fitting had I dedicated Spoon River Anthology to you. Considerations of an intimate nature, not to mention a literary encouragement which was before yours, crowded you from the page. Yet you know that it was you who pressed upon my attention in June, 1909, the Greek Anthology. It was from contemplation of its epitaphs that my hand unconsciously strayed to the sketches of "Hod Putt," "Serepta The Scold" ("Serepta Mason" in the book), "Amanda Barker" ("Amanda" in the book), "Ollie McGee" and "The Unknown," the first written and the first printed sketches of The Spoon River Anthology. The _Mirror_ of May 29th, 1914, is their record.
I take one of the epigrams of Meleager with its sad revealment and touch of irony and turn it from its prose form to a verse form, making verses according to the breath pauses:
"The holy night and thou, O Lamp, we took as witness of our vows; and before thee we swore, he that would love me always and I that I would never leave him. We swore, and thou wert witness of our double promise. But now he says that our vows were written on the running waters. And thou, O Lamp, thou seest him in the arms of another."
In verse this epigram is as follows:
The holy night and thou, O Lamp, We took as witness of our vows; And before thee we swore, He that would love me always And I that I would never leave him. We swore, And thou wert witness of our double promise. But now he says that our vows were written on the running waters. And thou, O Lamp, Thou seest him in the arms of another.
It will be observed that iambic feet prevail in this translation. They merely become noticeable and imperative when arranged in verses. But so it is, even in the briefest and starkest rendering of these epigrams from the Greek the humanism and dignity of the original transfer themselves, making something, if less than verse, yet more than prose; as Byron said of Sheridan's speeches, neither poetry nor oratory, but better than either. It was no difficult matter to pass from Chase Henry:
"In life I was the town drunkard. When I died the priest denied me burial In holy ground, etc."
to the use of standard measures, or rhythmical arrangements of iambics or what not, and so to make a book, which for the first third required a practiced voice or eye to yield the semblance of verse; and for the last two-thirds, or nearly so, accommodated itself to the less sensitive conception of the average reader. The prosody was allowed to take care of itself under the emotional requirements and inspiration of the moment. But there is nothing new in English literature for some hundreds of years in combinations of dactyls, anapests or trochees, and without rhyme. Nor did I discover to the world that an iambic pentameter can be lopped to a tetrameter without the verse ceasing to be an iambic; though it be no longer the blank verse which has so ennobled English poetry. A great deal of unrhymed poetry is yet to be written in the various standard rhythms and in carefully fashioned metres.
But obviously a formal resuscitation of the Greek epigrams, ironical and tender, satirical and sympathetic, as casual experiments in unrelated themes would scarcely make the same appeal that an epic rendition of modern life would do, and as it turned out actually achieved.
The response of the American press to Spoon River Anthology during the summer of 1914 while it was appearing in the _Mirror_ is my warrant for saying this. It was quoted and parodied during that time in the country and in the metropolitan newspapers. _Current Opinion_ in its issue of September, 1914, reproduced from the _Mirror_ some of the poems. Though at this time the schematic effect of the Anthology could not be measured, Edward J. Wheeler, that devoted patron of the art and discriminating critic of its manifestations, was attracted, I venture to say, by the substance of "Griffy, The Cooper," for that is one of the poems from the Anthology which he set forth in his column "The Voice of Living Poets" in the issue referred to. _Poetry, A Magazine of Verse_, followed in its issue of October, 1914, with a reprinting from the _Mirror_. In a word, the Anthology went the rounds over the country before it was issued in book form. And a reception was thus prepared for the complete work not often falling to the lot of a literary production. I must not omit an expression of my gratitude for the very high praise which John Cowper Powys bestowed on the Anthology just before it appeared in book form and the publicity which was given his lecture by the _New York Times_. Nathan Haskell Dole printed an article in the Boston _Transcript_ of June 30, 1915, in which he contrasted the work with the Greek Anthology, pointing in particular to certain epitaphs by Carphylides, Kallaischros and Pollianos. The critical testimony of Miss Harriet Monroe in her editorial comments and in her preface to "The New Poetry" has greatly strengthened the judgment of to-day against a reversal at the hands of a later criticism.
This response to the Anthology while it was appearing in the _Mirror_ and afterwards when put in the book was to nothing so much as to the substance. It was accepted as a picture of our life in America. It was interpreted as a transcript of the state of mind of men and women here and elsewhere. You called it a Comedy Humaine in your announcement of my identity as the author in the _Mirror_ of November 20, 1914. If the epitaphic form gave added novelty I must confess that the idea was suggested to me by the Greek Anthology. But it was rather because of the Greek Anthology than from it that I evolved the less harmonious epitaphs with which Spoon River Anthology was commenced. As to metrical epitaphs it is needless to say that I drew upon the legitimate materials of authentic English versification. Up to the Spring of 1914, I had never allowed a Spring to pass without reading Homer; and I feel that this familiarity had its influence both as to form and spirit; but I shall not take the space now to pursue this line of confessional.
What is the substance of which I have spoken if it be not the life around us as we view it through eyes whose vision lies in heredity, mode of life, understanding of ourselves and of our place and time? You have lived much. As a critic and a student of the country no one understands America better than you do. As a denizen of the west, but as a surveyor of the east and west you have brought to the country's interpretation a knowledge of its political and literary life as well as a proficiency in the history of other lands and other times. You have seen and watched the unfolding of forces that sprang up after the Civil War. Those forces mounted in the eighties and exploded in free silver in 1896. They began to hit through the directed marksmanship of Theodore Roosevelt during his second term. You knew at first hand all that went with these forces of human hope, futile or valiant endeavor, articulate or inarticulate expression of the new birth. You saw and lived, but in greater degree, what I have seen and lived. And with this back-ground you inspired and instructed me in my analysis. Standing by you confirmed or corrected my sculpturing of the clay taken out of the soil from which we both came. You did this with an eye familiar with the secrets of the last twenty years, familiar also with the relation of those years to the time which preceded and bore them.
So it is, that not only because I could not dedicate Spoon River to you, but for the larger reasons indicated, am I impelled to do you whatever honor there may be in taking your name for this book. By this outline confession, sometime perhaps to be filled in, do I make known what your relation is to these interpretations of mine resulting from a spirit, life, thought, environment which have similarly come to us and have similarly affected us.
I call this book "Toward the Gulf," a title importing a continuation of the attempts of Spoon River and The Great Valley to mirror the age and the country in which we live. It does not matter which one of these books carries your name and makes these acknowledgments; so far, anyway, as the opportunity is concerned for expressing my appreciation of your friendship and the great esteem and affectionate interest in which I hold you.
EDGAR LEE MASTERS.
The following poems were first printed in the publications indicated:
Toward the Gulf, The Lake Boats, The Loom, Tomorrow is my Birthday, Dear Old Dick, The Letter, My Light with Yours, Widow LaRue, Neanderthal, in Reedy's Mirror.
Draw the Sword, Oh Republic, in the Independent.
Canticle of the Race, in Poetry, a Magazine of Verse.
Friar Yves, in the Cosmopolitan Magazine.
"I pay my debt for Lafayette and Rochambeau," in Fashions of the Hour.
TOWARD THE GULF
_Dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt_
From the Cordilleran Highlands, From the Height of Land Far north. From the Lake of the Woods, From Rainy Lake, From Itasca's springs. From the snow and the ice Of the mountains, Breathed on by the sun, And given life, Awakened by kisses of fire, Moving, gliding as brightest hyaline Down the cliffs, Down the hills, Over the stones. Trickling as rills; Swiftly running as mountain brooks; Swirling through runnels of rock; Curving in spheréd silence Around the long worn walls of granite gorges; Storming through chasms; And flowing for miles in quiet over the Titan basin To the muddled waters of the mighty river, Himself obeying the call of the gulf, And the unfathomed urge of the sea!
* * * * *
Waters of mountain peaks, Spirits of liberty Leaving your pure retreats For work in the world. Soiling your crystal springs With the waste that is whirled to your breast as you run, Until you are foul as the crawling leviathan That devours you, And uses you to carry waste and earth For the making of land at the gulf, For the conquest of land for the feet of men.
* * * * *
De Soto, Marquette and La Salle Planting your cross in vain, Gaining neither gold nor ivory, Nor tribute For France or Spain. Making land alone For liberty! You could proclaim in the name of the cross The dominion of kings over a world that was new. But the river has altered its course: There are fertile fields For a thousand miles where the river flowed that you knew. And there are liberty and democracy For thousands of miles Where in the name of kings, and for the cross You tramped the tangles for treasure.
* * * * *
The Falls of St. Anthony tumble the waters In laughter and tumult and roaring of voices, Swirling, dancing, leaping, foaming, Spirits of caverns, of canyons and gorges: Waters tinctured by star-lights, sweetened by breezes Blown over snows, out of the rosy northlands, Through forests of pine and hemlock, Whisperings of the Pacific grown symphonic. Voices of freedom, restless, unconquered, Mad with divinity, fearless and free:-- Hunters and choppers, warriors, revelers, Laughers, dancers, fiddlers, freemen, Climbing the crests of the Alleghenies, Singing, chopping, hunting, fighting Erupting into Kentucky and Tennessee, Into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Sweeping away the waste of the Indians, As the river carries mud for the making of land. And taking the land of Illinois from kings And handing its allegiance to the Republic. What riflemen with Daniel Boone for leader, And conquerors with Clark for captain Plunge down like melted snows The rocks and chasms of forbidden mountains, And make more land for freemen! Clear-eyed, hard-muscled, dauntless hunters, Choppers of forests and tillers of fields Meet at last in a field of snow-white clover To make wise laws for states, And to teach their sons of the new West That suffrage is the right of freemen. Until the lion of Tennessee, Who crushes king-craft near the gulf. Where La Salle proclaimed the crown, And the cross, Is made the ruler of the republic By freeman suffragans, And winners of the West!
* * * * *
Father of Waters! Ever recurring symbol of wider freedom, Even to the ocean girdled earth, The out-worn rule of Florida rots your domain. But the lion of Tennessee asks: Would you take from Spain The land she has lost but in name? It shall be done in a month if you loose my sword. It was done as he said. And the sick and drunken power of Spain that clung, And sucked at the life of Chile, Peru, Argentina, Loosened under the blows of San Martin and Bolivar, Breathing the lightning thrown by Napoleon the Great On the thrones of Europe. Father of Waters! 'twas you who made us say: No kings this side of the earth forever! One-half of the earth shall be free By our word and the might that is back of our word!
* * * * *
The falls of St. Anthony tumble the waters In laughter and tumult and roaring of voices! And the river moves in its winding channel toward the gulf, Over the breast of De Soto, By the swamp grave of La Salle! The old days sleep, the lion of Tennessee sleeps With Daniel Boone and the hunters, The rifle men, the revelers, The laughers and dancers and choppers Who climbed the crests of the Alleghenies, And poured themselves into Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, the bountiful West. But the river never sleeps, the river flows forever, Making land forever, reclaiming the wastes of the sea. And the race never sleeps, the race moves on forever. And wars must come, as the waters must sweep away Drift-wood, dead wood, choking the strength of the river-- For Liberty never sleeps!
* * * * *
The lion of Tennessee sleeps! And over the graves of the hunters and choppers The tramp of troops is heard! There is war again, O, Father of Waters! There is war, O, symbol of freedom! They have chained your giant strength for the cause Of trade in men. But a man of the West, a denizen of your shore, Wholly American, Compact, clear-eyed, nerved like a hunter, Who knew no faster beat of the heart, Except in charity, forgiveness, peace; Generous, plain, democratic, Scarcely appraising himself at full, A spiritual rifleman and chopper, Of the breed of Daniel Boone-- This man, your child, O, Father of Waters, Waked from the winter sleep of a useless day By the rising sun of a Freedom bright and strong, Slipped like the loosened snows of your mountain streams Into a channel of fate as sure as your own-- A fate which said: till the thing be done Turn not back nor stop. Ulysses of the great Atlantis, Wholly American, Patient, silent, tireless, watchful, undismayed Grant at Fort Donelson, Grant at Vicksburg, Leading the sons of choppers and riflemen, Pushing on as the hunters and farmers Poured from the mountains into the West, Freed you, Father of Waters, To flow to the Gulf and be one With the earth-engirdled tides of time. And gave us states made ready for the hands Wholly American: Hunters, choppers, tillers, fighters For epochs vast and new In Truth, in Liberty, Posters from land to land and sea to sea Till all the earth be free!
* * * * *
Ulysses of the great Atlantis, Dream not of disaster, Sleep the sleep of the brave In your couch afar from the Father of Waters! A new Ulysses arises, Who turns not back, nor stops Till the thing is done. He cuts with one stroke of the sword The stubborn neck that keeps the Gulf And the Caribbean From the luring Pacific. Roosevelt the hunter, the pioneer, Wholly American, Winner of greater wests Till all the earth be free!
* * * * *
And forever as long as the river flows toward the Gulf Ulysses reincarnate shall come To guard our places of sleep, Till East and West shall be one in the west of heaven and earth!
* * * * *
In an old print I see a thicket of masts on the river. But in the prints to be There will be lake boats, With port holes, funnels, rows of decks, Huddled like swans by the docks, Under the shadows of cliffs of brick. And who will know from the prints to be, When the Albatross and the Golden Eagle, The flying craft which shall carry the vision Of impatient lovers wounded by Spring To the shaded rivers of Michigan, That it was the Missouri, the Iowa, And the City of Benton Harbor Which lay huddled like swans by the docks?
You are not Lake Leman, Walled in by Mt. Blanc. One sees the whole world round you, And beyond you, Lake Michigan. And when the melodious winds of March Wrinkle you and drive on the shore The serpent rifts of sand and snow, And sway the giant limbs of oaks, Longing to bud, The boats put forth for the ports that began to stir, With the creak of reels unwinding the nets, And the ring of the caulking wedge. But in the June days-- The Alabama ploughs through liquid tons Of sapphire waves. She sinks from hills to valleys of water, And rises again, Like a swimming gull! I wish a hundred years to come, and forever All lovers could know the rapture Of the lake boats sailing the first Spring days To coverts of hepatica, With the whole world sphering round you, And the whole of the sky beyond you.
I knew the captain of the City of Grand Rapids. He had sailed the seas as a boy. And he stood on deck against the railing Puffing a cigar, Showing in his eyes the cinema flash of the sun on the waves. It was June and life was easy. ... One could lie on deck and sleep, Or sit in the sun and dream. People were walking the decks and talking, Children were singing. And down on the purser's deck A man was dancing by himself, Whirling around like a dervish. And this captain said to me: "No life is better than this. I could live forever, And do nothing but run this boat From the dock at Chicago to the dock at Holland And back again."
One time I went to Grand Haven On the Alabama with Charley Shippey. It was dawn, but white dawn only, Under the reign of Leucothea, As we volplaned, so it seemed, from the lake Past the lighthouse into the river. And afterward laughing and talking Hurried to Van Dreezer's restaurant For breakfast. (Charley knew him and talked of things Unknown to me as he cooked the breakfast.) Then we fished the mile's length of the pier In a gale full of warmth and moisture Which blew the gulls about like confetti, And flapped like a flag the linen duster Of a fisherman who paced the pier-- (Charley called him Rip Van Winkle). The only thing that could be better Than this day on the pier Would be its counterpart in heaven, As Swedenborg would say-- Charley is fishing somewhere now, I think.
There is a grove of oaks on a bluff by the river At Berrien Springs. There is a cottage that eyes the lake Between pines and silver birches At South Haven. There is the inviolable wonder of wooded shore Curving for miles at Saugatuck. And at Holland a beach like Scheveningen's. And at Charlevoix the sudden quaintness Of an old-world place by the sea. There are the hills around Elk Lake Where the blue of the sky is so still and clear It seems it was rubbed above them By the swipe of a giant thumb. And beyond these the little Traverse Bay Where the roar of the breeze goes round Like a roulette ball in the groove of the wheel, Circling the bay, And beyond these Mackinac and the Cheneaux Islands-- And beyond these a great mystery!--
Neither ice floes, nor winter's palsy Stays the tide in the river.
LAKE BOATS
And under the shadows of cliffs of brick The lake boats Huddled like swans Turn and sigh like sleepers---- They are longing for the Spring!
CITIES OF THE PLAIN
Where are the cabalists, the insidious committees, The panders who betray the idiot cities For miles and miles toward the prairie sprawled, Ignorant, soul-less, rich, Smothered in fumes of pitch?
* * * * *
Rooms of mahogany in tall sky scrapers See the unfolding and the folding up Of ring-clipped papers, And letters which keep drugged the public cup. The walls hear whispers and the semi-tones Of voices in the corner, over telephones Muffled by Persian padding, gemmed with brass spittoons. Butts of cigars are on the glass topped table, And through the smoke, gracing the furtive Babel, The bishop's picture blesses the picaroons, Who start or stop the life of millions moving Unconscious of obedience, the plastic Yielders to satanic and dynastic Hands of reproaching and approving.
* * * * *
Here come knights armed, But with their arms concealed, And rubber heeled. Here priests and wavering want are charmed. And shadows fall here like the shark's In messages received or sent. Signals are flying from the battlement. And every president Of rail, gas, coal and oil, the parks, The receipt of custom knows, without a look, Their meaning as the code is in no book. The treasonous cracksmen of the city's wealth Watch for the flags of stealth!
* * * * *
Acres of coal lie fenced along the tracks. Tracks ribbon the streets, and beneath the streets Wires for voices, fire, thwart the plebiscites, And choke the counsels and symposiacs Of dreamers who have pity for the backs That bear and bleed. All things are theirs: tracks, wires, streets and coal, The church's creed, The city's soul, The city's sea girt loveliness, The merciless and meretricious press.
* * * * *
Far up in a watch-tower, where the news is printed, Gray faces and bright eyes, weary and cynical Discuss fresh wonders of the old cabal. But nothing of its work in type is hinted: Taxes are high! The mentors of the town Must keep their taxes down On buildings, presses, stocks In gas, oil, coal and docks. The mahogany rooms conceal a spider man Who holds the taxing bodies through the church, And knights with arms concealed. The mentors search The spider man, the master publican, And for his friendship silence keep, Letting him herd the populace like sheep For self and for the insatiable desires Of coal and tracks and wires, Pick judges, legislators, And tax-gatherers. Or name his favorites, whom they name: The slick and sinistral, Servitors of the cabal, For praise which seems the equivalent of fame: Giving to the delicate handed crackers Of priceless safes, the spiritual slackers, The flash and thunder of front pages! And the gulled millions stare and fling their wages Where they are bidden, helpless and emasculate. And the unilluminate, Whose brows are brass, Who weep on every Sabbath day For Jesus riding on an ass, Scarce know the ass is they, Now ridden by his effigy, The publican with Jesus' painted mask, Along a way where fumes of odorless gas First spur then fell them from the task.
* * * * *
Through the parade runs swift the psychic cackle Like thorns beneath a boiling pot that crackle. And the angels say to Yahveh looking down From the alabaster railing, on the town, O, cackle, cackle, cackle, crack and crack We wish we had our little Sodom back!
EXCLUDED MIDDLE
Out of the mercury shimmer of glass Over these daguerreotypes The balloon-like spread of a skirt of silk emerges With its little figure of flowers. And the enameled glair of parted hair Lies over the oval brow, From under which eyes of fiery blackness Look through you. And the only repose of spirit shown Is in the hands Lying loosely one in the other, Lightly clasped somewhat below the breast. ... And in the companion folder of this case Of gutta percha Is the shape of a man. His brow is oval too, but broader. His nose is long, but thick at the tip. His eyes are blue Wherein faith burns her signal lights, And flashes her convictions. His mouth is tense, almost a slit. And his face is a massive Calvinism Resting on a stock tie.
They were married, you see. The clasp on this gutta percha case Locks them together. They were locked together in life. And a hasp of brass Keeps their shadows face to face in the case Which has been handed down-- (The pictures of noble ancestors, Showing what strains of gentle blood Flow in the third generation)-- From Massachusetts to Illinois. ...
Long ago it was over for them, Massachusetts has done its part, She raised the seed And a wind blew it over to Illinois Where it has mixed, multiplied, mutated Until one soul comes forth: But a soul all striped and streaked, And a soul self-crossed and self-opposed, As it were a tree which on one branch Bears northern spies, And on another thorn apples. ...
Come Weissmann, Von Baer and Schleiden, And you Buffon and De Vries, Come with your secrets of sea shore asters Night-shade, henbanes, gloxinias, Veronicas, snap-dragons, Danebrog, And show us how they cross and change, And become hybrids. And show us what heredity is, And how it works. For the secret of these human beings Locked in this gutta percha case Is the secret of Mephistos and red Campions.
Let us lay out the facts as far as we can. Her eyes were black, His eyes were blue. She saw through shadows, walls and doors, She knew life and hungered for more. But he lived in the mists, and climbed to high places To feel clouds about his face, and get the lights Of supernal sun-sets. She was reason, and he was faith. She had an illumination, but of the intellect. And he had an illumination but of the soul. And she saw God as merciless law, And he knew God as divine love. And she was a man, and he in part was a woman. He stood in a pulpit and preached the Christ, And the remission of sins by blood, And the literal fall of man through Adam, And the mystical and actual salvation of man Through the coming of Christ.
And she sat in a pew shading her great eyes To hide her scorn for it all. She was crucified, And raged to the last like the impenitent thief Against the fate which wasted and trampled down Her wisdom, sagacity, versatile skill, Which would have piled up gold or honors For a mate who knew that life is growth, And health, and the satisfaction of wants, And place and reputation and mansion houses, And mahogany and silver, And beautiful living. She hated him, and hence she pitied him. She was like the gardener with great pruners Deciding to clip, sometimes not clipping Just for the dread. She had married him--but why? Some inscrutable air Wafted his pollen to her across a wide garden-- Some power had crossed them. And here is the secret I think: (As we would say here is electricity) It is the vibration inhering in sex That produces devils or angels, And it is the sex reaction in men and women That brings forth devils or angels, And starts in them the germs of powers or passions, Becoming loves, ferocities, gifts and weaknesses, Till the stock dies out. So now for their hybrid children:-- She gave birth to four daughters and one son.
But first what have we for the composition of these daughters? Reason opposed and becoming keener therefor. Faith mocked and drawing its mantel closer. Love thwarted and becoming acid. Hatred mounting too high and thinning into pity. Hunger for life unappeased and becoming a stream under-ground Where only blind things swim. God year by year removing himself to remoter thrones Of inexorable law. God coming closer even while disease And total blindness came between him and God And defeated the mercy of God. And a love and a trust growing deeper in him As she in great thirst, hanging on the cross, Mocked his crucifixion, And talked philosophy between the spasms of pain, Till at last she is all satirist, And he is all saint.
And all the children were raised After the strictest fashion in New England, And made to join the church, And attend its services. And these were the children:
Janet was a religious fanatic and a virago, She debated religion with her husband for ten years, Then he refused to talk, and for twenty years Scarcely spoke to her. She died a convert to Catholicism. They had two children: The boy became a forgerer Of notorious skill. The daughter married, but was barren.
Miranda married a rich man And spent his money so fast that he failed. She lashed him with a scorpion tongue And made him believe at last With her incessant reasonings That he was a fool, and so had failed. In middle life he started over again, But became tangled in a law-suit. Because of these things he killed himself.
Louise was a nymphomaniac. She was married twice. Both husbands fled from her insatiable embraces. At thirty-two she became a woman on a telephone list, Subject to be called, And for two years ran through a daily orgy of sex, When blindness came on her, as it came on her father before her, And she became a Christian Scientist, And led an exemplary life.
Deborah was a Puritan of Puritans, Her list of unmentionable things Tabooed all the secrets of creation, Leaving politics, religion, and human faults, And the mistakes most people make, And the natural depravity of man, And his freedom to redeem himself if he chooses, As the only subjects of conversation. As a twister of words and meanings, And a skilled welder of fallacies, And a swift emerger from ineluctable traps of logic, And a wit with an adder's tongue, And a laugher, And an unafraid facer of enemies, Oppositions, hatreds, She never knew her equal. She was at once very cruel, and very tender, Very selfish and very generous Very little and very magnanimous. Scrupulous as to the truth, and utterly disregardless of the truth.
Of the keenest intuitions, yet gullible, Easily used at times, of erratic judgment, Analytic but pursuing with incredible swiftness The falsest trails to her own undoing-- All in all the strangest mixture of colors and scent Derived from father and mother, But mixed by whom, and how, and why?
Now for the son named Herman, rebel soul. His brow was like a loaf of bread, his eyes Turned from his father's blue to gray, his nose Was like his mother's, skin was dark like hers. His shapely body, hands and feet belonged To some patrician face, not to Marat's. And his was like Marat's, fanatical, Materialistic, fierce, as it might guide A reptile's crawl, but yet he crawled to peaks Loving the hues of mists, but not the mists His father loved. And being a rebel soul He thought the world all wrong. A nothingness Moving as malice marred the life of man. 'Twas man's great work to fight this Giant Fraud, And all who praise and serve Him. 'Tis for man To free the world from error, suffer, die For liberty of thought. You see his mother Is in possession of one part of him, Or all of him for some time.
So he lives Nursing the dream (like father he's a dreamer) That genius fires him. All the while a gift For analytics stored behind that brow, That bulges like a loaf of bread, is all Of which he well may boast above the man He hates as but a slave of faith and fear. He feeds luxurious doubt with Omar Khyam, But for long years neglects the jug of wine. And as for "thou" he does not wake for years, Is a pure maiden when he weds, the grains Run counter in him, end in knots at times. He takes from father certain tastes and traits, From mother certain others, one can see His mother's sex re-actions to his father, Not passed to him to make him celibate, But holding back in sleeping passions which Burst over bounds at last in lust, not love. Not love since that great engine in the brow Tears off the irised wings of love and bares The poor worm's body where the wings had been: What is it but desire? Such stuff in rhyme In music over what is but desire, And ends when that is satisfied!
He's a crank. And follows all the psychic thrills which run To cackles o'er the world. It's Looking Backward, Or Robert Elsmere, Spencer's Social Statics, It's socialism, Anarchism, Peace, It's non-resistance with a swelling heart, As who should say how truer to the faith Of Jesus am I, without hope or faith, Than churchmen. He's a prohibitionist, The poor's protagonist, the knight at arms Of fallen women, yelling at the rich Whose wicked greed makes all the prostitutes-- No prostitutes without the wicked rich! But as he ages, as the bitter days Approach with perorations: O ye vipers, The engine in him changes all the world, Reverses all the wheels of thought behind. For Nietzsche comes, and makes him superman. He dumps the truth of Jesus over--there It lies with his youth's textual skepticism, And laughter at the supernatural.
Now what's the motivating principle Of such a mind? In youth he sought for rules Wherewith to trail and capture truths. He found it In James McCosh's Logic, it was this: Lex Exclusi Tertii aut Medii, Law of Excluded Middle speaking plain: A thing is true, or not true, never a third Hypothesis, so God is or is not. That's very good to start with, how to end And how to know which of the two is false-- He hunted out the false, as mother did-- Requires a tool. He found it in this book, Reductio ad absurdum; let us see Excluded middle use reductio. God is or God is not, but then what God? Excluded Middle never sought a God To suffer demolition at his hands Except the God of Illinois, the God Grown but a little with his followers Since Moses lived and Peter fished. So now God is or God is not. Let us assume God is and use reductio ad absurdum, Taking away the rotten props, the posts That do not fit or hold, and let Him fall. For if he falls, the other postulate That God is not is demonstrated. See A universe of truth pass on the way Cleared by Excluded Middle through the stuff Of thought and visible things, a way that lets A greater God escape, uncaught by all The nippers of reductio ad absurdum. But to resume his argument was this: God is or God is not, but if God is Why pestilence and war, earthquake and famine? He either wills them, or cannot prevent them, But if he wills them God is evil, if He can't prevent them, he is limited.
But God, you say, is good, omnipotent, And here I prove Him evil, or too weak To stay the evil. Having shown your God Lacking in what makes God, the proposition Which I oppose to this, that God is not Stands proven. For as evil is most clear In sickness, pain and death, it cannot be There is a Power with strength to overcome them, Yet suffers them to be.
And so this man Went through the years of life, and stripped the fields Of beauty and of thought with mandibles Insatiable as the locust's, which devours A season's care and labor in an hour. He stripped these fields and ate them, but they made No meat or fat for him. And so he lived On his own thought, as starving men may live On stored up fat. And so in time he starved. The thought in him no longer fed his life, And he had withered up the outer world Of man and nature, stripped it to the bone, Nothing but skull and cross-bones greeted him Wherever he turned--the world became a bottle Filled with a bitter essence he could drink From long accustomed doses--labeled poison And marked with skull and cross-bones. Could he laugh As mother laughed? No more! He tried to find The mother's laugh and secret for the laugh Which kept her to the end--but did she laugh? Or if she laughed, was it so hollow, forced As all his laughter now was. He had proved Too much for laughter. Nothing but himself Remained to keep himself, he lived alone Upon his stored up fat, now daily growing To dangerous thinness.
So with love of woman. He had found "thou" the jug of wine as well, "Thou" "thou" had come and gone too many times. For what is sex but touch of flesh, the hand Is flesh and hands may touch, if so, the loins-- Reductio ad absurdum, O you fools, Who see a wrong in touch of loins, no wrong In clasp of hands. And so again, again With his own tools of thought he bruised his hands Until they grew too callous to perceive When they were touched.
So by analysis He turned on everything he once believed. Let's make an end!
Men thought Excluded Middle Was born for great things. Why that bulging brow And analytic keen if not for greatness?
In those old days they thought so when he fought For lofty things, a youthful radical Come here to change the world! But now at last He lectures in back halls to youths who are What he was in his youth, to acid souls Who must have bitterness, can take enough To kill a healthy soul, as fiends for dope Must have enough to kill a body clean. And so upon a night Excluded Middle Is lecturing to prove that life is evil, Not worth the living--when his auditors Behold him pale and sway and take his seat, And later quit the hall, the lecture left Half finished.
This had happened in a twinkling: He had made life a punching bag, with fists, Excluded Middle and Reductio, Had whacked it back and forth. But just as often As he had struck it with an argument That it is not worth living, snap, the bag Would fly back for another punch. For life Just like a punching bag will stand your whacks Of hatred and denial, let you punch Almost at will. But sometime, like the bag, The strap gives way, the bag flies up and falls And lies upon the floor, you've knocked it out. And this is what Excluded Middle does This night, the strap breaks with his blows. He proves His strength, his case and for the first he sees Life is not worth the living. Life gives up, Resists no more, flys back no more to him, But hits the ceiling, snap the strap gives way! The bag falls to the floor, and lies there still-- Who now shall pick it up, re-fasten it? And so his color fades, it well may be The crisis of a long neurosis, well What caused it? But his eyes are wondrous clear Perceiving life knocked out. His heart is sick, He takes his seat, admiring friends swarm round him, Conduct him to a carriage, he goes home And sitting by the fire (O what is fire? The miracle of fire dawns on his thought, Fire has been near him all these years unseen, How wonderful is fire!) which warms and soothes Neuritic pains, he takes the rubber case Which locks the images of father, mother. And as he stares upon the oval brow, The eyes of blue which flash the light of faith, Preserved like dendrites in this silver shimmer, Some spectral speculations fill his brain, Float like a storm above the sorry wreck Of all his logic tools, machines; for now Since pains in back and shoulder like to father's Fall to him at the age that father had them, Father has entered him, has settled down To live with him with those neuritic pangs. Thus are his speculations. Over all How comes it that a sudden feel of life, Its wonder, terror, beauty is like father's? As if the soul of father entered in him And made the field of consciousness his own, Emotions, powers of thought his instruments. That is a horrible atavism, when You find yourself reverting to a soul You have not loved, despite yourself becoming That other soul, and with an out-worn self Crying for burial on your hands, a life Not yours till now that waits your new found powers-- Live now or die indeed!
SAMUEL BUTLER ET AL.
Let me consider your emergence From the milieu of our youth: We have played all the afternoon, grown hungry. No meal has been prepared, where have you been? Toward sun's decline we see you down the path, And run to meet you, and perhaps you smile, Or take us in your arms. Perhaps again You look at us, say nothing, are absorbed, Or chide us for our dirty frocks or faces. Of running wild without our meals You do not speak.
Then in the house, seized with a sudden joy, After removing gloves and hat, you run, As with a winged descending flight, and cry, Half song, half exclamation, Seize one of us, Crush one of us with mad embraces, bite Ears of us in a rapture of affection. "You shall have supper," then you say. The stove lids rattle, wood's poked in the fire, The kettle steams, pots boil, by seven o'clock We sit down to a meal of hodge-podge stuff. I understand now how your youth and spirits Fought back the drabness of the village, And wonder not you spent the afternoons With such bright company as Eugenia Turner-- And I forgive you hunger, loneliness.
But when we asked you where you'd been, Complained of loneliness and hunger, spoke of children Who lived in order, sat down thrice a day To cream and porridge, bread and meat. We think to corner you--alas for us! Your anger flashes swords! Reasons pour out Like anvil sparks to justify your way: "Your father's always gone--you selfish children, You'd have me in the house from morn till night." You put us in the wrong--our cause is routed. We turn to bed unsatisfied in mind, You've overwhelmed us, not convinced us. Our sense of wrong defeat breeds resolution To whip you out when minds grow strong.
Up in the moon-lit room without a light, (The lamps have not been filled,) We crawl in unmade beds. We leave you pouring over paper backs. We peek above your shoulder. It is "The Lady in White" you read. Next morning you are dead for sleep, You've sat up more than half the night. We have been playing hours when you arise, It's nine o'clock when breakfast's served at last, When school days come I'm always late to school.
Shy, hungry children scuffle at your door, Eye through the crack, maybe, at nine o'clock, Find father has returned during the night. You are all happiness, his idlest word Provokes your laughter. He shows us rolls of precious money earned; He's given you a silk dress, money too For suits and shoes for us--all is forgiven. You run about the house, As with a winged descending flight and cry Half song, half exclamation.
We're sick so much. But then no human soul Could be more sweet when one of us is sick. We run to colds, have measles, mumps, our throats Are weak, the doctor says. If rooms were warmer, And clothes were warmer, food more regular, And sleep more regular, it might be different. Then there's the well. You fear the water. He laughs at you, we children drink the water, Though it tastes bitter, shows white particles: It may be shreds of rats drowned in the well. The village has no drainage, blights and mildews Get in our throats. I spend a certain spring Bent over, yellow, coughing blood at times, Sick to somnambulistic sense of things. You blame him for the well, that's just one thing. You seem to differ about everything-- You seem to hate each other--when you quarrel We cry, take sides, sometimes are whipped For taking sides.
Our broken school days lose us clues, Some lesson has been missed, the final meaning And wholeness of the grammar are disturbed-- That shall not be made up in all our life. The children, save a few, are not our friends, Some taunt us with your quarrels. We learn great secrets scrawled in signs or words Of foulness on the fences. So it is An American village, in a great Republic, Where men are free, where therefore goodness, wisdom Must have their way!
We reach the budding age. Sweet aches are in our breasts: Is it spring, or God, or music, is it you? I am all tenderness for you at times, Then hate myself for feeling so, my flesh Crawls by an instinct from you. You repel me Sometimes with an insidious smile, a look. What are these phantasies I have? They breed Strange hatred for you, even while I feel My soul's home is with you, must be with you To find my soul's rest. ...
I must go back a little. At ten years I play with Paula. I plait her crowns of flowers, carry her books, Defend her, watch her, choose her in the games. You overhear us under the oak tree Calling her doll our child. You catch my coat And draw me in the house. When I resist you whip me cruelly. To think of whipping me at such time, And mix the shame of smarting legs and back With love of Paula! So I lose Paula.
I am a man at last. I now can master what you are and see What you have been. You cannot rout me now, Or put me in the wrong. Out of old wounds, Remembrance of your baffling days, I take great strength and show you Where you have been untruthful, where a hater, Where narrow, bitter, growing in on self, Where you neglected us, Where you heaped fast destruction on our father-- For now I know that you devoured his soul, And that no soul that you could not devour Could have its peace with you. You've dwindled to a quiet word like this: "You are unfilial." Which means at last That I have conquered you, at least it means That you could not devour me.
Yet am I blind to you? Let me confess You are the world's whole cycle in yourself: You can be summer rich and luminous; You can be autumn, mellow, mystical; You can be winter with a cheerful hearth; You can be March, bitter, bright and hard, Pouring sharp sleet, and showering cutting hail; You can be April of the flying cloud, And intermittent sun and musical air. I am not you while being you, While finding in myself so much of you. It tears my other self, which is not you. My tragedy is this: I do not love you. Your tragedy is this: my other self Which triumphs over you, you hate at heart. Your solace is you have no faith in me.
All quiet now, no March days with you now, Only the soft coals slumbering in your face, I saw you totter over a ravine! Your eyes averted, watching steps, A light of resignation on your brow. Your thin-spun hair all gray, blown by the wind Which swayed the blossomed cherry trees, Bent last year's reeds, Shook early dandelions, and tossed a bird That left a branch with song-- I saw you totter over a ravine!
What were you at the start? What soul dissatisfaction, sense of wrong, Of being thwarted, stung you? What was your shrinking of the flesh; What fear of being soiled, misunderstood, What wrath for loneliness which constant hope Saw turned to fine companionship; What in your marriage, what in seeing me, The fruit of marriage, recreated traits Of face or spirit which you loathed; What in your father and your mother, And in the chromosomes from which you grew, By what mitosis could result at last In you, in issues of such moment, In our dissevered beings, In what the world will take from me In children, in events? All quiet now, no March days with you now, Only the soft coals slumbering in your face, I saw you totter over a ravine, And back of you the Furies!
JOHNNY APPLESEED
When the air of October is sweet and cold as the wine of apples Hanging ungathered in frosted orchards along the Grand River, I take the road that winds by the resting fields and wander From Eastmanville to Nunica down to the Villa Crossing.
I look for old men to talk with, men as old as the orchards, Men to tell me of ancient days, of those who built and planted, Lichen gray, branch broken, bent and sighing, Hobbling for warmth in the sun and for places to sit and smoke.
For there is a legend here, a tale of the croaking old ones That Johnny Appleseed came here, planted some orchards around here, When nothing was here but the pine trees, oaks and the beeches, And nothing was here but the marshes, lake and the river.
Peter Van Zylen is ninety and this he tells me: My father talked with Johnny Appleseed there on the hill-side, There by the road on the way to Fruitport, saw him Clearing pines and oaks for a place for an apple orchard.
Peter Van Zylen says: He got that name from the people For carrying apple-seed with him and planting orchards All the way from Ohio, through Indiana across here, Planting orchards, they say, as far as Illinois.
Johnny Appleseed said, so my father told me: I go to a place forgotten, the orchards will thrive and be here For children to come, who will gather and eat hereafter. And few will know who planted, and none will understand.
I laugh, said Johnny Appleseed: Some fellow buys this timber Five years, perhaps from to-day, begins to clear for barley. And here in the midst of the timber is hidden an apple orchard. How did it come here? Lord! Who was it here before me?
Yes, I was here before him, to make these places of worship, Labor and laughter and gain in the late October. Why did I do it, eh? Some folks say I am crazy. Where do my labors end? Far west, God only knows!
Said Johnny Appleseed there on the hill-side: Listen! Beware the deceit of nurseries, sellers of seeds of the apple. Think! You labor for years in trees not worth the raising. You planted what you knew not, bitter or sour for sweet.
No luck more bitter than poor seed, but one as bitter: The planting of perfect seed in soil that feeds and fails, Nourishes for a little, and then goes spent forever. Look to your seed, he said, and remember the soil.
And after that is the fight: the foe curled up at the root, The scale that crumples and deadens, the moth in the blossoms Becoming a life that coils at the core of a thing of beauty: You bite your apple, a worm is crushed on your tongue!
And it's every bit the truth, said Peter Van Zylen. So many things love an apple as well as ourselves. A man must fight for the thing he loves, to possess it: Apples, freedom, heaven, said Peter Van Zylen.
THE LOOM
My brother, the god, and I grow sick Of heaven's heights. We plunge to the valley to hear the tick Of days and nights. We walk and loiter around the Loom To see, if we may, The Hand that smashes the beam in the gloon To the shuttle's play; Who grows the wool, who cards and spins, Who clips and ties; For the storied weave of the Gobelins, Who draughts and dyes.
But whether you stand or walk around You shall but hear A murmuring life, as it were the sound Of bees or a sphere. No Hand is seen, but still you may feel A pulse in the thread, And thought in every lever and wheel Where the shuttle sped, Dripping the colors, as crushed and urged-- Is it cochineal?-- Shot from the shuttle, woven and merged A tale to reveal. Woven and wound in a bolt and dried As it were a plan. Closer I looked at the thread and cried The thread is man!
Then my brother curious, strong and bold, Tugged hard at the bolt Of the woven life; for a length unrolled The cryptic cloth. He gasped for labor, blind for the moult Of the up-winged moth. While I saw a growth and a mad crusade That the Loom had made; Land and water and living things, Till I grew afraid For mouths and claws and devil wings, And fangs and stings, And tiger faces with eyes of hell In caves and holes. And eyes in terror and terrible For awakened souls.
I stood above my brother, the god Unwinding the roll. And a tale came forth of the woven slain Sequent and whole, Of flint and bronze, trowel and hod, The wheel and the plane, The carven stone and the graven clod Painted and baked. And cromlechs, proving the human heart Has always ached; Till it puffed with blood and gave to art The dream of the dome; Till it broke and the blood shot up like fire In tower and spire.
And here was the Persian, Jew and Goth In the weave of the cloth; Greek and Roman, Ghibelline, Guelph, Angel and elf. They were dyed in blood, tangled in dreams Like a comet's streams. And here were surfaces red and rough In the finished stuff, Where the knotted thread was proud and rebelled As the shuttle proved The fated warp and woof that held When the shuttle moved; And pressed the dye which ran to loss In a deep maroon Around an altar, oracle, cross Or a crescent moon. Around a face, a thought, a star In a riot of war!
Then I said to my brother, the god, let be, Though the thread be crushed, And the living things in the tapestry Be woven and hushed; The Loom has a tale, you can see, to tell, And a tale has told. I love this Gobelin epical Of scarlet and gold. If the heart of a god may look in pride At the wondrous weave It is something better to Hands which guide-- I see and believe.
DIALOGUE AT PERKO'S
Look here, Jack: You don't act natural. You have lost your laugh. You haven't told me any stories. You Just lie there half asleep. What's on your mind?
JACK
What time is it? Where is my watch?
FLORENCE
Your watch Under your pillow! You don't think I'd take it. Why, Jack, what talk for you.
JACK
Well, never mind, Let's pack no ice.
FLORENCE
What's that?
JACK
No quarreling-- What is the time?
FLORENCE
Look over towards my dresser-- My clock says half-past eleven.
JACK
Listen to that-- That hurdy-gurdy's playing Holy Night, And on this street.
FLORENCE
And why not on this street?
JACK
You may be right. It may as well be played Where you live as in front of where I work, Some twenty stories up. I think you're right.
FLORENCE
Say, Jack, what is the matter? Come! be gay. Tell me some stories. Buy another bottle. Just think you make a lot of money, Jack. You're young and prominent. They all know you. I hear your name all over town. I see Your picture in the papers. What's the matter?
JACK
I've lost my job for one thing.
FLORENCE
You don't mean it!
JACK
They used me and then fired me, same as you. If you don't make the money, out you go.
FLORENCE
Yes, out I go. But, there are other places.
JACK
On further down the street.
FLORENCE
Not yet a while.
JACK
Not yet for me, but still the question is Whether to fight it out for up or down, Or run from everything, be free.
FLORENCE
You can't do that.
JACK
Why not?
FLORENCE
No more than I. Oh well perhaps, if a nice man came by To marry me then I could get away. It happens all the time. Last week in fact Christ Perko married Rachel who lived here. He's rich as cream.
JACK
What corresponds to marriage To take me from slavery?
FLORENCE
Money is everything.
JACK
Yes, everything and nothing. Christ Perko's rich, Christ Perko runs this house, The madam merely acts as figure-head; Keeps check upon the girls and on the wine. She's just the editor, and yet I'd rather Be editor than owner. I was editor. My Perko was the owner of a pulp mill, Incorporate through some multi-millionaires, And all our lesser writers were the girls, Like you and Rachel.
FLORENCE
But you know before He married Rachel, he was lover to The madam here.
JACK
The stories tally, for The pulp mill took my first assistant editor To wife by making him the editor. And I was fired just as the madam here Lost out with Perko.
FLORENCE
This is growing funny... Ahem! I'll ask you something-- As if I were a youth and you a girl-- How were you ruined first?
JACK
The same as you: You ran away from school. It was romance. You thought you loved this flashy travelling man. And I--I loved adventure, loved the truth. I wanted to destroy the force called "They." There is no "They"--we're all together here, And everyone must live, Christ Perko too, The pulp-mill, the policeman, magistrate, The alderman, the precinct captain too, And you the girls, myself the editor, And all the lesser writers. Here we are Thrown in one integrated lot. You see There is no "They," except the terms, the thought Which ramifies and vivifies the whole. ... So I came to the city, went to work Reporting for a paper. Having said There is no "They"--I've freed myself to say What bitter things I choose. For how they drive you, And terrify you, mock you, ridicule you, And call you cub and greenhorn, send you round To courts and dirty places, make you risk Your body and your life, and make you watch The rules about your writing; what's tabooed, What names are to be cursed or to be praised, What interests, policies to be subserved, And what to undermine. So I went through, Until I had a desk, wrote editorials-- Now said I to myself, I'm free at last. But no, my manager, your madam, mark you, Kept eye on me, for he was under watch Of some Christ Perko. So my manager Blue penciled me when I touched certain subjects. But, as he was a just man, loved me too. He gave me things to write where he could let My conscience have full scope, as you might live In this house where you saw the man you loved, And no one else, though living in this hell. For I lived in a hell, who saw around me Such lying, hatred, malice, prostitution. And when this offer came to be an editor Of a great magazine, I seemed to feel My courage and my virtue given reward. Now, I should pass on poems, and on stories, Creations of free souls. It was not so. The poems and the stories one could see Were written to be sold, to please a taste, Placate a prejudice, keep still alive An era dying, ready for the tomb, Already smelling. And that was not all. Just as the madam here must make report To Perko, so the magazine had to run To suit the pulp mill. As the madam here, Assistant to Christ Perko, must keep friends With alderman, policemen, magistrates, So I was just a wheel in a machine To keep it running with such larger wheels, And by them run, of policies, and politics Of State and Nation. Here was I locked in And given dope to keep me still lest I Cry out and wake the copper-who's the copper For such as I was? If he heard me cry How could he raid the magazine? If he raided Where was the court to take me and the rest-- That's it, where is the court?
FLORENCE
It seems to me You're bad as I am.
JACK
I am worse than you: I poison minds with thoughts they take as good. I drug an era, make it foul or dull-- You only sicken bodies here and there. But you know how it is. You have remorse, You fight it down, hush it with sophistry. You think about the world, about your fellows: You see that everyone is selling self, Little or much somehow. You feed your body, Try to be hearty, take things as they come. You take athletics, try to keep your strength, As you hear music, laugh, drink wine, and smoke, Are bathed and coifed to keep your beauty fresh. And through it all the soul's and body's needs, The pleasures, interests, passions of our life, The cry that comes from somewhere: "Live, O Soul, The time is passing," move and claim your strength. Till you forget yourself, forget the boy And man you were, forget the dreams you had, The creed you wished to live by--yes, what's worse, See dreams you had, grown tawdry, see your creed Cracked through and crumbled like a falling house. And then you say: What is the difference? As you might ask what virtue is and why Should woman keep it.
I have reached this place Save for one truth I hold to, shall still hold to: As long as I have breath: The man who sees not, Or cares not for the Truth that keeps the world From vast disintegration is a brute, And marked for a brute's death--that is his hell. 'Twas loyalty to this truth that made me lose My place as editor. For when they came And tried to make me pass an article To poison millions with, I said, "I won't, I won't by God. I'll quit before I do." And then they said, "You quit," and so I quit.
FLORENCE
And so you took to drink and came to me! And that's the same as if I came to you And used you as an editor. I am nothing But just a poor reporter in this house-- But now I quit.
JACK
Where are you going, Florence?
FLORENCE
I'm going to a village or a farm Where I'll get up at six instead of twelve, Where I'll wear calico instead of silk, And where there'll be no furnace in the house. And where the carpet which has kept me here And keeps you here as editor is not. I'm going to economize my life By freeing it of systems which grow rich By using me, and for the privilege Bestow these gaudy clothes and perfumed bed. I hate you now, because I hate my life.
JACK
Wait! Wait a minute.
FLORENCE
Dinah, call a cab!
SIR GALAHAD
I met Hosea Job on Randolph Street Who said to me: "I'm going for the train, I want you with me."
And it happened then My mind was hard, as muscles of the back Grow hard resisting cold or shock or strain And need the osteopath to be made supple, To give the nerves and streams of life a chance. Hosea Job was just the osteopath To loose, relax my mood. And so I said "All right"--and went.
Hosea was a man Whom nothing touched of danger, or of harm. His life was just a rare-bit dream, where some one Seems like to fall before a truck or train-- Instead he walks across them. Or you see Shadows of falling things, great buildings topple, Pianos skid like bulls from hellish corners And chase the oblivious fool who stands and smiles. The buildings slant and sway like monstrous searchlights, But never touch him. And the mad piano Comes up to him, puts down its angry head, Runs out a friendly tongue and licks his hand, And lows a symphony.
By which I mean Hosea had some money, and would sign A bond or note for any man who asked him. He'd rent a house and leave it, rent another, Then rent a farm, move out from town and in. He'd have the leases of superfluous places Cancelled some how, was never sued for rent. One time he had a fancy he would see South Africa, took ship with a load of mules, First telegraphing home from New Orleans He'd be back in the Spring. Likewise he went To Klondike with the rush. I think he owned More kinds of mining stock than there were mines. He had more quaint, peculiar men for friends Than one could think were living. He believed In every doctrine in its time, that promised Salvation for the world. He took no thought For life or for to-morrow, or for health, Slept with his windows closed, ate what he wished. And if he cut his finger, let it go. I offered him peroxide once, he laughed. And when I asked him if his soul was saved He only said: "I see things. I lie back And take it easy. Nothing can go wrong In any serious sense."
So many thought Hosea was a nut, and others thought, That I was just a nut for liking him. And what would any man of business say If he knew that I didn't ask a question, But simply went with him to take the train That day he asked me.
And the train had gone Five miles or so when I said: "Where you going?" Hosea answered, and it made me start-- Hosea answered simply, "We are going To see Sir Galahad."
It made me start To hear Hosea say this, for I thought He was now really off. But, I looked at him And saw his eyes were sane.
"Sir Galahad? Who is Sir Galahad?"
Hosea answered: "I'm going up to see Sir Galahad, And sound him out about re-entering The game and run for governor again."
So then I knew he was the man our fathers Worked with and knew and called Sir Galahad, Now in retirement fifteen years or so. Well, I was twenty-five when he was famous. Sir Galahad was forty then, and now Must be some fifty-five while I am forty. So flashed across my thought the matter of time And ages. So I thought of all he did: Of how he went from faith to faith in politics And ran for every office up to governor, And ran for governor four times or so, And never was elected to an office. He drew more bills to remedy injustice, Improve the courts, relieve the poor, reform Administration, than the legislature Could read, much less digest or understand. The people beat him and the leaders flogged him. They shut the door against his face until He had no place to go except a farm Among the stony hills, and there he went. And thither we were going to see the knight, And call him from his solitude to the fight Against injustice, greed.
So we got off The train at Alden, just a little village Of fifty houses lying beneath the sprawl Of hills and hills. And here there was a stillness Made lonelier by an anvil ringing, by A plow-man's voice at intervals.
Here Hosea Engaged a horse and buggy, and we drove And wound about a crooked road between Great hills that stood together like the backs Of elephants in a herd, where boulders lay As thick as hail in places. Ruined pines Stood like burnt matches. There was one which stuck Against a single cloud so white it seemed A bursted bale of cotton.
We reached the summit And drove along past orchards, past a field Level and green, kept like a garden, rich Against the coming harvest. Here we met A scarecrow man, driving a scarecrow horse Hitched to a wobbly wagon. And we stopped, The scarecrow stopped. The scarecrow and Hosea Talked much of people and of farming--I Sat listening, and I gathered from the talk, And what Hosea told me as we drove, That once this field so level and so green The scarecrow owned. He had cleaned out the stumps, And tried to farm it, failed, and lost the field, But raged to lose it, thought he might succeed In further time. Now having lost the field So many years ago, could be a scarecrow, And drive a scarecrow horse, yet laugh again And have no care, the sorrow healed.
It seemed The clearing of the stumps was scarce a starter Toward a field of profit. For in truth, The soil possessed a secret which the scarecrow Never went deep enough to learn about. His problem was all stumps. Not solving that, He sold it to a farmer who out-slaved The busiest bee, but only half succeeded. He tried to raise potatoes, made a failure. He planted it in beans, had half a crop. He sowed wheat once and reaped a stack of straw. The secret of the soil eluded him. And here Hosea laughed: "This fellow's failure Was just the thing that gave another man The secret of the soil. For he had studied The properties of soils and fertilizers. And when he heard the field had failed to raise Potatoes, beans and wheat, he simply said: There are other things to raise: the question is Whether the soil is suited to the things He tried to raise, or whether it needs building To raise the things he tried to raise, or whether It must be builded up for anything. At least he said the field is clear of stumps. Pass on your field, he said. If I lose out I'll pass it on. The field is his, he said Who can make something grow.
And so this field Of waving wheat along which we were driving Was just the very field the scarecrow man Had failed to master, as that other man Had failed to master after him.
Hosea Kept talking of this field as we drove on. That field, he said, is economical Of men compared with many fields. You see It only used two men. To grub the stumps Took all the scarecrow's strength. That other man Ran off to Oklahoma from this field. I have known fields that ate a dozen men In country such as this. The field remains And laughs and waits for some one who divines The secret of the field. Some farmers live To prove what can't be done, and narrow down The guess of what is possible. It's right A certain crop should prosper and another Should fail, and when a farmer tries to raise A crop before it's time, he wastes himself And wastes the field to try.
We now were climbing To higher hills and rockier fields. Hosea Had fallen into silence. I was thinking About Sir Galahad, was wondering Which man he was, the scarecrow, or the farmer Who didn't know the seed to sow, or whether He might still prove the farmer raising wheat, Now we were come to give him back the field With all the stumps grubbed out, the secret lying Revealed and ready for the appointed hands.
We passed an orchard growing on a knoll And saw a barn perked on a rocky hill, And near the barn a house. Hosea said: "This is Sir Galahad's." We tied the horse. And we were in the silence of the country At mid-day on a day in June. No bird Was singing, fowl was cackling, cow was lowing, No dog was barking. All was summer stillness. We crossed a back-yard past a windlass well, Dodged under clothes lines through a place of chips, Walked in a path along the house. I said: "Sir Galahad is ploughing, or perhaps Is mending fences, cutting weeds." It seemed Too bad to come so far and not to find him. "We'll find him," said Hosea. "Let us sit Under that tree and wait for him."
And then We turned the corner of the house and there Under a tree an old man sat, his head Bowed down upon his breast, locked fast in sleep. And by his feet a dog half blind and fat Lay dozing, too inert to rise and bark.
Hosea gripped my arm. "Be still" he said. "Let's ask him where Sir Galahad is," said I. And then Hosea whispered, "God forgive me, I had forgotten, you too have forgotten. The man is old, he's very old. The years Go by unnoticed. Come! Sir Galahad Should sleep and not be waked."
We tip-toed off And hurried back to Alden for the train.
ST. DESERET
You wonder at my bright round eyes, my lips Pressed tightly like a venomous rosette. Thus do me honor by so much, fond wretch, And praise my Persian beauty, dulcet voice. But oh you know me, read me, passion blinds Your vision not at all, and you have passion For me and what I am. How can you be so? Hold me so bear-like, take my lips with yours, Bury your face in these my russet tresses, And yet not lose your vision? So I love you, And fear you too. How idle to deny it To you who know I fear you.
Here am I Who answer you what e'er you choose to ask. You stride about my rooms and open books, And say when did he give you this? You pick His photograph from mantels, dressers, drawl Out of ironic strength, and smile the while: "You did not love this man." You probe my soul About his courtship, how I ran away, How he pursued with gifts from city to city, Threw bouquets to me from the pit, or stood
Like Cleopatra's Giant negro guard, Watchful and waiting at the green-room door. So, devil, that you are, with needle pricks, One little question at a time, you've inked The story in my flesh. And now at last You smile and say I killed him. Well, it's true. But what a death he had! Envy him that. Your frigid soul can never win the death I gave him.
Listen since you know already All but the subtlest matters. How you laugh! You know these too? Well, only I can tell them.
First 'twas a piteous thing to see a man So love a woman, see a living thing So love another. Why he could not touch My hand but that his heart went up ten beats. His eyes would grow as bright as flames, his breath Come short when speaking. When he felt my breast Crush soft around him he would reel and walk Away from me, while I stood like a snake Poised for the strike, as quiet and possessed As a dead breeze. And you can have me wholly, And pet and pat me like a favored child, And let me go my way, while you turn back To what you left for me.
Not so with him: I was all through his blood, had made his flesh My flesh, his nerves, brain, soul all mine at last, Dreams, thoughts, emotions, hungers all my own. So that he lived two lives, his own and mine, With one poor body, which he gave to me. Save that he could not give what I pushed back Into his hands to use for me and live My pities, hatreds, loves and passions with. I loved all this and thrived upon it, still I did not love him. Then why marry him? Why don't you see? It meant so much to him. And 'twas a little thing for me to do. His loneliness, his hunger, his great passion That showed in his poor eyes, his broken breath, His chivalry, his gifts, his poignant letters, His failing health, why even woman's cruelty Cannot deny such passion. Woman's cruelty Takes other means for finding its expression. And mine found its expression--you have guessed And so I tell you all.
We were married then. He made a sacrament of our nuptials, Knelt with closed eyes beside the bed, my lips Pressed to his brow and throat. Unveiled my breast And looked, then closed his eyes. He did not take me As man takes his possession, nature's way, In triumph of life, in lightning, no, he came A suppliant, a worshipper, and whispered: "What angel child may lie upon the breast Of this it's angel mother."
Well, you see The tears came in my eyes, for pity of him, Who made so much of what I had to give, And could give easily whether 'twas my rapture To give or to withhold. And in that moment Contempt of which I had been scarcely conscious Lying diffused like dew around my heart Drained down itself into my heart's dark cup To one bright drop of vital power, where He could not see it, scarcely knew that something Gradually drugged the potion that he drank In life with me.
So we were wed a year, And he was with me hourly, till at last I could not breathe for him, while he could breathe No where but where I was. Then the bazaar Was coming on where I was to dance, and he Had long postponed a trip to England where Great interests waited for him, and with kisses I pushed him to his duty, and he went Shame stricken for a duty long postponed, Unable to retort against my words When I said "You must go;" for well he knew He should have gone before. And as for going I pleaded the bazaar and hate of travel, And got him off, and freed myself to breathe.
His life had been too fast, his years too many To stand the strain that came. There was the worry About the business, and the labor over it. There was the war, and all the fear and turmoil In London for the war. But most of all There was the separation. And his letters! You've read them, wretch. Such letters never were Of aching loneliness and pining love And hope that lives across three thousand miles, And waits the day to travel them, and fear Of something which may bar the way forever: A storm, a wreck, a submarine and no day Without a letter or a cablegram. And look at the endearments--oh you fiend To pick their words to pieces like a botanist Who cuts a flower up for his microscope. And oh myself who let you see these letters. Why did I do it? Rather why is it You master me, even as I mastered him?
At last he finished, got his passage back. He had been gone three months. And all these letters Showed how he starved for me, and scarce could wait To take me in his arms again, would choke With fast and heavy feeding.
Well, you see The contempt I spoke of which lay long diffused Like dew around my heart, and which at once Drained down itself into my heart's dark cup Grew brighter, bitterer, for this obvious hunger, This thirst which could not wait, the piteous trembling. And all the while it seemed he thought his love Grew sacreder as it grew uncontrolled, And marked by trembling, choking, tears and sighs. This is not love which should be, has no use In this or any world. And as for me I could not stand it longer. And I thought Of what was best to do: if 'twas not best To kill him as the queen bee kills the mate In rapture's own excess.
Then he arrived. I went to meet him in the car, pretended The feed pipe broke while I was on the way. I was not at the station when he came. I got back to the house and found him gone. He had run through the rooms calling my name, So Mary told me. Then he went around From place to place, wherever in the village He thought to find me.
Soon I heard his steps, The key in the door, his winded breath, his call, His running, stumbling up the stairs, while I Stood silent as a shadow in our room, My round bright eyes grown brighter for the light His life was feeding them. And then he stood Breathless and trembling in the door-way, stood Transfixed with ecstacy, then rushed and caught me And broke into loud tears.
It had to end. One or the other of us had to die. I could not die but by a violence, And he could die by love alone, and love I gave him to his death.
Why tell you details And ways with which I maddened him, and whipped The energies of love? You have extracted The secret in the main, that 'twas from love He came to death. His life had been too fast, His years too many for the daily rapture I gave him after three months' separation. And so he died one morning, made me free Of nothing but his presence in the flesh. His love is on me yet, and its effect. And now you're here to slave me differently-- No soul is ever free.
HEAVEN IS BUT THE HOUR
Eyes wide for wisdom, calm for joy or pain, Bright hair alloyed with silver, scarcely gold. And gracious lips flower pressed like buds to hold The guarded heart against excess of rain. Hands spirit tipped through which a genius plays With paints and clays, And strings in many keys-- Clothed in an aura of thought as soundless as a flood Of sun-shine where there is no breeze. So is it light in spite of rhythm of blood, Or turn of head, or hands that move, unite-- Wind cannot dim or agitate the light. From Plato's idea stepping, wholly wrought From Plato's dream, made manifest in hair, Eyes, lips and hands and voice, As if the stored up thought From the earth sphere Had given down the being of your choice Conjured by the dream long sought.
* * * * *
For you have moved in madness, rapture, wrath In and out of the path Drawn by the dream of a face. You have been watched, as star-men watch a star That leaves its way, returns and leaves its way, Until the exploring watchers find, can trace A hidden star beyond their sight, whose sway Draws the erratic star so long observed-- So have you wandered, swerved.
* * * * *
Always pursued and lost, Sometimes half found, half-faced, Such years we waste With the almost: The lips flower pressed like buds to hold Guarded the heart of the flower, But over them eyes not hued as the Dream foretold. Or to find the lips too rich and the dower Of eyes all gaiety Where wisdom scarce can be. Or to find the eyes, but to find offence In fingers where the sense Falters with colors, strings, Not touching with closed eyes, out of an immanence Of flame and wings. Or to find the light, but to find it set behind An eye which is not your dream, nor the shadow thereof, As it were your lamp in a stranger's window. And so almost to find In the great weariness of love.
* * * * *
Now this is the tragedy: If the Idea did not move Somewhere in the realm of Love, Clothing itself in flesh at last for you to see, You could scarcely follow the gleam. And the tragedy is when Life has made you over, And denied you, and dulled your dream, And you no longer count the cost, Nor the past lament, You are sitting oblivious of your discontent Beside the Almost-- And then the face appears Evoked from the Idea by your dead desire, And blinds and burns you like fire. And you sit there without tears, Though thinking it has come to kill you, or mock your youth With its half of the truth.
* * * * *
A beach as yellow as gold Daisied with tents for a lovely mile. And a sea that edges and walls the sand with blue, Matching the heaven without a seam, Save for the threads of foam that hold With stitches the canopy rare as the tile Of old Damascus. And O the wind Which roars to the roaring water brightened By the beating wings of the sun! And here I walk, not seeking the Dream, As men walk absent of heart or mind Who have no wish for a sorrow lightened Since all things now seem lost or won. And here it is that your face appears! Like a star brushed out from leaves by a breeze When day's in the sky, though evening nears. You are here by a tent with your little brood, And I approach in a quiet mood And see you, know that the Destinies Have surrendered you at last. Voice, lips and hands and the light of the eyes.
* * * * *
And I who have asked so much discover That you find in me the man and lover You have divined and visualized, In quiet day dreams. And what is strange Your boy of eight is subtly guised In fleeting looks that half resemble Something in me. Two souls may range Mid this earth's billion souls for life, And hide their hunger or dissemble. For there are two at least created, Endowed with alien powers that draw, And kindred powers that by some law Bind souls as like as sister, brother. There are two at least who are for each other. If we are such, it is not fated You are for him, howe'er belated The time's for us.
* * * * *
And yet is not the time gone by? Your garden has been planted, dear. And mine with weeds is over-grown. Oh yes! 'tis only late July! We can replant, ere frosts appear, Gather the blossoms we have sown. And I have preached that hearts should seize The hour that brings realities. ...
Yes, I admit it all, we crush Under our feet the world's contempt. But when I raise the cup, it's blush Reveals the snake's eyes, there's a hush While a hand writes upon the wall: Life cannot be re-made, exempt From life that has been, something's gone Out of the soil, in life updrawn To growths that vine, and tangle, crawl, Withered in part, or gone to seed. 'Tis not the same, though you have freed The soil from what was grown. ...
* * * * *
Heaven is but the hour Of the planting of the flower. But heaven is the blossom to be, Of the one Reality. And heaven cannot undo the once sown ground. But heaven is love in the pursuing, And in the memory of having found. ...
The rocks in the river make light and sound And show that the waters search and move. And what is time but an infinite whole Revealed by the breaks in thought, desire? To put it away is to know one's soul. Love is music unheard and fire Too rare for eyes; between hurt beats The heart detects it, sees how pure Its essence is, through heart defeats.-- You are the silence making sure The sound with which it has to cope, My sorrow and as well my hope.
VICTOR RAFOLSKI ON ART
You dull Goliaths clothed in coats of blue, Strained and half bursted by the swell of flesh, Topped by Gorilla heads. You Marmoset, Trained scoundrel, taught to question and ensnare, I hate you, hate your laws and hate your courts. Hands off, give me a chair, now let me be. I'll tell you more than you can think to ask me. I love this woman, but what is love to you? What is it to your laws or courts? I love her. She loves me, if you'd know. I entered her room-- She stood before me naked, shrank a little, Cried out a little, calmed her sudden cry When she saw amiable passion in my eyes-- She loves me, if you'd know. I saw in her eyes More in those moments than whole hours of talk From witness stands exculpate could make clear My innocence.
But if I did a crime My excuse is hunger, hunger for more life. Oh what a world, where beauty, rapture, love Are walled in and locked up like coal or food And only may be had by purchasers From whose fat fingers slip the unheeded gold. Oh what a world where beauty lies in waste, While power and freedom skulk with famished lips Too tightly pressed for curses.
So do men, Save for the thousandth man, deny themselves And live in meagreness to make sure a life Of meagreness by hearth stones long since stale; And live in ways, companionships as fixed As the geared figures of the Strassburg clock. You wonder at war? Why war lets loose desires, Emotions long repressed. Would you stop war? Then let men live. The moral equivalent Of war is freedom. Art does not suffice-- Religion is not life, but life is living. And painted cherries to the hungry thrush Is art to life. The artist lived his work. You cannot live his life who love his work. You are the thrush that pecks at painted cherries Who hope to live through art. Beer-soaked Goliaths, The story's coming of her nakedness Be patient for a time.
All this I learned While painting pictures no one ever bought, Till hunger drove me to this servile work As butler in her father's house, with time On certain days to walk the galleries And look at pictures, marbles. For I saw I was not living while I painted pictures. I was not living working for a crust, I was not living walking galleries: All this was but vicarious life which felt Through gazing at the thing the artist made, In memory of the life he lived himself: As we preserve the fragrance of a flower By drawing off its essence in a bottle, Where color, fluttering leaves, are thrown away To get the inner passion of the flower Extracted to a bottle that a queen May act the flower's part.
Say what you will, Make laws to strangle life, shout from your pulpits, Your desks of editors, your woolsack benches Where judges sit, that this dull hypocrite, You call the State, has fashioned life aright-- The secret is abroad, from eye to eye The secret passes from poor eyes that wink In boredom, in fatigue, in furious strength Roped down or barred, that what the human heart Dreams of and hopes for till the aspiring flame Flaps in the guttered candle and goes out, Is love for body and for spirit, love To satisfy their hunger. Yet what is it, This earth, this life, what is it but a meadow Where spirits are left free a little while Within a little space, so long as strength, Flesh, blood increases to the day of use As roasts or stews wherewith this witless beast, Society may feed himself and keep His olden shape and power?
Fools go crop The herbs they turn you to, and starve yourself For what you want, and count it righteousness, No less you covet love. Poor shadows sighing, Across the curtain racing! Mangled souls Pecking so feebly at the painted cherries, Inhaling from a bottle what was lived These summers gone! You know, and scarce deny That what we men desire are horses, dogs, Loves, women, insurrections, travel, change, Thrill in the wreck and rapture for the change, And re-adjusted order.
As I turned From painting and from art, yet found myself Full of all lusts while bound to menial work Where my eyes daily rested on this woman A thought came to me like a little spark One sees far down the darkness of a cave, Which grows into a flame, a blinding light As one approaches it, so did this thought Both burn and blind me: For I loved this woman, I wanted her, why should I lose this woman? What was there to oppose possession? Will? Her will, you say? I am not sure, but then Which will is better, mine or hers? Which will Deserves achievement? Which has rights above The other? I desire her, her desire Is not toward me, which of these two desires Shall triumph? Why not mine for me and hers For her, at least the stronger must prevail, And wreck itself or bend all else before it. That millionaire who wooed her, tried in vain To overwhelm her will with gold, and I With passion, boldness would have overwhelmed it, And what's the difference?
But as I said I walked the galleries. When I stood in the yard Bare armed, bare throated at my work, she came And gazed upon me from her window. I Could feel the exhausting influence of her eyes. Then in a concentration which was blindness To all else, so bewilderment of mind, I'd go to see Watteau's Antiope Where he sketched Zeus in hunger, drawing back The veil that hid her sleeping nakedness. There was Correggio's too, on whom a satyr Smiled for his amorous wonder. A Semele, Done by an unknown hand, a thing of lightning Moved through by Zeus who seized her as the flames Consumed her ravished beauty.
So I looked, And trembled, then returned perhaps to find Her eyes upon me conscious, calm, elate, And radiate with lashes of surprise, Delight as when a star is still but shines. And on this night somehow our natures worked To climaxes. For first she dressed for dinner To show more back and bosom than before. And as I served her, her down-looking eyes Were more than glances. Then she dropped her napkin. Before I could begin to bend she leaned And let me see--oh yes, she let me see The white foam of her little breasts caressing The scarlet flame of silk, a swooning shore Of bright carnations. It was from such foam That Venus rose. And as I stooped and gave The napkin to her she pushed out a foot, And then I coughed for breath grown short, and she Concealed a smile--and you, you jailers laugh Coarse-mouthed, and mock my hunger.
I go on, Observe how courage, boldness mark my steps! At nine o'clock she climbs to her boudoir. I finding errands in the hallway hear The desultory taking up of books, And through her open door, see her at last Cast off her dinner gown and to the bath Step like a ray of moonlight. Then she snaps The light on where the onyx tub and walls Dazzle the air. I enter then her room And stand against the closed door, do not pry Upon her in the bath. Give her the chance To fly me, fight me standing face to face. I hear her flounder in the water, hear Hands slap and slip with water breast and arms; Hear little sighs and shudders and the roughness Of crash towels on her back, when in a minute She stands with back toward me in the doorway, A sea-shell glory, pink and white to hair Sun-lit, a lily crowned with powdered gold. She turned toward her dresser then and shook White dust of talcum on her arms, and looked So lovingly upon her tense straight breasts, Touching them under with soft tapering hands To blue eyes deepening like a brazier flame Turned by a sudden gust. Who gives her these, The thought ran through me, for her joy alone And not for mine?
So I stood there like Zeus Coming in thunder to Semele, like The diety of Watteau. Correggio Had never painted me a satyr there Drinking her beauty in, so worshipful, My will subdued in worship of her beauty To obey her will.
And then she turned and saw me, And faced me in her nakedness, nor tried To hide it from me, faced me immovable A Mona Lisa smile upon her lips. And let me plead my cause, make known my love, Speak out my torture, wearing still the smile. Let me approach her till I almost touched The whiteness of her bosom. Then it seemed That smile of hers not wilting me she clapped Hands over eyes and said: "I am afraid-- Oh no, it cannot be--what would they say?" Then rushing in the bathroom, quick she slammed The door and shrieked: "You scoundrel, go--you beast." My dream went up like paper charred and whirled Above a hearth. Thrilling I stood alone Amid her room and saw my life, our life Embodied in this woman lately there Lying and cowardly. And as I turned To leave the room, her father and the gardener Pounced on me, threw me down a flight of stairs And turned me over, stunned, to you the law Here with these others who have stolen coal To keep them warm, as I have stolen beauty To keep from freezing in this arid country Of winter winds on which the dust of custom Rides like a fog.
Now do your worst to me!
THE LANDSCAPE
You and your landscape! There it lies Stripped, resuming its disguise, Clothed in dreams, made bare again, Symbol infinite of pain, Rapture, magic, mystery Of vanished days and days to be. There's its sea of tidal grass Over which the south winds pass, And the sun-set's Tuscan gold Which the distant windows hold For an instant like a sphere Bursting ere it disappear. There's the dark green woods which throve In the spell of Leese's Grove. And the winding of the road; And the hill o'er which the sky Stretched its pallied vacancy Ere the dawn or evening glowed. And the wonder of the town Somewhere from the hill-top down Nestling under hills and woods And the meadow's solitudes.
* * * * *
And your paper knight of old Secrets of the landscape told. And the hedge-rows where the pond Took the blue of heavens beyond The hastening clouds of gusty March. There you saw their wrinkled arch Where the East wind cracks his whips Round the little pond and clips Main-sails from your toppled ships. ...
Landscape that in youth you knew Past and present, earth and you! All the legends and the tales Of the uplands, of the vales; Sounds of cattle and the cries Of ploughmen and of travelers Were its soul's interpreters. And here the lame were always lame. Always gray the gray of head. And the dead were always dead Ere the landscape had become Your cradle, as it was their tomb.
* * * * *
And when the thunder storms would waken Of the dream your soul was not forsaken: In the room where the dormer windows look-- There were your knight and the tattered book. With colors of the forest green Gabled roofs and the demesne Of faery kingdoms and faery time Storied in pre-natal rhyme. ... Past the orchards, in the plain The cattle fed on in the rain. And the storm-beaten horseman sped Rain blinded and with bended head. And John the ploughman comes and goes In labor wet, with steaming clothes. This is your landscape, but you see Not terror and not destiny Behind its loved, maternal face, Its power to change, or fade, replace Its wonder with a deeper dream, Unfolding to a vaster theme. From time eternal was this earth? No less this landscape with your birth Arose, nor leaves you, nor decay Finds till the twilight of your day. It bore you, moulds you to its plan. It ends with you as it began, But bears the seed of future years Of higher raptures, dumber tears.
* * * * *
For soon you lose the landscape through Absence, sorrow, eyes grown true To the naked limbs which show Buds that never more may blow. Now you know the lame were straight Ere you knew them, and the fate Of the old is yet to die. Now you know the dead who lie In the graves you saw where first The landscape on your vision burst, Were not always dead, and now Shadows rest upon the brow Of the souls as young as you. Some are gone, though years are few Since you roamed with them the hills. So the landscape changes, wills All the changes, did it try Its promises to justify?...
* * * * *
For you return and find it bare: There is no heaven of golden air. Your eyes around the horizon rove, A clump of trees is Leese's Grove. And what's the hedgerow, what's the pond? A wallow where the vagabond Beast will not drink, and where the arch Of heaven in the days of March Refrains to look. A blinding rain Beats the once gilded window pane. John, the poor wretch, is gone, but bread Tempts other feet that path to tread Between the barn and house, and brave The March rain and the winds that rave. ... O, landscape I am one who stands Returned with pale and broken hands Glad for the day that I have known, And finds the deserted doorway strown With shoulder blade and spinal bone. And you who nourished me and bred I find the spirit from you fled. You gave me dreams,'twas at your breast My soul's beginning rose and pressed My steps afar at last and shaped A world elusive, which escaped Whatever love or thought could find Beyond the tireless wings of mind. Yet grown by you, and feeding on Your strength as mother, you are gone When I return from living, trace My steps to see how I began, And deeply search your mother face To know your inner self, the place For which you bore me, sent me forth To wander, south or east or north. ... Now the familiar landscape lies With breathless breast and hollow eyes. It knows me not, as I know not Its secret, spirit, all forgot Its kindred look is, as I stand A stranger in an unknown land.
* * * * *
Are we not earth-born, formed of dust Which seeks again its love and trust In an old landscape, after change In hearts grown weary, wrecked and strange? What though we struggled to emerge Dividual, footed for the urge Of further self-discoveries, though In the mid-years we cease to know, Through disenchanted eyes, the spell That clothed it like a miracle-- Yet at the last our steps return Its deeper mysteries to learn. It has been always us, it must Clasp to itself our kindred dust. We cannot free ourselves from it. Near or afar we must submit To what is in us, what was grown Out of the landscape's soil, the known And unknown powers of soil and soul. As bodies yield to the control Of the earth's center, and so bend In age, so hearts toward the end Bend down with lips so long athirst To waters which were known at first-- The little spring at Leese's Grove Was your first love, is your last love!
* * * * *
When those we knew in youth have crept Under the landscape, which has kept Nothing we saw with youthful eyes; Ere God is formed in the empty skies, I wonder not our steps are pressed Toward the mystery of their rest. That is the hope at bud which kneels Where ancestors the tomb conceals. Age no less than youth would lean Upon some love. For what is seen No more of father, mother, friend, For hands of flesh lost, eyes grown blind In death, a something which assures, Comforts, allays our fears, endures. Just as the landscape and our home In childhood made of heaven's dome, And all the farthest ways of earth A place as sheltered as the hearth.
* * * * *
Is it not written at the last day Heaven and earth shall roll away? Yes, as my landscape passed through death, Lay like a corpse, and with new breath Became instinct with fire and light-- So shall it roll up in my sight, Pass from the realm of finite sense, Become a thing of spirit, whence I shall pass too, its child in faith Of dreams it gave me, which nor death Nor change can wreck, but still reveal In change a Something vast, more real Than sunsets, meadows, green-wood trees, Or even faery presences. A Something which the earth and air Transmutes but keeps them what they were; Clear films of beauty grown more thin As we approach and enter in. Until we reach the scene that made Our landscape just a thing of shade.
TO-MORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY
Well, then, another drink! Ben Jonson knows, So do you, Michael Drayton, that to-morrow I reach my fifty-second year. But hark ye, To-morrow lacks two days of being a month-- Here is a secret--since I made my will. Heigh ho! that's done too! I wonder why I did it? That I should make a will! Yet it may be That then and jump at this most crescent hour Heaven inspired the deed.
As a mad younker I knew an aged man in Warwickshire Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," for sadness Of change, or passing time, or secret thoughts. If it was spring he sighed it, if 'twas fall, With drifting leaves, he looked upon the rain And with doleful suspiration kept This habit of his grief. And on a time As he stood looking at the flying clouds, I loitering near, expectant, heard him say it, Inquired, "Why do you say 'Ah, mercy me,' Now that it's April?" So he hobbled off And left me empty there.
Now here am I! Oh, it is strange to find myself this age, And rustling like a peascod, though unshelled, And, like this aged man of Warwickshire, Slaved by a mood which must have breath--"Tra-la! That's what I say instead of "Ah, mercy me." For look you, Ben, I catch myself with "Tra-la" The moment I break sleep to see the day. At work, alone, vexed, laughing, mad or glad I say, "Tra-la" unknowing. Oft at table I say, "Tra-la." And 'tother day, poor Anne Looked long at me and said, "You say, 'Tra-la' Sometimes when you're asleep; why do you so?" Then I bethought me of that aged man Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," but answered: "Perhaps I am so happy when awake The song crops out in slumber--who can say?" And Anne arose, began to keel the pot, But was she answered, Ben? Who know a woman?
To-morrow is my birthday. If I die, Slip out of this with Bacchus for a guide, What soul would interdict the poppied way? Heroes may look the Monster down, a child Can wilt a lion, who is cowed to see Such bland unreckoning of his strength--but I, Having so greatly lived, would sink away Unknowing my departure. I have died A thousand times, and with a valiant soul Have drunk the cup, but why? In such a death To-morrow shines and there's a place to lean. But in this death that has no bottom to it, No bank beyond, no place to step, the soul Grows sick, and like a falling dream we shrink From that inane which gulfs us, without place For us to stand and see it.
Yet, dear Ben, This thing must be; that's what we live to know Out of long dreaming, saying that we know it. As yeasty heroes in their braggart teens Spout learnedly of war, who never saw A cannon aimed. You drink too much to-day, Or get a scratch while turning Lucy's stile, And like a beast you sicken. Like a beast They cart you off. What matter if your thought Outsoared the Phoenix? Like a beast you rot. Methinks that something wants our flesh, as we Hunger for flesh of beasts. But still to-morrow, To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow Creeps in this petty pace--O, Michael Drayton, Some end must be. But 'twixt the fear of ceasing And weariness of going on we lie Upon these thorns!
These several springs I find No new birth in the Spring. And yet in London I used to cry, "O, would I were in Stratford; It's April and the larks are singing now. The flags are green along the Avon river; O, would I were a rambler in the fields. This poor machine is racing to its wreck. This grist of thought is endless, this old sorrow Sprouts, winds and crawls in London's darkness. Come Back to your landscape! Peradventure waits Some woman there who will make new the earth, And crown the spring with fire."
So back I come. And the springs march before me, say, "Behold Here are we, and what would you, can you use us? What good is air if lungs are out, or springs When the mind's flown so far away no spring, Nor loveliness of earth can call it back? I tell you what it is: in early youth The life is in the loins; by thirty years It travels through the stomach to the lungs, And then we strut and crow. By forty years The fruit is swelling while the leaves are fresh. By fifty years you're ripe, begin to rot. At fifty-two, or fifty-five or sixty The life is in the seed--what's spring to you? Puff! Puff! You are so winged and light you fly. For every passing zephyr, are blown off, And drifting, God knows where, cry out "tra-la," "Ah, mercy me," as it may happen you. Puff! Puff! away you go!
Another drink? Why, you may drown the earth with ale and I Will drain it like a sea. The more I drink The better I see that this is April time. ...
Ben! There is one Voice which says to everything: "Dream what you will, I'll make you bear your seed. And, having borne, the sickle comes among ye And takes your stalk." The rich and sappy greens Of spring or June show life within the loins, And all the world is fair, for now the plant Can drink the level cup of flame where heaven Is poured full by the sun. But when the blossom Flutters its colors, then it takes the cup And waves the stalk aside. And having drunk The stalk to penury, then slumber comes With dreams of spring stored in the imprisoned germ, An old life and a new life all in one, A thing of memory and of prophecy, Of reminiscence, longing, hope and fear. What has been ours is taken, what was ours Becomes entailed on our seed in the spring, Fees in possession and enjoyment too. ...
The thing is sex, Ben. It is that which lives And dies in us, makes April and unmakes, And leaves a man like me at fifty-two, Finished but living, on the pinnacle Betwixt a death and birth, the earth consumed And heaven rolled up to eyes whose troubled glances Would shape again to something better--what? Give me a woman, Ben, and I will pick Out of this April, by this larger art Of fifty-two, such songs as we have heard, Both you and I, when weltering in the clouds Of that eternity which comes in sleep, Or in the viewless spinning of the soul When most intense. The woman is somewhere, And that's what tortures, when I think this field So often gleaned could blossom once again If I could find her.
Well, as to my plays: I have not written out what I would write. They have a thousand buds of finer flowering. And over "Hamlet" hangs a teasing spirit As fine to that as sense is fine to flesh. Good friends, my soul beats up its prisoned wings Against the ceiling of a vaster whorl And would break through and enter. But, fair friends, What strength in place of sex shall steady me? What is the motive of this higher mount? What process in the making of myself-- The very fire, as it were, of my growth-- Shall furnish forth these writings by the way, As incident, expression of the nature Relumed for adding branches, twigs and leaves?...
Suppose I'd make a tragedy of this, Focus my fancied "Dante" to this theme, And leave my halfwrit "Sappho," which at best Is just another delving in the mine That gave me "Cleopatra" and the Sonnets? If you have genius, write my tragedy, And call it "Shakespeare, Gentleman of Stratford," Who lost his soul amid a thousand souls, And had to live without it, yet live with it As wretched as the souls whose lives he lived. Here is a play for you: Poor William Shakespeare, This moment growing drunk, the famous author Of certain sugared sonnets and some plays, With this machine too much to him, which started Some years ago, now cries him nay and runs Even when the house shakes and complains, "I fall, You shake me down, my timbers break apart. Why, if an engine must go on like this The building should be stronger."
Or to mix, And by the mixing, unmix metaphors, No mortal man has blood enough for brains And stomach too, when the brain is never done With thinking and creating.
For you see, I pluck a flower, cut off a dragon's head-- Choose twixt these figures--lo, a dozen buds, A dozen heads out-crop. For every fancy, Play, sonnet, what you will, I write me out With thinking "Now I'm done," a hundred others Crowd up for voices, and, like twins unborn Kick and turn o'er for entrance to the world. And I, poor fecund creature, who would rest, As 'twere from an importunate husband, fly To money-lending, farming, mulberry trees, Enclosing Welcombe fields, or idling hours In common talk with people like the Combes. All this to get a heartiness, a hold On earth again, lest Heaven Hercules, Finding me strayed to mid-air, kicking heels Above the mountain tops, seize on my scruff And bear me off or strangle.
Good, my friends, The "Tempest" is as nothing to the voice That calls me to performance--what I know not. I've planned an epic of the Asian wash Which slopped the star of Athens and put out, Which should all history analyze, and present A thousand notables in the guise of life, And show the ancient world and worlds to come To the last blade of thought and tiniest seed Of growth to be. With visions such as these My spirit turns in restless ecstacy, And this enslaved brain is master sponge, And sucks the blood of body, hands and feet. While my poor spirit, like a butterfly Gummed in its shell, beats its bedraggled wings, And cannot rise.
I'm cold, both hands and feet. These three days past I have been cold, this hour I am warm in three days. God bless the ale. God did do well to give us anodynes. ... So now you know why I am much alone, And cannot fellow with Augustine Phillips, John Heminge, Richard Burbage, Henry Condell, And do not have them here, dear ancient friends, Who grieve, no doubt, and wonder for changed love. Love is not love which alters when it finds A change of heart, but mine has changed not, only I cannot be my old self. I blaspheme: I hunger for broiled fish, but fly the touch Of hands of flesh.
I am most passionate, And long am used perplexities of love To bemoan and to bewail. And do you wonder, Seeing what I am, what my fate has been? Well, hark you; Anne is sixty now, and I, A crater which erupts, look where she stands In lava wrinkles, eight years older than I am, As years go, but I am a youth afire While she is lean and slippered. It's a Fury Which takes me sometimes, makes my hands clutch out For virgins in their teens. O sullen fancy! I want them not, I want the love which springs Like flame which blots the sun, where fuel of body Is piled in reckless generosity. ... You are most learned, Ben, Greek and Latin know, And think me nature's child, scarce understand How much of physic, law, and ancient annals I have stored up by means of studious zeal. But pass this by, and for the braggart breath Ensuing now say, "Will was in his cups, Potvaliant, boozed, corned, squiffy, obfuscated, Crapulous, inter pocula, or so forth. Good sir, or so, or friend, or gentleman, According to the phrase or the addition Of man and country, on my honor, Shakespeare At Stratford, on the twenty-second of April, Year sixteen-sixteen of our Lord was merry-- Videlicet, was drunk." Well, where was I?-- Oh yes, at braggart breath, and now to say it: I believe and say it as I would lightly speak Of the most common thing to sense, outside Myself to touch or analyze, this mind Which has been used by Something, as I use A quill for writing, never in this world In the most high and palmy days of Greece, Or in this roaring age, has known its peer. No soul as mine has lived, felt, suffered, dreamed, Broke open spirit secrets, followed trails Of passions curious, countless lives explored As I have done. And what are Greek and Latin, The lore of Aristotle, Plato to this? Since I know them by what I am, the essence From which their utterance came, myself a flower Of every graft and being in myself The recapitulation and the complex Of all the great. Were not brains before books? And even geometries in some brain Before old Gutenberg? O fie, Ben Jonson, If I am nature's child am I not all? Howe'er it be, ascribe this to the ale, And say that reason in me was a fume. But if you honor me, as you have said, As much as any, this side idolatry, Think, Ben, of this: That I, whate'er I be In your regard, have come to fifty-two, Defeated in my love, who knew too well That poets through the love of women turn To satyrs or to gods, even as women By the first touch of passion bloom or rot As angels or as bawds.
Bethink you also How I have felt, seen, known the mystic process Working in man's soul from the woman soul As part thereof in essence, spirit and flesh, Even as a malady may be, while this thing Is health and growth, and growing draws all life, All goodness, wisdom for its nutriment. Till it become a vision paradisic, And a ladder of fire for climbing, from its topmost Rung a place for stepping into heaven. ...
This I have know, but had not. Nor have I Stood coolly off and seen the woman, used Her blood upon my palette. No, but heaven Commanded my strength's use to abort and slay What grew within me, while I saw the blood Of love untimely ripped, as 'twere a child Killed i' the womb, a harpy or an angel With my own blood stained.
As a virgin shamed By the swelling life unlicensed needles it, But empties not her womb of some last shred Of flesh which fouls the alleys of her body, And fills her wholesome nerves with poisoned sleep, And weakness to the last of life, so I For some shame not unlike, some need of life To rid me of this life I had conceived Did up and choke it too, and thence begot A fever and a fixed debility For killing that begot.
Now you see that I Have not grown from a central dream, but grown Despite a wound, and over the wound and used My flesh to heal my flesh. My love's a fever Which longed for that which nursed the malady, And fed on that which still preserved the ill, The uncertain, sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept Has left me. And as reason is past care I am past cure, with ever more unrest Made frantic-mad, my thoughts as madmen's are, And my discourse at random from the truth, Not knowing what she is, who swore her fair And thought her bright, who is as black as hell And dark as night.
But list, good gentlemen, This love I speak of is not as a cloak Which one may put away to wear a coat, And doff that for a jacket, like the loves We men are wont to have as loves or wives. She is the very one, the soul of souls, And when you put her on you put on light, Or wear the robe of Nessus, poisonous fire, Which if you tear away you tear your life, And if you wear you fall to ashes. So 'Tis not her bed-vow broke, I have broke mine, That ruins me; 'tis honest faith quite lost, And broken hope that we could find each other, And that mean more to me and less to her. 'Tis that she could take all of me and leave me Without a sense of loss, without a tear, And make me fool and perjured for the oath That swore her fair and true. I feel myself As like a virgin who her body gives For love of one whose love she dreams is hers, But wakes to find herself a toy of blood, And dupe of prodigal breath, abandoned quite For other conquests. For I gave myself, And shrink for thought thereof, and for the loss Of myself never to myself restored. The urtication of this shame made plays And sonnets, as you'll find behind all deeds That mount to greatness, anger, hate, disgust, But, better, love.
To hell with punks and wenches, Drabs, mopsies, doxies, minxes, trulls and queans, Rips, harridans and strumpets, pieces, jades. And likewise to the eternal bonfire lechers, All rakehells, satyrs, goats and placket fumblers, Gibs, breakers-in-at-catch-doors, thunder tubes. I think I have a fever--hell and furies! Or else this ale grows hotter i' the mouth. Ben, if I die before you, let me waste Richly and freely in the good brown earth, Untrumpeted and by no bust marked out. What good, Ben Jonson, if the world could see What face was mine, who wrote these plays and sonnets? Life, you have hurt me. Since Death has a veil I take the veil and hide, and like great Cæsar Who drew his toga round him, I depart.
Good friends, let's to the fields--I have a fever. After a little walk, and by your pardon, I think I'll sleep. There is no sweeter thing, Nor fate more blessed than to sleep. Here, world, I pass you like an orange to a child: I can no more with you. Do what you will. What should my care be when I have no power To save, guide, mould you? Naughty world you need me As little as I need you: go your way! Tyrants shall rise and slaughter fill the earth, But I shall sleep. In wars and wars and wars The ever-replenished youth of earth shall shriek And clap their gushing wounds--but I shall sleep, Nor earthy thunder wake me when the cannon Shall shake the throne of Tartarus. Orators Shall fulmine over London or America Of rights eternal, parchments, sacred charters And cut each others' throats when reason fails-- But I shall sleep. This globe may last and breed The race of men till Time cries out "How long?" But I shall sleep ten thousand thousand years. I am a dream, Ben, out of a blessed sleep-- Let's walk and hear the lark.
SWEET CLOVER
Only a few plants up--and not a blossom My clover didn't catch. What is the matter? Old John comes by. I show him my result. Look, John! My clover patch is just a failure, I wanted you to sow it. Now you see What comes of letting Hunter do your work. The ground was not plowed right, or disced perhaps, Or harrowed fine enough, or too little seed Was sown.
But John, who knows a clover field, Pulls up a plant and cleans the roots of soil And studies them.
He says, Look at the roots! Hunter neglected to inoculate The seed, for clover seed must always have Clover bacteria to make it grow, And blossom. In a thrifty field of clover The roots are studded thick with tubercles, Like little warts, made by bacteria. And somehow these bacteria lay hold Upon the nitrogen that fills the soil, And make the plants grow, make them blossom too. When Hunter sowed this field he was not well: He should have hauled some top-soil to this field From some old clover field, or made a culture Of these bacteria and soaked the seed In it before he sowed it.
As I said, Hunter was sick when he was working here. And then he ran away to Indiana And left his wife and children. Now he's back. His cough was just as bad in Indiana As it is here. A cough is pretty hard To run away from. Wife and children too Are pretty hard to leave, since thought of them Stays with a fellow and cannot be left. Yes, Hunter's back, but he can't work for you. He's straightening out his little farm and making Provision for his family. Hunter's changed. He is a better man. It almost seems That Hunter's blossomed. ...
I am sorry for him. The doctor says he has tuberculosis.
SOMETHING BEYOND THE HILL
To a western breeze A row of golden tulips is nodding. They flutter their golden wings In a sudden ecstasy and say: Something comes to us from beyond, Out of the sky, beyond the hill We give it to you.
* * * * *
And I walk through rows of jonquils To a beloved door, Which you open. And you stand with the priceless gold of your tulip head Nodding to me, and saying: Something comes to me Out of the mystery of Eternal Beauty-- I give it to you.
* * * * *
There is the morning wonder of hyacinth in your eyes, And the freshness of June iris in your hands, And the rapture of gardenias in your bosom. But your voice is the voice of the robin Singing at dawn amid new leaves. It is like sun-light on blue water Where the south-wind is on the water And the buds of the flags are green. It is like the wild bird of the sedges With fluttering wings on a wind-blown reed Showering lyrics over the sun-light Between rhythmical pauses When his heart has stopped, Making light and water Into song.
* * * * *
Let me hear your voice, And the voice of Eternal Beauty Through the music of your voice. Let me gather the iris of your hands. Against my face. And close my eyes with your eyes. Let me listen with you For the Voice.
FRONT THE AGES WITH A SMILE
How did the sculptor, Voltaire, keep you quiet and posed In an arm chair, just think, at your busiest age we are told, Being better than seventy? How did he manage to stay you From hopping through Europe for long enough time for his work, Which shows you in marble, the look and the smile and the nose, The filleted brow very bald, the thin little hands, The posture pontifical, face imperturbable, smile so serene. How did the sculptor detain you, you ever so restless, You ever so driven by princes and priests? So I stand here Enwrapped of this face of you, frail little frame of you, And think of your work--how nothing could balk you Or quench you or damp you. How you twisted and turned, Emerged from the fingers of malice, emerged with a laugh, Kept Europe in laughter, in turmoil, in fear For your eighty-four years!
And they say of you still You were light and a mocker! You should have been solemn, And argued with monkeys and swine, speaking truthfully always. Nay, truthful with whom, to what end? With a breed such as lived In your day and your place? It was never their due! Truth for the truthful and true, and a lie for the liar if need be-- A board out of plumb for a place out of plumb, for the hypocrite flashes Of lightning or rods red hot for thrusting in tortuous places. Well, this was your way, you lived out the genius God gave you. And they hated you for it, hunted you all over Europe-- Why should they not hate you? Why should you not follow your light? But wherever they drove you, you climbed to a place more satiric. Did France bar her door? Geneva remained--good enough! Les Delices close to some several cantons, you know. Would they lay hands upon you? I fancy you laughing, You stand at your door and step into Vaud by one path; You stand at your door and step by another to France-- Such safe jurisdictions, in truth, as the Illinois rowdies Step from county to county ahead of the frustrate policeman. And here you have printers to print what you write and a house For the acting of plays, La Pucelle, Orphelin. O busy Voltaire, never resting. ...
So England conservative, England of Southey and Burke, The fox-hunting squires, the England of Church and of State, The England half mule and half ox, writes you down, O Voltaire: The quack grass of popery flourished in France, you essayed To plow up the tangle, and harrow the roots from the soil. It took a good ploughman to plow it, a ploughman of laughter, A ploughman who laughed when the plow struck the roots, and your breast Was thrown on the handles.
And yet to this day, O Voltaire, They charge you with levity, scoffing, when all that you did Was to plough up the quack grass, and turn up the roots to the sun, And let the sun kill them. For laughter is sun-light, And nothing of worth or of truth needs to fear it. But listen The strength of a nation is mind, I will grant you, and still But give it a tongue read and spoken more greatly than others, That nation can judge true or false and the judgment abides. The judgment in English condemns you, where is there a judgment To save you from this? Is it German, or Russian, or French?
Did you give up three years of your life To wipe out the sentence that burned the wracked body of Calas? Did you help the oppressed Montbailli and Lally, O well, Six lines in an article written in English are plenty To weigh what you did, put it by with a generous gesture, Give the minds of the student your measure, impress them Forever that all of this sacrifice, service was noble, But done with mixed motives, the fruits of your meddlesome nature, Your hatred of churches and priests. Six lines are the record Of all of these years of hard plowing in quack-grass, while batting At poisonous flies and stepping on poisonous snakes ...
How well did you know that life to a genius, a god, Is naught but a farce! How well did you look with those eyes As black as a beetle's through all the ridiculous show: Ridiculous war, and ridiculous strife, and ridiculous pomp. Ridiculous dignity, riches, rituals, reasons and creeds. Ridiculous guesses at what the great Silence is saying. Ridiculous systems wound over the earth like a snake Devouring the children of Fear! Ridiculous customs, Ridiculous judgments and laws, philosophies, worships. You saw through and laughed at--you saw above all That a soul must make end with a groan, or a curse, or a laugh.
So you smiled till the lines of your mouth A crescent became with dimples for horns, so expressing To centuries after who see you in marble: Behold me, I lived, I loved, I laughed, I toiled without ceasing Through eighty-four years for realities--O let them pass, Let life go by. Would you rise over death like a god? Front the ages with a smile!
POOR PIERROT
Here far away from the city, here by the yellow dunes I will lie and soothe my heart where the sea croons. For what can I do with strife, or what can I do with hate? Or the city, or life, or fame, or love or fate?
Or the struggle since time began of the rich and poor? Or the law that drives the weak from the temple's door? Bury me under the sand so that my sorrow shall lie Hidden under the dunes from the world's eye.
I have learned the secret of silence, silence long and deep: The dead knew all that I know, that is why they sleep. They could do nothing with fate, or love, or fame, or strife-- When life fills full the soul then life kills life.
I would glide under the earth as a shadow over a dune, Into the soul of silence, under the sun and moon. And forever as long as the world stands or the stars flee Be one with the sands of the shore and one with the sea.
MIRAGE OF THE DESERT
Well, there's the brazier set by the temple door: Blue flames run over the coals and flicker through. There are cool spaces of sky between white clouds-- But what are flames and spaces but eyes of blue?
* * * * *
And there's the harp on which great fingers play Of gods who touch the wires, dreaming infinite things; And there's a soul that wanders out when called By a voice afar from the answering strings.
* * * * *
And there's the wish of the deep fulfillment of tears, Till the vision, the mad music are wept away. One cannot have them and live, but if one die It might be better than living--who can say?
* * * * *
Why do we thirst for urns beyond urns who know How sweet they are, yet bitter, not enough? Eternity will quench your thirst, O soul-- But never the Desert's spectre, cup of love!
* * * * *
DAHLIAS
The mad wind is the warden, And the smiling dahlias nod To the dahlias across the garden, And the wastes of the golden rod.
They never pray for pardon, Nor ask his way nor forego, Nor close their hearts nor harden Nor stay his hand, nor bestow
Their hearts filched out of their bosoms, Nor plan for dahlias to be. For the wind blows over the garden And sets the dahlias free.
They drift to the song of the warden, Heedless they give him heed. And he walks and blows through the garden Blossom and leaf and seed.
THE GRAND RIVER MARSHES
Silvers and purples breathing in a sky Of fiery mid-days, like a watching tiger, Of the restrained but passionate July Upon the marshes of the river lie, Like the filmed pinions of the dragon fly.
* * * * *
A whole horizon's waste of rushes bend Under the flapping of the breeze's wing, Departing and revisiting The haunts of the river twisting without end.
* * * * *
The torsions of the river make long miles Of the waters of the river which remain Coiled by the village, tortuous aisles Of water between the rushes, which restrain The bewildered currents in returning files, Twisting between the greens like a blue racer, Too hurt to leap with body or uplift Its head while gliding, neither slow nor swift
* * * * *
Against the shaggy yellows of the dunes The iron bridge's reticules Are seen by fishermen from the Damascened lagoons. But from the bridge, watching the little steamer Paddling against the current up to Eastmanville, The river loosened from the abandoned spools Of earth and heaven wanders without will, Between the rushes, like a silken streamer. And two old men who turn the bridge For passing boats sit in the sun all day, Toothless and sleepy, ancient river dogs, And smoke and talk of a glory passed away. And of the ruthless sacrilege Which mowed away the pines, And cast them in the current here as logs, To be devoured by the mills to the last sliver, Making for a little hour heroes and heroines, Dancing and laughter at Grand Haven, When the great saws sent screeches up and whines, And cries for more and more Slaughter of forests up and down the river And along the lake's shore.
* * * * *
But all is quiet on the river now As when the snow lay windless in the wood, And the last Indian stood And looked to find the broken bough That told the path under the snow. All is as silent as the spiral lights Of purple and of gold that from the marshes rise, Like the wings of swarming dragon flies, Far up toward Eastmanville, where the enclosing skies Quiver with heat; as silent as the flights Of the crow like smoke from shops against the glare Of dunes and purple air, There where Grand Haven against the sand hill lies.
* * * * *
The forests and the mills are gone! All is as silent as the voice I heard On a summer dawn When we two fished among the river reeds. As silent as the pain In a heart that feeds A sorrow, but does not complain. As silent as above the bridge in this July, Noiseless, far up in this mirror-lighted sky Wheels aimlessly a hydroplane: A man-bestridden dragon fly!
DELILAH
Because thou wast most delicate, A woman fair for men to see, The earth did compass thy estate, Thou didst hold life and death in fee, And every soul did bend the knee.
[Sidenote: (Wherein the corrupt spirit of privilege is symbolized by Delilah and the People by Samson.)]
Much pleasure also made thee grieve For that the goblet had been drained. The well spiced viand thou didst leave To frown on want whose throat was strained, And violence whose hands were stained.
The purple of thy royal cloak, Made the sea paler for its hue. Much people bent beneath the yoke To fetch thee jewels white and blue, And rings to pass thy gold hair through.
Therefore, Delilah wast thou called, Because the choice wines nourished thee In Sorek, by the mountains walled Against the north wind's misery, Where flourished every pleasant tree.
[Sidenote: (Delilah hath a taste for ease and luxury and wantoneth with divers lovers.)]
Thy lovers also were as great In numbers as the sea sands were; Thou didst requite their love with hate; And give them up to massacre, Who brought thee gifts of gold and myrrh.
[Sidenote: (Delilah conceiveth the design of ensnaring Samson.)]
At Gaza and at Ashkelon, The obscene Dagon worshipping, Thy face was fair to look upon. Yet thy tongue, sweet to talk or sing, Was deadlier than the adder's sting.
Wherefore, thou saidst: "I will procure The strong man Samson for my spouse, His death will make my ease secure. The god has heard this people's vows To recompense their injured house."
Thereafter, when the giant lay Supinely rolled against thy feet, Him thou didst craftily betray, With amorous vexings, low and sweet, To tell thee that which was not meet.
[Sidenote: (Delilah attempteth to discover the source of Samson's strength. Samson very neatly deceiveth her.)]
And Samson spake to thee again; "With seven green withes I may be bound, So shall I be as other men." Whereat the lords the green withes found-- The same about his limbs were bound.
Then did the fish-god in thee cry: "The Philistines be upon thee now." But Samson broke the withes awry, As when a keen fire toucheth tow; So thou didst not the secret know.
But thou, being full of guile, didst plead: "My lord, thou hast but mocked my love With lies who gave thy saying heed; Hast thou not vexed my heart enough, To ease me all the pain thereof?"
Now, in the chamber with fresh hopes, The liers in wait did list, and then He said: "Go to, and get new ropes, Wherewith thou shalt bind me again, So shall I be as other men."
[Sidenote: (Samson retaineth his intellect and the lustihood of his body and again misleadeth the subtle craft of Delilah.)]
Then didst thou do as he had said, Whereat the fish-god in thee cried, "The Philistines be upon thy head," He shook his shoulders deep and wide, And cast the ropes like thread aside.
Yet thou still fast to thy conceit, Didst chide him softly then and say: "Beforetime thou hast shown deceit, And mocked my quest with idle play, Thou canst not now my wish gainsay."
Then with the secret in his thought, He said: "If thou wilt weave my hair, The web withal, the deed is wrought; Thou shalt have all my strength in snare, And I as other men shall fare."
Seven locks of him thou tookest and wove The web withal and fastened it, And then the pin thy treason drove, With laughter making all things fit, As did beseem thy cunning wit.
[Sidenote: (Delilah still pursueth her designs and Samson beginning to be somewhat wearied hinteth very close to his secret.)]
Then the god Dagon speaking by Thy delicate mouth made horrid din; "Lo the Philistine lords are nigh"-- He woke ere thou couldst scarce begin, And took away the web and pin.
Yet, saying not it doth suffice, Thou in the chamber's secrecy, Didst with thy artful words entice Samson to give his heart to thee, And tell thee where his strength might be.
Pleading, "How canst thou still aver, I love thee, being yet unkind? How is it thou dost minister Unto my heart with treacherous mind, Thou art but cruelly inclined."
From early morn to falling dusk, At night upon the curtained bed, Fragrant with spikenard and with musk, For weariness he laid his head, Whilst thou the insidious net didst spread.
[Sidenote: (Samson being weakened by lust and overcome by Delilah's importunities and guile telleth her wherein his great strength consisteth.)]
Nor wouldst not give him any rest, But vexed with various words his soul, Till death far more than life was blest, Shot through and through with heavy dole, He gave his strength to thy control.
Saying, "I am a Nazarite, To God alway, nor hath there yet Razor or shears done despite To these my locks of coarsen jet, Therefore my strength hath known no let."
"But, and if these be shaven close, Whereas I once was strong as ten, I may not meet my meanest foes Among the hated Philistine, I shall be weak like other men."
He turned to sleep, the spell was done, Thou saidst "Come up this once, I trow The secret of his strength is known; Hereafter sweat shall bead his brow, Bring up the silver thou didst vow."
[Sidenote: (Samson having trusted Delilah turneth to sleep whereat her minions with force falleth upon him and depriveth him of his strength.)]
They came, and sleeping on thy knees, The giant of his locks was shorn. And Dagon, being now at ease, Cried like the harbinger of morn, To see the giant's strength forlorn.
For he wist not the Lord was gone:-- "I will go as I went erewhile," He said, "and shake my mighty brawn." Without the captains, file on file, Did execute Delilah's guile.
[Sidenote: (Sansculottism, as it seemeth, is overthrown.)]
At Gaza where the mockers pass, Midst curses and unholy sound, They fettered him with chains of brass, Put out his eyes, and being bound Within the prison house he ground.
The heathen looking on did sing; "Behold our god into our hand, Hath brought him for our banqueting, Who slew us and destroyed our land, Against whom none of us could stand."
[Sidenote: (Samson being no longer formidable and being deprived of his eyes is reduced to slavery and made the sport of the heathen.)]
Now, therefore, when the festival Waxed merrily, with one accord, The lords and captains loud did call, To bring him out whom they abhorred, To make them sport who sat at board.
[Sidenote: (After a time Samson prayeth for vengeance even though himself should perish thereby.)]
And Samson made them sport and stood Betwixt the pillars of the house, Above with scornful hardihood, Both men and women made carouse, And ridiculed his eyeless brows.
Then Samson prayed "Remember me O Lord, this once, if not again. O God, behold my misery, Now weaker than all other men, Who once was mightier than ten."
"Grant vengeance for these sightless eyes, And for this unrequited toil, For fraud, injustice, perjuries, For lords whose greed devours the soil, And kings and rulers who despoil."
[Sidenote: (Wherein by a very nice conceit revolution is symbolized.)]
"For all that maketh light of Thee, And sets at naught Thy holy word, For tongues that babble blasphemy, And impious hands that hold the sword-- Grant vengeance, though I perish, Lord."
He grasped the pillars, having prayed, And bowed himself--the building fell, And on three thousand souls was laid, Gone soon to death with mighty yell. And Samson died, for it was well.
The lords and captains greatly err, Thinking that Samson is no more, Blind, but with ever-growing hair, He grinds from Tyre to Singapore, While yet Delilah plays the whore.
So it hath been, and yet will be, The captains, drunken at the feast To garnish their felicity, Will taunt him as a captive beast, Until their insolence hath ceased.
[Sidenote: (Wherein it is shown that while the people like Samson have been blinded, and have not recovered their sight still that their hair continueth to grow.)]
Of ribaldry that smelleth sweet, To Dagon and to Ashtoreth; Of bloody stripes from head to feet, He will endure unto the death, Being blind, he also nothing saith.
Then 'gainst the Doric capitals, Resting in prayer to God for power, He will shake down your marble walls, Abiding heaven's appointed hour, And those that fly shall hide and cower.
But this Delilah shall survive, To do the sin already done, Her treacherous wiles and arts shall thrive, At Gaza and at Ashkelon, A woman fair to look upon.
THE WORLD-SAVER
If the grim Fates, to stave ennui, Play whips for fun, or snares for game, The liar full of ease goes free, And Socrates must bear the shame.
With the blunt sage he stands despised, The Pharisees salute him not; Laughter awaits the truth he prized, And Judas profits by his plot.
A million angels kneel and pray, And sue for grace that he may win-- Eternal Jove prepares the day, And sternly sets the fateful gin.
Satan, who hates the light, is fain, To back his virtuous enterprise; The omnipotent powers alone refrain, Only the Lord of hosts denies.
Whatever of woven argument, Lacks warp to hold the woof in place, Smothers his honest discontent, But leaves to view his woeful face.
Fling forth the flag, devour the land, Grasp destiny and use the law; But dodge the epigram's keen brand, And fall not by the ass's jaw.
The idiot snicker strikes more down, Than fell at Troy or Waterloo; Still, still he meets it with a frown, And argues loudly for "the True."
Injustice lengthens out her chain, Greed, yet ahungered, calls for more; But while the eons wax and wane, He storms the barricaded door.
Wisdom and peace and fair intent, Are tedious as a tale twice told; One thing increases being spent-- Perennial youth belongs to gold.
At Weehawken the soul set free, Rules the high realm of Bunker Hill, Drink life from that philosophy, And flourish by the age's will.
If he shall toil to clear the field, Fate's children seize the prosperous year; Boldly he fashions some new shield, And naked feels the victor's spear.
He rolls the world up into day, He finds the grain, and gets the hull. He sees his own mind in the sway, And Progress tiptoes on his skull.
Angels and fiends behold the wrong, And execrate his losing fight; While Jove amidst the choral song Smiles, and the heavens glow with light!
--_Trueblood_
* * * * *
Trueblood is bewitched to write a drama-- Only one drama, then to die. Enough To win the heights but once! He writes me letters, These later days marked "Opened by the Censor," About his drama, asks me what I think About this point of view, and that approach, And whether to etch in his hero's soul By etching in his hero's enemies, Or luminate his hero by enshadowing His hero's enemies. How shall I tell him Which is the actual and the larger theme, His hero or his hero's enemies? And through it all I see that Trueblood's mind Runs to the under-dog, the fallen Titan The god misunderstood, the lover of man Destroyed by heaven for his love of man. In July, 1914, while in London He took me to his house to dine and showed me The verses as above. And while I read He left the room, returned, I heard him move The ash trays on the table where we sat And set some object on the table.
Then As I looked up from reading I discovered A skull and bony hand upon the table. And Trueblood said: "Look at the loft brow! And what a hand was this! A right hand too. Those fingers in the flesh did miracles. And when I have my hero's skull before me, His hand that moulded peoples, I should write The drama that possesses all my thought. You'd think the spirit of the man would come And show me how to find the key that fits The story of his life, reveal its secret. I know the secrets, but I want the secret. You'd think his spirit out of gratitude Would start me off. It's something, I insist, To find a haven with a dramatist After your bones have crossed the sea, and after Passing from hand to hand they reach seclusion, And reverent housing.
Dying in New York He lay for ten years in a lonely grave Somewhere along the Hudson, I believe. No grave yard in the city would receive him. Neither a banker nor a friend of banks, Nor falling in a duel to awake Indignant sorrow, space in Trinity Was not so much as offered. He was poor, And never had a tomb like Washington. Of course he wasn't Washington--but still, Study that skull a little! In ten years A mad admirer living here in England Went to America and dug him up, And brought his bones to Liverpool. Just then Our country was in turmoil over France-- (The details are so rich I lose my head, And can't construct my acts.)--hell's flaming here, And we are fighting back the roaring fire That France had lighted. England would abort The era she embraced. Here is a point That vexes me in laying out the scenes, And persons of the play. For parliament Went into fury that these bones were here On British soil. The city raged. They took The poor town-crier, gave him nine months' prison For crying on the streets the bones' arrival. I'd like to put that crier in my play. The scene of his arrest would thrill, in case I put it on a background understood, And showing why the fellow was arrested, And what a high offence to heaven it was. Then here's another thing: The monument This zealous friend had planned was never raised. The city wouldn't have it--you can guess The brain that filled this skull and moved this hand Had given England trouble. Yes, believe me! He roused rebellion and he scattered pamphlets. He had the English gift of writing pamphlets. He stirred up peoples with his English gift Against the mother country. How to show this In action, not in talk, is difficult.
Well, then here is our friend who has these bones And cannot honor them in burial. And so he keeps them, then becomes a bankrupt. And look! the bones pass to our friend's receiver. Are they an asset? Our Lord Chancellor Does not regard them so. I'd like to work Some humor in my drama at this point, And satirize his lordship just a little. Though you can scarcely call a skull an asset If it be of a man who helped to cost you The loss of half the world. So the receiver Cast out the bones and for a time a laborer Took care of them. He sold them to a man Who dealt in furniture. The empty coffin About this time turned up in Guilford--then It's 1854, the man is dead Near forty years, when just the skull and hand Are owned by Rev. Ainslie, who evades All questions touching on that ownership, And where the ribs, spine, arms and thigh bones are-- The rest in short.
And as for me--no matter Who sold them, gave them to me, loaned them to me. Behold the good right hand, behold the skull Of _Thomas Paine_, theo-philanthropist, Of Quaker parents, born in England! Look, That is the hand that wrote the Crisis, wrote The Age of Reason, Common Sense, and rallied Americans against the mother country, With just that English gift of pamphleteering. You see I'd have to bring George Washington, And James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson Upon the stage, and put into their mouths The eulogies they spoke on Thomas Paine, To get before the audience that they thought He did as much as any man to win Your independence; that your Declaration Was founded on his writings, even inspired A clause against your negro slavery--how-- Look at this hand!--he was the first to write _United States of America_--there's the hand That was the first to write those words. Good Lord This drama would out-last a Chinese drama If I put all the story in. But tell me What to omit, and what to stress?
And still I'd have the greatest drama in the world If I could prove he was dishonored, hunted, Neglected, libeled, buried like a beast, His bones dug up, thrown in and out of Chancery. And show these horrors overtook Tom Paine Because he was too great, and by this showing Instruct the world to honor its torch bearers For time to come. No? Well, that can't be done-- I know that; but it puzzles me to think That Hamilton--we'll say, is so revered, So lauded, toasted, all his papers studied On tariffs and on banks, evoking ahs! Great genius! and so forth--and there's the Crisis And Common Sense which only little Shelleys Haunting the dusty book shops read at all. It wasn't that he liked his rum and drank Too much at times, or chased a pretty skirt-- For Hamilton did that. Paine never mixed In money matters to another's wrong For his sake or a system's. Yes, I know The world cares more for chastity and temperance Than for a faultless life in money matters. No use to dramatize that vital contrast, The world to-day is what it always was. But you don't call this Hamilton an artist And Paine a mere logician and a wrangler? Your artist soul gets limed in this mad world As much as any. There is Leonardo-- The point's not here.
I think it's more like this: Some men are Titans and some men are gods, And some are gods who fall while climbing back Up to Olympus whence they came. And some While fighting for the race fall into holes Where to return and rescue them is death. Why look you here! You'd think America Had gone to war to cheat the guillotine Of Thomas Paine, in fiery gratitude. He's there in France's national assembly, And votes to save King Louis with this phrase: Don't kill the man but kill the kingly office. They think him faithless to the revolution For words like these--and clap! the prison door Shuts on our Thomas. So he writes a letter To president--of what! to Washington President of the United States of America, A title which Paine coined in seventy-seven Now lettered on a monstrous seal of state! And Washington is silent, never answers, And leaves our Thomas shivering in a cell, Who hears the guillotine go slash and click! Perhaps this is the nucleus of my drama. Or else to show that Washington was wise Respecting England's hatred of our Thomas, And wise to lift no finger to save Thomas, Incurring England's wrath, who hated Thomas For pamphlets like the "Crisis" "Common Sense." That may be just the story for my drama. Old Homer satirized the human race For warring for the rescue of a Cyprian. But there's not stuff for satire in a war Ensuing on the insult for the rescue Of nothing but a fellow who wrote pamphlets, And won a continent for the rescuer. That's tragedy, the more so if the fellow Likes rum and writes that Jesus was a man. This crushing of poor Thomas in the hate Of England and her power, America's Great fear and lowered strength might make a drama As showing how the more you do in life The greater shall you suffer. This is true, If what you battered down gets hold of you. This drama almost drives me mad at times. I have his story at my fingers' ends. But it won't take a shape. It flies my hands. I think I'll have to give it up. What's that? Well, if an audience of to-day would turn From seeing Thomas Paine upon the stage What is the use to write it, if they'd turn No matter how you wrote it? I believe They wouldn't like it in America, Nor England either, maybe--you are right! A drama with no audience is a failure. But here's this skull. What shall I do with it? If I should have it cased in solid silver There is no shrine to take it--no Cologne For skulls like this.
Well, I must die sometime, And who will get it then? Look at this skull! This bony hand! Then look at me, my friend: A man who has a theme the world despises!
RECESSIONAL
IN TIME OF WAR
MEDICAL UNIT--
Even as I see, and share with you in seeing, The altar flame of your love's sacrifice; And even as I bear before the hour the vision, Your little hands in hospital and prison Laid upon broken bodies, dying eyes, So do I suffer for splendor of your being Which leads you from me, and in separation Lays on my breast the pain of memory. Over your hands I bend In silent adoration, Dumb for a fear of sorrow without end, Asking for consolation Out of the sacrament of our separation, And for some faithful word acceptable and true, That I may know and keep the mystery: That in this separation I go forth with you And you to the world's end remain with me.
* * * * *
How may I justify the hope that rises That I am giving you to a world of pain, And am a part of your love's sacrifices? Is it so little if I see you not again? You will croon soldier lads to sleep, Even to the last sleep of all. But in this absence, as your love will keep Your breast for me for comfort, if I fall, So I, though far away, shall kneel by you If the last hour approaches, to bedew Your lips that from their infant wondering Lisped of a heaven lost. I shall kiss down your eyes, and count the cost As mine, who gave you, by the tragic giving. Go forth with spirit to death, and to the living Bearing a solace in death. God has breathed on you His transfiguring breath,-- You are transfigured Before me, and I bow my head, And leave you in the light that lights your way, And shadows me. Even now the hour is sped, And the hour we must obey-- Look you, I will go pray!
* * * * *
THE AWAKENING
When you lie sleeping; golden hair Tossed on your pillow, sea shell pink Ears that nestle, I forbear A moment while I look and think How you are mine, and if I dare To bend and kiss you lying there.
* * * * *
A Raphael in the flesh! Resist I cannot, though to break your sleep Is thoughtless of me--you are kissed And roused from slumber dreamless, deep-- You rub away the slumber's mist, You scold and almost weep.
* * * * *
It is too bad to wake you so, Just for a kiss. But when awake You sing and dance, nor seem to know You slept a sleep too deep to break From which I roused you long ago For nothing but my passion's sake-- What though your heart should ache!
* * * * *
IN THE GARDEN AT THE DAWN HOUR
I arise in the silence of the dawn hour. And softly steal out to the garden Under the Favrile goblet of the dawning. And a wind moves out of the south-land, Like a film of silver, And thrills with a far borne message The flowers of the garden. Poppies untie their scarlet hoods and wave them To the south wind as he passes. But the zinnias and calendulas, In a mood of calm reserve, nod faintly As the south wind whispers the secret Of the dawn hour!
I stand in the silence of the dawn hour In the garden, As the star of morning fades. Flying from scythes of air The hare-bells, purples and golden glow On the sand-hill back of the orchard Race before the feet of the wind. But clusters of oak-leaves over the yellow sand rim Begin to flutter and glisten. And in a moment, in a twinkled passion, The blazing rapiers of the sun are flashed, As he fences the lilac lights of the sky, And drives them up where the ice of the melting moon Is drowned in the waste of morning!
* * * * *
In the silence of the garden, At the dawn hour I turn and see you-- You who knew and followed, You who knew the dawn hour, And its sky like a Favrile goblet. You who knew the south-wind Bearing the secret of the morning To waking gardens, fields and forests. You in a gown of green, O footed Iris, With eyes of dryad gray, And the blown glory of unawakened tresses-- A phantom sprung out of the garden's enchantment, In the silence of the dawn hour!
* * * * *
And here I behold you Amid a trance of color, silent music, The embodied spirit of the morning: Wind from the south-land, flashing beams of the sun Caught in the twinkling oak leaves: Poppies who wave their untied hoods to the south wind; And the imperious bows of zinnias and calendulas; The star of morning drowned, and lights of lilac Turned white for the woe of the moon; And the silence of the dawn hour!
* * * * *
And there to take you in my arms and feel you In the glory of the dawn hour, Along the sinuous rhythm of flesh and flesh! To know your spirit by that oneness Of living and of love, in the twinkled passion Of life re-lit and visioned. In dryad eyes beholding The dancing, leaping, touching hands and racing Rapturous moment of the arisen sun; And the first drop of day out of this cup of Favrile. There to behold you, Our spirits lost together In the silence of the dawn hour!
* * * * *
FRANCE
France fallen! France arisen! France of the brave! France of lost hopes! France of Promethean zeal! Napoleon's France, that bruised the despot's heel Of Europe, while the feudal world did rave. Thou France that didst burst through the rock-bound grave Which Germany and England joined to seal, And undismayed didst seek the human weal, Through which thou couldst thyself and others save-- The wreath of amaranth and eternal praise! When every hand was 'gainst thee, so was ours. Freedom remembers, and I can forget:-- Great are we by the faith our past betrays, And noble now the great Republic flowers Incarnate with the soul of Lafayette.
BERTRAND AND GOURGAUD TALK OVER OLD TIMES
Gourgaud, these tears are tears--but look, this laugh, How hearty and serene--you see a laugh Which settles to a smile of lips and eyes Makes tears just drops of water on the leaves When rain falls from a sun-lit sky, my friend, Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, call me Beloved Bertrand. Ha! I sigh for joy. Look at our Paris, happy, whole, renewed, Refreshed by youth, new dressed in human leaves, Shaking its fresh blown blossoms to the world. And here we sit grown old, of memories Top-full--your hand--my breast is all afire With happiness that warms, makes young again.
You see it is not what we saw to-day That makes me spirit, rids me of the flesh:-- But all that I remember, we remember Of what the world was, what it is to-day, Beholding how it grows. Gourgaud, I see Not in the rise of this man or of that, Nor in a battle's issue, in the blow That lifts or fells a nation--no, my friend, God is not there, but in the living stream Which sweeps in spite of eddies, undertows, Cross-currents, what you will, to that result Where stillness shows the star that fits the star Of truth in spirits treasured, imaged, kept Through sorrow, blood and death,--God moves in that And there I find Him.
But these tears--for whom Or what are tears? The Old Guard--oh, my friend That melancholy remnant! And the horse, White, to be sure, but not Marengo, wearing The saddle and the bridle which he used. My tears take quality for these pitiful things, But other quality for the purple robe Over the coffin lettered in pure gold "Napoleon"--ah, the emperor at last Come back to Paris! And his spirit looks Over the land he loved, with what result? Does just the army that acclaimed him rise Which rose to hail him back from Elba?--no All France acclaims him! Princes of the church, And notables uncover! At the door A herald cries "The Emperor!" Those assembled Rise and do reverence to him. Look at Soult, He hands the king the sword of Austerlitz, The king turns to me, hands the sword to me, I place it on the coffin--dear Gourgaud, Embrace me, clasp my hand! I weep and laugh For thinking that the Emperor is home; For thinking I have laid upon his bed The sword that makes inviolable his bed, Since History stepped to where I stood and stands To say forever: Here he rests, be still, Bow down, pass by in reverence--the Ages Like giant caryatides that look With sleepless eyes upon the world and hold With never tiring hands the Vault of Time, Command your reverence.
What have we seen? Why this, that every man, himself achieving Exhausts the life that drives him to the work Of self-expression, of the vision in him, His reason for existence, as he sees it. He may or may not mould the epic stuff As he would wish, as lookers on have hope His hands shall mould it, and by failing take-- For slip of hand, tough clay or blinking eye, A cinder for that moment in the eye-- A world of blame; for hooting or dispraise Have all his work misvalued for the time, And pump his heart up harder to subdue Envy, or fear or greed, in any case He grows and leaves and blossoms, so consumes His soul's endowment in the vision of life. And thus of him. Why, there at Fontainebleau He is a man full spent, he idles, sleeps, Hears with dull ears: Down with the Corsican, Up with the Bourbon lilies! Royalists, Conspirators, and clericals may shout Their hatred of him, but he sits for hours Kicking the gravel with his little heel, Which lately trampled sceptres in the mud. Well, what was he at Waterloo?--you know: That piercing spirit which at mid-day power Knew all the maps of Europe--could unfold A map and say here is the place, the way, The road, the valley, hill, destroy them here. Why, all his memory of maps was blurred The night before he failed at Waterloo. The Emperor was sick, my friend, we know it. He could not ride a horse at Waterloo. His soul was spent, that's all. But who was rested? The dirty Bourbons skulking back to Paris, Now that our giant democrat was sick. Oh, yes, the dirty Bourbons skulked to Paris Helped by the Duke and Blücher, damn their souls.
What is a man to do whose work is done And does not feel so well, has cancer, say? You know he could have reached America After his fall at Waterloo. Good God! If only he had done it! For they say New Orleans is a city good to live in. And he had ceded to America Louisiana, which in time would curb The English lion. But he didn't go there. His mind was weakened else he had foreseen The lion he had tangled, wounded, scourged Would claw him if it got him, play with him Before it killed him. Who was England then?--
An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king Who lost a continent for the lust that slew The Emperor--the world will say at last It was no other. Who was England then? A regent bad as husband, father, son, Monarch and friend. But who was England then? Great Castlereagh who cut his throat, but who Had cut his country's long before. The duke-- Since Waterloo, and since the Emperor slept-- The English stoned the duke, he bars his windows With iron 'gainst the mobs who break to fury, To see the Duke waylay democracy. The world's great conqueror's conqueror!--Eh bien! Grips England after Waterloo, but when The people see the duke for what he is: A blocker of reform, a Tory sentry, A spotless knight of ancient privilege, They up and stone him, by the very deed Stone him for wronging the democracy The Emperor erected with the sword. The world's great conqueror's conqueror--Oh, I sicken! Odes are like head-stones, standing while the graves Are guarded and kept up, but falling down To ruin and erasure when the graves Are left to sink. Hey! there you English poets, Picking from daily libels, slanders, junk Of metal for your tablets 'gainst the Emperor, Melt up true metal at your peril, poets, Sweet moralists, monopolists of God. But who was England? Byron driven out, And courts of chancery vile but sacrosanct, Despoiling Shelley of his children; Southey, The turn-coat panegyrist of King George, An old, mad, blind, despised, dead king at last; A realm of rotten boroughs massed to stop The progress of democracy and chanting To God Almighty hymns for Waterloo, Which did not stop democracy, as they hoped. For England of to-day is freer--why? The revolution and the Emperor! They quench the revolution, send Napoleon To St. Helena--but the ashes soar Grown finer, grown invisible at last. And all the time a wind is blowing ashes, And sifting them upon the spotless linen Of kings and dukes in England till at last They find themselves mistaken for the people. Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me--_tiens_! The Emperor is home again in France, And Europe for democracy is thrilling. Now don't you see the Emperor was sick, The shadows falling slant across his mind To write to such an England: "My career Is ended and I come to sit me down Before the fireside of the British people, And claim protection from your Royal Highness"-- This to the regent--"as a generous foe Most constant and most powerful"--I weep. They tricked him Gourgaud. Once upon the ship, He thinks he's bound for England, and why not? They dine him, treat him like an Emperor. And then they tack and sail to St. Helena, Give him a cow shed for a residence. Depute that thing Sir Hudson Lowe to watch him, Spy on his torture, intercept his letters, Step on his broken wings, and mock the film Descending on those eyes of failing fire. ...
One day the packet brought to him a book Inscribed by Hobhouse, "To the Emperor." Lowe kept the book but when the Emperor learned Lowe kept the book, because 'twas so inscribed, The Emperor said--I stood near by--"Who gave you The right to slur my title? In a few years Yourself, Lord Castlereagh, the duke himself Will be beneath oblivion's dust, remembered For your indignities to me, that's all. England expended millions on her libels To poison Europe's mind and make my purpose Obscure or bloody--how have they availed? You have me here upon this scarp of rock, But truth will pierce the clouds, 'tis like the sun And like the sun it cannot be destroyed. Your Wellingtons and Metternichs may dam The liberal stream, but only to make stronger The torrent when it breaks. "Is it not true? That's why I weep and laugh to-day, my friend And trust God as I have not trusted yet. And then the Emperor said: "What have I claimed? A portion of the royal blood of Europe? A crown for blood's sake? No, my royal blood Is dated from the field of Montenotte, And from my mother there in Corsica, And from the revolution. I'm a man Who made himself because the people made me. You understand as little as she did When I had brought her back from Austria, And riding through the streets of Paris pointed Up to the window of the little room Where I had lodged when I came from Brienne, A poor boy with my way to make--as poor As Andrew Jackson in America, No more a despot than he is a despot. Your England understands. I was a menace Not as a despot, but as head and front, Eyes, brain and leader of democracy, Which like the messenger of God was marking The doors of kings for slaughter. England lies. Your England understands I had to hold By rule compact a people drunk with rapture, And torn by counter forces, had to fight The royalists of Europe who beheld Their peoples feverish from the great infection, Who hoped to stamp the plague in France and stop Its spread to them. Your England understands. Save Castlereagh and Wellington and Southey. But look you, sir, my roads, canals and harbors, My schools, finance, my code, the manufactures Arts, sciences I builded, democratic Triumphs which I won will live for ages-- These are my witnesses, will testify Forever what I was and meant to do. The ideas which I brought to power will stifle All royalty, all feudalism--look They live in England, they illuminate America, they will be faith, religion For every people--these I kindled, carried Their flaming torch through Europe as the chief Torch bearer, soldier, representative."
You were not there, Gourgaud--but wait a minute, I choke with tears and laughter. Listen now: Sir Hudson Lowe looked at the Emperor Contemptuous but not the less bewitched. And when the Emperor finished, out he drawled "You make me smile." Why that is memorable: It should be carved upon Sir Hudson's stone. He was a prophet, founder of the sect Of smilers and of laughers through the world, Smilers and laughers that the Emperor Told every whit the truth. Look you at Europe, What were it in this day except for France, Napoleon's France, the revolution's France? What will it be as time goes on but peoples Made free through France?
I take the good and ill, Think over how he lounged, lay late in bed, Spent long hours in the bath, counted the hours, Pale, broken, wracked with pain, insulted, watched, His child torn from him, Josephine and wife Silent or separate, waiting long for death, Looking with filmed eyes upon his wings Broken, upon the rocks stretched out to gain A little sun, and crying to the sea With broken voice--I weep when I remember Such things which you and I from day to day Beheld, nor could not mitigate. But then There is that night of thunder, and the dawning And all that day of storm and toward the evening He says: "Deploy the eagles!" "Onward!" Well, I leave the room and say to Steward there: "The Emperor is dead." That very moment A crash of thunder deafened us. You see A great age boomed in thunder its renewal-- Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, friend.
DRAW THE SWORD, O REPUBLIC!
By the blue sky of a clear vision, And by the white light of a great illumination, And by the blood-red of brotherhood, Draw the sword, O Republic! Draw the sword!
For the light which is England, And the resurrection which is Russia, And the sorrow which is France, And for peoples everywhere Crying in bondage, And in poverty!
You have been a leaven in the earth, O Republic! And a watch-fire on the hill-top scattering sparks; And an eagle clanging his wings on a cloud-wrapped promontory: Now the leaven must be stirred, And the brands themselves carried and touched To the jungles and the black-forests. Now the eaglets are grown, they are calling, They are crying to each other from the peaks-- They are flapping their passionate wings in the sunlight, Eager for battle!
As a strong man nurses his youth To the day of trial; But as a strong man nurses it no more On the day of trial, But exults and cries: For Victory, O Strength! And for the glory of my City, O treasured youth! You shall neither save your youth, Nor hoard your strength Beyond this hour, O Republic!
For you have sworn By the passion of the Gaul, And the strength of the Teuton, And the will of the Saxon, And the hunger of the Poor, That the white man shall lie down by the black man, And by the yellow man, And all men shall be one spirit, as they are one flesh, Through Wisdom, Liberty and Democracy. And forasmuch as the earth cannot hold Aught beside them, You have dedicated the earth, O Republic, To Wisdom, Liberty and Democracy!
By the Power that drives the soul to Freedom, And by the Power that makes us love our fellows, And by the Power that comforts us in death, Dying for great races to come-- Draw the sword, O Republic! Draw the Sword!
DEAR OLD DICK
(Dedicated to Vachel Lindsay and in Memory of Richard E. Burke)
Said dear old Dick To the colored waiter: "Here, George! be quick Roast beef and a potato. I'm due at the courthouse at half-past one, You black old scoundrel, get a move on you! I want a pot of coffee and a graham bun. This vinegar decanter'll make a groove on you, You black-faced mandril, you grinning baboon--" "Yas sah! Yas sah,"answered the coon. "Now don't you talk back," said dear old Dick, "Go and get my dinner or I'll show you a trick With a plate, a tumbler or a silver castor, Fuliginous monkey, sired by old Nick." And the nigger all the time was moving round the table, Rattling the silver things faster and faster-- "Yes sah! Yas sah, soon as I'se able I'll bring yo' dinnah as shore as yo's bawn." "Quit talking about it; hurry and be gone, You low-down nigger," said dear old Dick.
Then I said to my friend: "Suppose he'd up and stick A knife in your side for raggin' him so hard; Or how would you relish some spit in your broth? Or a little Paris green in your cheese for chard? Or something in your coffee to make your stomach froth? Or a bit of asafoetida hidden in your pie? That's a gentlemanly nigger or he'd black your eye/'
Then dear old Dick made this long reply: "You know, I love a nigger, And I love this nigger. I met him first on the train from California Out of Kansas City; in the morning early I walked through the diner, feeling upset For a cup of coffee, looking rather surly. And there sat this nigger by a table all dressed, Waiting for the time to serve the omelet, Buttered toast and coffee to the passengers. And this is what he said in a fine southern way: 'Good mawnin,' sah, I hopes yo' had yo' rest, I'm glad to see you on dis sunny day.' Now think! here's a human who has no other cares Except to please the white man, serve him when he's starving, And who has as much fun when he sees you carving The sirloin as you do, does this black man. Just think for a minute, how the negroes excel, Can you beat them with a banjo or a broiling pan? There's music in their soul as original As any breed of people in the whole wide earth; They're elemental hope, heartiness, mirth. There are only two things real American: One is Christian Science, the other is the nigger. Think it over for yourself and see if you can figure Anything beside that is not imitation Of something in Europe in this hybrid nation. Return to this globe five hundred years hence-- You'll see how the fundamental color of the coon In art, in music, has altered our tune; We are destined to bow to their influence; There's a whole cult of music in Dixie alone, And that is America put into tone."
And dear old Dick gathered speed and said: "Sometimes through Dvorák a vision arises To the words of Merneptah whose hands were red: 'I shall live, I shall live, I shall grow, I shall grow, I shall wake up in peace, I shall thrill with the glow Of the life of Temu, the god who prizes Favorite souls and the souls of kings.' Now these are the words, and here is the dream, No wonder you think I am seeing things: The desert of Egypt shimmers in the gleam Of the noonday sun on my dazzled sight. And a giant negro as black as night Is walking by a camel in a caravan. His great back glistens with the streaming sweat. The camel is ridden by a light-faced man, A Greek perhaps, or Arabian. And this giant negro is rhythmically swaying With the rhythm of the camel's neck up and down. He seems to be singing, rollicking, playing; His ivory teeth are glistening, the Greek is listening To the negro keeping time like a tabouret. And what cares he for Memphis town, Merneptah the bloody, or Books of the Dead, Pyramids, philosophies of madness or dread? A tune is in his heart, a reality: The camel, the desert are things that be, He's a negro slave, but his heart is free."
Just then the colored waiter brought in the dinner. "Get a hustle on you, you miserable sinner," Said dear old Dick to the colored waiter. "Heah's a nice piece of beef and a great big potato. I hopes yo'll enjoy 'em sah, yas I do; Heah's black mustahd greens, 'specially for yo', And a fine piece of jowl that I swiped and took From a dish set by, by the git-away cook. I hope yo'll enjoy 'em, sah, yas I do." "Well, George," Dick said, "if Gabriel blew His horn this minute, you'd up and ascend To wait on St. Peter world without end."
THE ROOM OF MIRRORS
I saw a room where many feet were dancing. The ceiling and the wall were mirrors glancing Both flames of candles and the heaven's light, Though windows there were none for air or flight. The room was in a form polygonal Reached by a little door and narrow hall. One could behold them enter for the dance, And waken as it were out of a trance, And either singly or with some one whirl: The old, the young, full livers, boy and girl. And every panel of the room was just A mirrored door through which a hand was thrust Here, there, around the room, a soul to seize Whereat a scream would rise, but no surcease Of music or of dancing, save by him Drawn through the mirrored panel to the dim And unknown space behind the flashing mirrors, And by his partner struck through by the terrors Of sudden loss.
And looking I could see That scarcely any dancer here could free His eyes from off the mirrors, but would gaze Upon himself or others, till a craze Shone in his eyes thus to anticipate The hand that took each dancer soon or late. Some analyzed themselves, some only glanced, Some stared and paled and then more madly danced. One dancer only never looked at all. He seemed soul captured by the carnival. There were so many dancers there he loved, He was so greatly by the music moved, He had no time to study his own face There in the mirrors as from place to place He quickly danced.
Until I saw at last This dancer by the whirling dancers cast Face full against a mirrored panel where Before he could look at himself or stare He plunged through to the other side--and quick, As water closes when you lift the stick, The mirrored panel swung in place and left No trace of him, as 'twere a magic trick. But all his partners thus so soon bereft Went dancing to the music as before. But I saw faces in that mirrored door Anatomizing their forced smiles and watching Their faces over shoulders, even matching Their terror with each other's to repress A growing fear in seeing it was less Than some one else's, or to ease despair By looking in a face who did not care, While watching for the hand that through some door Caught a poor dancer from the dancing floor With every time-beat of the orchestra. What is this room of mirrors? Who can say?
THE LETTER
What does one gain by living? What by dying Is lost worth having? What the daily things Lived through together make them worth the while For their sakes or for life's? Where's the denying Of souls through separation? There's your smile! And your hands' touch! And the long day that brings Half uttered nothings of delight! But then Now that I see you not, and shall again Touch you no more--memory can possess Your soul's essential self, and none the less You live with me. I therefore write to you This letter just as if you were away Upon a journey, or a holiday; And so I'll put down everything that's new In this secluded village, since you left. ... Now let me think! Well, then, as I remember, After ten days the lilacs burst in bloom. We had spring all at once--the long December Gave way to sunshine. Then we swept your room, And laid your things away. And then one morning I saw the mother robin giving warning To little bills stuck just above the rim Of that nest which you watched while being built, Near where she sat, upon a leafless limb, With folded wings against an April rain. On June the tenth Edward and Julia married, I did not go for fear of an old pain. I was out on the porch as they drove by, Coming from church. I think I never scanned A girl's face with such sunny smiles upon it Showing beneath the roses on her bonnet-- I went into the house to have a cry. A few days later Kimbrough lost his wife. Between housework and hoeing in the garden I read Sir Thomas More and Goethe's life. My heart was numb and still I had to harden All memory or die. And just the same As when you sat beside the window, passed Larson, the cobbler, hollow-chested, lamed. He did not die till late November came. Things did not come as Doctor Jones forecast, 'Twas June when Mary Morgan had her child. Her husband was in Monmouth at the time. She had no milk, the baby is not well. The Baptist Church has got a fine new bell. And after harvest Joseph Clifford tiled His bottom land. Then Judy Heaton's crime Has shocked the village, for the monster killed Glendora Wilson's father at his door-- A daughter's name was why the blood was spilled. I could go on, but wherefore tell you more? The world of men has gone its olden way With war in Europe and the same routine Of life among us that you knew when here. This gossip is not idle, since I say By means of it what I would tell you, dear: I have been near you, dear, for I have been Not with you through these things, but in despite Of living them without you, therefore near In spirit and in memory with you.
* * * * *
Do you remember that delightful Inn At Chester and the Roman wall, and how We walked from Avon clear to Kenilworth? And afterward when you and I came down To London, I forsook the murky town, And left you to quaint ways and crowded places, While I went on to Putney just to see Old Swinburne and to look into his face's Changeable lights and shadows and to seize on A finer thing than any verse he wrote? (Oh beautiful illusions of our youth!) He did not see me gladly. Talked of treason To England's greatness. What was Camden like? Did old Walt Whitman smoke or did he drink? And Longfellow was sweet, but couldn't think. His mood was crusty. Lowell made him laugh! Meantime Watts-Dunton came and broke in half My visit, so I left.
The thing was this: None of this talk was Swinburne any more Than some child of his loins would take his hair, Eyes, skin, from him in some pangenesis,-- His flesh was nothing but a poor affair, A channel for the eternal stream--his flesh Gave nothing closer, mind you, than his book, But rather blurred it; even his eyes' look Confused "Madonna Mia" from its fresh And liquid meaning. So I knew at last His real immortal self is in his verse.
* * * * *
Since you have gone I've thought of this so much. I cannot lose you in this universe-- I first must lose myself. The essential touch Of soul possession lies not in the walk Of daily life on earth, nor in the talk Of daily things, nor in the sight of eyes Looking in other eyes, nor daily bread Broken together, nor the hour of love When flesh surrenders depths of things divine Beyond all vision, as they were the dream Of other planets, but without these even In death and separation, there is heaven: By just that unison and its memory Which brought our lips together. To be free From accidents of being, to be freeing The soul from trammels on essential being, Is to possess the loved one. I have strayed Into the only heaven God has made: That's where we know each other as we are, In the bright ether of some quiet star, Communing as two memories with each other.
CANTICLE OF THE RACE
SONG OF MEN
How beautiful are the bodies of men-- The agonists! Their hearts beat deep as a brazen gong For their strength's behests. Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thong In games or tests When they run or box or swim the long Sea-waves crests With their slender legs, and their hips so strong, And their rounded chests.
I know a youth who raises his arms Over his head. He laughs and stretches and flouts alarms Of flood or fire. He springs renewed from a lusty bed To his youth's desire. He drowses, for April flames outspread In his soul's attire.
The strength of men is for husbandry Of woman's flesh: Worker, soldier, magistrate Of city or realm; Artist, builder, wrestling Fate Lest it overwhelm The brood or the race, or the cherished state. They sing at the helm When the waters roar and the waves are great, And the gale is fresh.
There are two miracles, women and men-- Yea, four there be: A woman's flesh, and the strength of a man, And God's decree. And a babe from the womb in a little span Ere the month be ten. Their rapturous arms entwine and cling In the depths of night; He hunts for her face for his wondering, And her eyes are bright. A woman's flesh is soil, but the spring Is man's delight.
SONG OF WOMEN
How beautiful is the flesh of women-- Their throats, their breasts! My wonder is a flame which burns, A flame which rests; It is a flame which no wind turns, And a flame which quests.
I know a woman who has red lips, Like coals which are fanned. Her throat is tied narcissus, it dips From her white-rose chin. Her throat curves like a cloud to the land Where her breasts begin. I close my eyes when I put my hand On her breast's white skin.
The flesh of women is like the sky When bare is the moon: Rhythm of backs, hollow of necks, And sea-shell loins. I know a woman whose splendors vex Where the flesh joins-- A slope of light and a circumflex Of clefts and coigns. She thrills like the air when silence wrecks An ended tune.
These are the things not made by hands in the earth: Water and fire, The air of heaven, and springs afresh, And love's desire. And a thing not made is a woman's flesh, Sorrow and mirth! She tightens the strings on the lyric lyre, And she drips the wine. Her breasts bud out as pink and nesh As buds on the vine: For fire and water and air are flesh, And love is the shrine.
SONG OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT
How beautiful is the human spirit In its vase of clay! It takes no thought of the chary dole Of the light of day. It labors and loves, as it were a soul Whom the gods repay With length of life, and a golden goal At the end of the way.
There are souls I know who arch a dome, And tunnel a hill. They chisel in marble and fashion in chrome, And measure the sky. They find the good and destroy the ill, And they bend and ply The laws of nature out of a will While the fates deny.
I wonder and worship the human spirit When I behold Numbers and symbols, and how they reach Through steel and gold; A harp, a battle-ship, thought and speech, And an hour foretold. It ponders its nature to turn and teach, And itself to mould.
The human spirit is God, no doubt, Is flesh made the word: Jesus, Beethoven and Raphael, And the souls who heard Beyond the rim of the world the swell Of an ocean stirred By a Power on the waters inscrutable. There are souls who gird Their loins in faith that the world is well, In a faith unblurred. How beautiful is the human spirit-- The flesh made the word!
BLACK EAGLE RETURNS TO ST. JOE
This way and that way measuring, Sighting from tree to tree, And from the bend of the river. This must be the place where Black Eagle Twelve hundred moons ago Stood with folded arms, While a Pottawatomie father Plunged a knife in his heart, For the murder of a son. Black Eagle stood with folded arms, Slim, erect, firm, unafraid, Looking into the distance, across the river. Then the knife flashed, Then the knife crashed through his ribs And into his heart. And like a wounded eagle's wings His arms fell, slowly unfolding, And he sank to death without a groan!
And my name is Black Eagle too. And I am of the spirit, And perhaps of the blood Of that Black Eagle of old. I am naked and alone, But very happy; Being rich in spirit and in memories. I am very strong. I am very proud, Brave, revengeful, passionate. No longer deceived, keen of eye, Wise in the ways of the tribes: A knower of winds, mists, rains, snows, changes. A knower of balsams, simples, blossoms, grains. A knower of poisonous leaves, deadly fungus, herries. A knower of harmless snakes, And the livid copperhead. Lastly a knower of the spirits, For there are many spirits: Spirits of hidden lakes, And of pine forests. Spirits of the dunes, And of forested valleys. Spirits of rivers, mountains, fields, And great distances. There are many spirits Under the Great Spirit. Him I know not. Him I only feel With closed eyes. Or when I look from my bed of moss by the river At a sky of stars, When the leaves of the oak are asleep. I will fill this birch bark full of writing And hide it in the cleft of an oak, Here where Black Eagle fell. Decipher my story who can:
When I was a boy of fourteen Tobacco Jim, who owned many dogs, Rose from the door of his tent And came to where we were running, Young Coyote, Rattler, Little Fox, And said to me in their hearing: "You are the fastest of all. Now run again, and let me see. And if you can run I will make you my runner, I will care for you, And you shall have pockets of gold." ...
And then we ran. And the others lagged behind me, Like smoke behind the wind. But the faces of Young Coyote, Rattler, Little Fox Grew dark. They nudged each other. They looked side-ways, Toeing the earth in shame. ... Then Tobacco Jim took me and trained me. And he went here and there To find a match. And to get wagers of ponies, nuggets of copper, And nuggets of gold. And at last the match was made.
It was under a sky as blue as the cup of a harebell, It was by a red and yellow mountain, It was by a great river That we ran. Hundreds of Indians came to the race. They babbled, smoked and quarreled. And everyone carried a knife, And everyone carried a gun. And we runners-- How young we were and unknowing What the race meant to them! For we saw nothing but the track, We saw nothing but our trainers And the starters. And I saw no one but Tobacco Jim. But the Indians and the squaws saw much else, They thought of the race in such different ways From the way we thought of it. For with me it was honor, It was triumph, It was fame. It was the tender looks of Indian maidens Wherever I went. But now I know that to Tobacco Jim, And the old fathers and young bucks The race meant jugs of whiskey, And new guns. It meant a squaw, A pony, Or some rise in the life of the tribe.
So the shot of the starter rang at last, And we were off. I wore a band of yellow around my brow With an eagle's feather in it, And a red strap for my loins. And as I ran the feather fluttered and sang: "You are the swiftest runner, Black Eagle, They are all behind you." And they were all behind me, As the cloud's shadow is behind The bend of the grass under the wind. But as we neared the end of the race The onlookers, the gamblers, the old Indians, And the young bucks, Crowded close to the track-- I fell and lost.
Next day Tobacco Jim went about Lamenting his losses. And when I told him they tripped me He cursed them. But later he went about asking in whispers If I was wise enough to throw the race. Then suddenly he disappeared. And we heard rumors of his riches, Of his dogs and ponies, And of the joyous life he was leading.
Then my father took me to New Mexico, And here my life changed. I was no longer the runner, I had forgotten it all. I had become a wise Indian. I could do many things. I could read the white man's writing And write it.
And Indians flocked to me: Billy the Pelican, Hooked Nosed Weasel, Hungry Mole, Big Jawed Prophet, And many others. They flocked to me, for I could help them. For the Great Spirit may pick a chief, Or a leader. But sometimes the chief rises By using wise Indians like me Who are rich in gifts and powers ... But at least it is true: All little great Indians Who are after ponies, Jugs of whiskey and soft blankets Gain their ends through the gifts and powers Of wise Indians like me. They come to you and ask you to do this, And to do that. And you do it, because it would be small Not to do it. And until all the cards are laid on the table You do not see what they were after, And then you see: They have won your friend away; They have stolen your hill; They have taken your place at the feast; They are wearing your feathers; They have much gold. And you are tired, and without laughter. And they drift away from you, As Tobacco Jim went away from me. And you hear of them as rich and great. And then you move on to another place, And another life.
Billy the Pelican has built him a board house And lives in Guthrie. Hook Nosed Weasel is a Justice of the Peace. Hungry Mole had his picture in the Denver News; He is helping the government To reclaim stolen lands. (Many have told me it was Hungry Mole Who tripped me in the race.) Big Jawed Prophet is very rich. He has disappeared as an eagle With a rabbit. And I have come back here Where twelve hundred moons ago Black Eagle before me Had the knife run through his ribs And through his heart. ...
I will hide this writing In the cleft of the oak By this bend in the river. Let him read who can: I was a swift runner whom they tripped.
MY LIGHT WITH YOURS
I
When the sea has devoured the ships, And the spires and the towers Have gone back to the hills. And all the cities Are one with the plains again. And the beauty of bronze, And the strength of steel Are blown over silent continents, As the desert sand is blown-- My dust with yours forever.
II
When folly and wisdom are no more, And fire is no more, Because man is no more; When the dead world slowly spinning Drifts and falls through the void-- My light with yours In the Light of Lights forever!
THE BLIND
Amid the din of cars and automobiles, At the corner of a towering pile of granite, Under the city's soaring brick and stone, Where multitudes go hurrying by, you stand With eyeless sockets playing on a flute. And an old woman holds the cup for you, Wherein a curious passer by at times Casts a poor coin.
You are so blind you cannot see us men As walking trees! I fancy from the tune You play upon the flute, you have a vision Of leafy trees along a country road-side, Where wheat is growing and the meadow-larks Rise singing in the sun-shine! In your darkness You may see such things playing on your flute Here in the granite ways of mad Chicago!
And here's another on a farther corner, With head thrown back as if he searched the skies, He's selling evening papers, what's to him The flaring headlines? Yet he calls the news. That is his flute, perhaps, for one can call, Or play the flute in blindness.
Yet I think It's neither news nor music with these blind ones-- Rather the hope of re-created eyes, And a light out of death! "How can it be," I hear them over and over, "There never shall be eyes for me again?"
"I PAY MY DEBT FOR LAFAYETTE AND ROCHAMBEAU"
--_His Own Words_
IN MEMORY OF KIFFIN ROCKWELL
* * * * *
Eagle, whose fearless Flight in vast spaces Clove the inane, While we stood tearless, White with rapt faces In wonder and pain. ...
Heights could not awe you, Depths could not stay you. Anguished we saw you, Saw Death way-lay you Where the storm flings Black clouds to thicken Round France's defender! Archangel stricken From ramparts of splendor-- Shattered your wings! ...
But Lafayette called you, Rochambeau beckoned. Duty enthralled you. For France you had reckoned Her gift and your debt. Dull hearts could harden Half-gods could palter. For you never pardon If Liberty's altar You chanced to forget. ...
Stricken archangel! Ramparts of splendor Keep you, evangel Of souls who surrender No banner unfurled For ties ever living, Where Freedom has bound them. Praise and thanksgiving For love which has crowned them-- Love frees the world! ...
CHRISTMAS AT INDIAN POINT
Who is that calling through the night, A wail that dies when the wind roars? We heard it first on Shipley's Hill, It faded out at Comingoer's.
Along five miles of wintry road A horseman galloped with a cry, "'Twas two o'clock," said Herman Pointer, "When I heard clattering hoofs go by."
"I flung the winder up to listen; I heerd him there on Gordon's Ridge; I heerd the loose boards bump and rattle When he went over Houghton's Bridge."
Said Roger Ragsdale: "I was doctorin' A heifer in the barn, and then My boy says: 'Pap, that's Billy Paris.' 'There,' says my boy, it is again."
"Says I: 'That kain't be Billy Paris, We seed 'im at the Christmas tree. It's two o'clock,' says I, 'and Billy I seed go home with Emily.'
"'He is too old for galavantin' Upon a night like this,' says I. 'Well, pap,' says he, 'I know that frosty, Good-natured huskiness in that cry.'
"'It kain't be Billy,' says I, swabbin' The heifer's tongue and mouth with brine, 'I never thought--it makes me shiver, And goose-flesh up and down the spine.'"
Said Doggie Traylor: "When I heard it I 'lowed 'twas Pin Hook's rowdy new 'uns. Them Cashner boys was at the schoolhouse Drinkin' there at the Christmas doin's."
Said Pete McCue: "I lit a candle And held it up to the winder pane. But when I heerd again the holler 'Twere half-way down the Bowman Lane."
Said Andy Ensley: "First I knowed I thought he'd thump the door away. I hopped from bed, and says, 'Who is it?' 'O, Emily,' I heard him say.
"And there stood Billy Paris tremblin', His face so white, he looked so queer. 'O Andy'--and his voice went broken. 'Come in,' says I, 'and have a cheer.'
"'Sit by the fire,' I kicked the logs up, 'What brings you here?--I would be told.' Says he. 'My hand just ... happened near hers, It teched her hand ... and it war cold.
"'We got back from the Christmas doin's And went to bed, and she was sayin', (The clock struck ten) if it keeps snowin' To-morrow there'll be splendid sleighin'.'
"'My hand teched hers, the clock struck two, And then I thought I heerd her moan. It war the wind, I guess, for Emily War lyin' dead. ... She's thar alone.'
"I left him then to call my woman To tell her that her mother died. When we come back his voice was steady, The big tears in his eyes was dried.
"He just sot there and quiet like Talked 'bout the fishin' times they had, And said for her to die on Christmas Was somethin' 'bout it made him glad.
"He grew so cam he almost skeered us. Says he: 'It's a fine Christmas over there.' Says he: 'She was the lovingest woman That ever walked this Vale of Care.'
"Says he: 'She allus laughed and sang, I never heerd her once complain.' Says he: "It's not so bad a Christmas When she can go and have no pain.'
"Says he: 'The Christmas's good for her.' Says he: ... 'Not very good for me.' He hid his face then in his muffler And sobbed and sobbed, 'O Emily.'"
WIDOW LA RUE
I
What will happen, Widow La Rue? For last night at three o'clock You woke and saw by your window again Amid the shadowy locust grove The phantom of the old soldier: A shadow of blue, like mercury light-- What will happen, Widow La Rue?
* * * * *
What may not happen In this place of summer loneliness? For neither the sunlight of July, Nor the blue of the lake, Nor the green boundaries of cool woodlands, Nor the song of larks and thrushes, Nor the bravuras of bobolinks, Nor scents of hay new mown, Nor the ox-blood sumach cones, Nor the snow of nodding yarrow, Nor clover blossoms on the dizzy crest Of the bluff by the lake Can take away the loneliness Of this July by the lake!
* * * * *
Last night you saw the old soldier By your window, Widow La Rue! Or was it your husband you saw, As he lay by the gate so long ago? With the iris of his eyes so black, And the white of his eyes so china-blue, And specks of blood on his face, Like a wall specked by a shake a brush; And something like blubber or pinkish wax, Hiding the gash in his throat---- The serum and blood blown up by the breath From emptied lungs.
II
So Widow La Rue has gone to a friend For the afternoon and the night, Where the phantom will not come, Where the phantom may be forgotten. And scarcely has she turned the road, Round the water-mill by the creek, When the telephone rings and daughter Flora Springs up from a drowsy chair And the ennui of a book, And runs to answer the call. And her heart gives a bound, And her heart stops still, As she hears the voice, and a faintness courses Quick as poison through all her frame. And something like bees swarming in her breast Comes to her throat in a surge of fear, Rapture, passion, for what is the voice But the voice of her lover? And just because she is here alone In this desolate summer-house by the lake; And just because this man is forbidden To cross her way, for a taint in his blood Of drink, from a father who died of drink; And just because he is in her thought By night and day, The voice of him heats her through like fire. She sways from dizziness, The telephone falls from her shaking hand. ... He is in the village, is walking out, He will be at the door in an hour.
III
The sun is half a hand above the lake In a sky of lemon-dust down to the purple vastness. On the dizzy crest of the bluff the balls of clover Bow in the warm wind blowing across a meadow Where hay-cocks stand new-piled by the harvesters Clear to the forest of pine and beech at the meadow's end. A robin on the tip of a poplar's spire Sings to the sinking sun and the evening planet. Over the olive green of the darkening forest A thin moon slits the sky and down the road Two lovers walk.
It is night when they reappear From the forest, walking the hay-field over. And the sky is so full of stars it seems Like a field of buckwheat. And the lovers look up, Then stand entranced under the silence of stars, And in the silence of the scented hay-field Blurred only by a lisp of the listless water A hundred feet below. And at last they sit by a cock of hay, As warm as the nest of a bird, Hand clasped in hand and silent, Large-eyed and silent.
* * * * *
O, daughter Flora! Delicious weakness is on you now, With your lover's face above you. You can scarcely lift your hand, Or turn your head Pillowed upon the fragrant hay. You dare not open your moistened eyes For fear of this sky of stars, For fear of your lover's eyes. The trance of nature has taken you Rocked on creation's tide. And the kinship you feel for this man, Confessed this night--so often confessed And wondered at-- Has coiled its final sorcery about you. You do not know what it is, Nor care what it is, Nor care what fate is to come,-- The night has you. You only move white, fainting hands Against his strength, then let them fall. Your lips are parted over set teeth; A dewy moisture with the aroma of a woman's body Maddens your lover, And in a swift and terrible moment The mystery of love is unveiled to you. ...
Then your lover sits up with a sigh. But you lie there so still with closed eyes. So content, scarcely breathing under that ocean of stars. A night bird calls, and a vagrant zephyr Stirs your uncoiled hair on your bare bosom, But you do not move. And the sun comes up at last Finding you asleep in his arms, There by the hay cock. And he kisses your tears away, And redeems his word of last night, For down to the village you go And take your vows before the Pastor there, And then return to the summer house. ... All is well.
IV
Widow La Rue has returned And is rocking on the porch-- What is about to happen? For last night the phantom of the old soldier Appeared to her again-- It followed her to the house of her friend, And appeared again. But more than ever was it her husband, With the iris of his eyes so black, And the white of his eyes so china-blue. And while she thinks of it, And wonders what is about to happen, She hears laughter, And looking up, beholds her daughter And the forbidden lover.
* * * * *
And then the daughter and her husband Come to the porch and the daughter says "We have just been married in the village, mother; Will you forgive us? This is your son; you must kiss your son." And Widow La Rue from her chair arises And calmly takes her child in her arms, And clasps his hand. And after gazing upon him Imperturbably as Clytemnestra looked Upon returning Agamemnon, With a light in her eyes which neither fathomed, She kissed him, And in a calm voice blessed them. Then sent her daughter, singing, On an errand back to the village To market for dinner, saying: "We'll talk over plans, my dear."
V
And the young husband Rocks on the porch without a thought Of the lightning about to strike. And like Clytemnestra, Widow La Rue Enters the house. And while he is rocking, with all his spirit in a rythmic rapture, The Widow La Rue takes a seat in the room By a window back of the chair where he rocks, And drawing the shade She speaks:
"These two nights past I have seen the phantom of the old soldier Who haunts the midnights Of this summer loneliness. And I knew that a doom was at hand. ... You have married my daughter, and this is the doom. ... O, God in heaven!" Then a horror as of a writhing whiteness Winds out of the July glare And stops the flow of his blood, As he hears from the re-echoing room The voice of Widow La Rue Moving darkly between banks Of delirious fear and woe!
"Be calm till you hear me through. ... Do not move, or enter here, I am hiding my face from you. ... Hear me through, and then fly. I warned her against you, but how could I tell her Why you were not for her? But tell me now, have you come together? No? Thank God for that. ... For you must not come together. ... Now listen while I whisper to you: My daughter was born of a lawless love For a man I loved before I married, And when, for five years, no child came I went to this man And begged him to give me a child. ... Well then ... the child was born, your wife as it seems. ... And when my husband saw her, And saw the likeness of this man in her face He went out of the house, where they found him later By the entrance gate With the iris of his eyes so black, And the white of his eyes so china-blue, And specks of blood on his face, Like a wall specked by a shake of a brush. And something like blubber or pinkish wax Hiding the gash in his throat-- The serum and blood blown up by the breath From emptied lungs. Yes, there by the gate, O God! Quit rocking your chair! Don't you understand? Quit rocking your chair! Go! Go! Leap from the bluff to the rocks on the shore! Take down the sickle and end yourself! You don't care, you say, for all I've told you? Well, then, you see, you're older than Flora. ... And her father died when she was a baby. ... And you were four when your father died. ... And her father died on the very day That your father died, At the verv same moment. ... On the very same bed. ... Don't you understand?"
VI
He ceases to rock. He reels from the porch, He runs and stumbles to reach the road. He yells and curses and tears his hair. He staggers and falls and rises and runs. And Widow La Rue With the eyes of Clytemnestra Stands at the window and watches him Running and tearing his hair.
VII
She seems so calm when the daughter returns. She only says: "He has gone to the meadow, He will soon be back. ..." But he never came back.
And the years went on till the daughter's hair Was white as her mother's there in the grave. She was known as the bride whom the bridegroom left And didn't say good-bye.
DR. SCUDDER'S CLINICAL LECTURE
I lectured last upon the morbus sacer, Or falling sickness, epilepsy, of old In Palestine and Greece so much ascribed To deities or devils. To resume We find it caused by morphological Changes of the cortex cells. Sometimes, More times, indeed, the anatomical Basis, if one be, escapes detection. For many functions of the cortex are Unknown, as I have said.
And now remember Mercier's analysis of heredity: Besides direct transmission of unstable Nervous systems, there remains the law Hereditary of sanguinity. Then here's another matter: Parents may Have normal nervous systems, yet produce Children of abnormal nerves and minds, Caused by unsuitable sexual germs. Let me repeat before I leave the matter The factors in a perfect organization: First quality in the germ producing matter; Then quality in the sperm producing force, And lastly relative fitness of the two. We are but plants, however high we rise, Whatever thoughts we have, or dreams we dream We are but plants, and all we are and do Depends upon the seed and on the soil. What Mendel found in raising peas may lead To perfect knowledge of the human mind. There is one law for men and peas, the law Makes peas of certain matter, and makes men And mind of certain matter, all depends Not on a varying law, but on a law Varied in its course by matter, as The arm, which is a lever and which works By lever principle cannot make use And form cement with trowel to the forms It makes of paint or marble.
To resume: A child may take the qualities of one parent In some respects, and of the other parent In some respects. A child may have the traits Of father at one period of his life, The mother at one period of his life. And if the parents' traits are similar Their traits may be prepotent in a child, Thus giving rise to qualities convergent. So if you take a circle and draw off A line which would become another circle If drawn enough, completed, but is left Half drawn or less, that illustrates a mind Of cumulative heredity. Take John, My gardener, John, within his sphere is perfect, John has a mind which is a perfect circle. A perfect circle can be small, you know. And so John has good sense within his sphere. But if some force began to work like yeast In brain cells, and his mind shot forth a line To make a larger thinking circle, say About a great invention, heaven or God, Then John would be abnormal, till this line Shot round and joined, became a larger circle. This is the secret of eccentric genius, The man is half a sphere, sticks out in space Does not enclose co-ordinated thought. He's like a plant mutating, half himself Half something new and greater. If we looked To John's heredity we'd find this change Was manifest in mother or in father About the self-same period of life, Most likely in his father. Attributes Of fathers are inherited by sons, Of mothers by the daughters.
Now this morning I take up paranoia. Paranoics Are often noted for great gifts of mind. Mahomet, Swedenborg were paranoics, Joan of Arc, and Ossawatomie Brown, Cellini, many others. All who think Themselves inspired of God, and all who see Themselves appointed to a work, the subjects Of prophecies are paranoics. All Who visions have of God or archangels, Hear voices or celestial music, these Are paranoics. And whether it be they rise Enough above the earth to look along A longer arc and see realities, Or see strange things through atmospheric strata Which build up or distort the things they see Remains the question. Let us wait the proof.
Last week I told you I would have to-day The skull and brain of Jacob Groesbell here, And lecture on his case. Here is the brain: Weight sixteen hundred grammes. Students may look After the lecture at the brain and skull. There's nothing anatomical at fault With this fine brain, so far as I can find. You'll note how deep the convolutions are, Arrangement quite symmetrical. The skull Is well formed too. The jaws are long you'll note, The palate roof somewhat asymmetrical. But this is scarce significant. Let me tell How Jacob Groesbell looked:
The man was tall, Had shapely hands and feet, but awkward limbs. His hair was brown and fine, his forehead high, And ran back at an angle, temples full. His nose was long and fleshy at the point, Was tilted to one side. His eyes were gray, The iris flecked. They looked as if a light As of a sun-set shone behind them. Ears Were very large, projected at right angles. His neck was slender, womanish. His skin Of finest texture, white and very smooth. His voice was quiet, musical. His manner Patient and gentle, modest, reasonable. His parents, as I learned through inquiry, Were Methodists, devout and greatly loved. The mother healthy both in mind and body. The father was eccentric, perhaps insane. They were first cousins.
I knew Jacob Groesbell Ten years before he died. I knew him first When he was sent to mend my porch. A workman With saw and hammer never excelled him. Then As time went on I saw him when he came At my request to do my carpentry. I grew to know him, and by slow degrees He told me of his readings in the Bible, And gave me his interpretations. At last Aged forty-six, had ulcers of the stomach, Which took him off. He sent for me, and said He wished me to attend him, which I did. He told me I could have his body and brain To lecture on, dissect, since some had said He was insane, he told me, and if so I should find something wrong with brain or body. And if I found a wrong then all his visions Of God and archangels were just the fancies That come to madmen. So he made provision To give his brain and body for this cause, And here's his brain and skull, and I am lecturing On Jacob Groesbell as a paranoic.
As I have said before, in making tests And observations of the patient, have His conversation taken stenographically, In order to preserve his speech exactly, And catch the flow if he becomes excited. So we determine if he makes new words, If he be incoherent, or repeats. I took my secretary once to make A stenographic record. Strange enough He would not talk while she was writing down. And when I asked him why, he would not tell. So I devised a scheme: I took a satchel, And put in it a dictaphone, and when A cylinder was full I'd stoop and put My hand among my bottles in the satchel, As if I was compounding medicine, Instead I'd put another cylinder on. And thus I got his story in his voice, Just as he talked, with nothing lost at all, Which you shall hear. For with this megaphone The students in the farthest gallery Can hear what Jacob Groesbell said to me, And weigh the thought that stirred within the brain Here in this jar beside me. Listen now To Jacob Groesbell's voice:
"Will you repeat From the beginning connectedly the story Of your religious life, illumination, Vhat you have called your soul's escape?"
"I will, Since I shall never tell it again."
"I grew up Timid and sensitive, not very strong, Not understood of father or of mother. They did not love me, and I never felt A tenderness for them. I used to quote: 'Who is my mother and who are my brothers?' At school I was not liked. I had a chum From time to time, that's all. And I remember My mother on a day put with my luncheon A bottle of milk, and when the noon hour came I missed it, found some boys had taken it, And when I asked for it, they made the cry: 'Bottle of milk, bottle of milk,' and I Flushed through with shame, and cried, and to this hour It hurts me to remember it. Such days, All misery! For all my clothes were patched. They hooted at me. So I lived alone. At twelve years old I had great fears of death, And hell, heard devils in my room. One night During a thunderstorm heard clanking chains, And hid beneath the pillows. One spring day As I was walking on the village street Close to the church I heard a voice which said 'Behold, my son'--and falling on my knees I prayed in ecstacy--but as I prayed Some passing school boys laughed, threw stones at me. A heat ran through me, I arose and fled. Well, then I joined the church and was baptized. But something left me in the ceremony, I lost my ecstacy, seemed slipping back Into the trap. I took to wandering In solitary places, could not bear To see a human face. I slept for nights In still ravines, or meadows. But one time Returning to my home, I found the room Filled up with visitors--my heart stopped short, And glancing at the faces of my parents I hurried, bolted through, and did not speak, Entered a bed-room door and closed it. So I tell this just to illustrate my shyness, Which cursed my youth and made me miserable, Something I fought but could not overcome. And pondering on the Scriptures I could see How I resembled the saints, our Saviour even, How even as my brothers called me mad They called our Saviour so.
"At fourteen years My father taught me carpentry, his trade, And made me work with him. I seemed to be The butt for jokes and laughter with the men-- I know not why. For now and then they'd drop A word that showed they knew my secrets, knew I had heard voices, knew I loathed the lusts Of women, drink. Oh these were sorry years, God was not with me though I sought Him ever And I was persecuted for His sake. My brain Seemed like to burst at times, saw sparkling lights, Heard music, voices, made strange shapes of leaves, Clouds, trunks of trees,--illusions of the devil. I was turned twenty years when on an evening Calm, beautiful in June, after a day Of healthful toil, while sitting on the porch, The sun just sinking, at my left I heard A voice of hollow clearness: "You are Christ." My eyes grew blind with tears for the evil Of such a thought, soul stained with such a thought, So devil stained, soul damned with blasphemy. I ran into my room and seized a pistol To end my life. God willed it otherwise. I fainted and awoke upon the floor After some hours. To heap my suffering full A few days after this while in the village I went into a store. The friendly clerk-- I knew him always--said 'What will you have? I wait first always on the little boys.' I laughed and went my way. But in an hour His saying rankled, I began to brood On ways of vengeance, till it seemed at last His life must pay. O, soul so full of sin, So devil tangled, tortured--which not prayer Nor watching could deliver. So I thought To save my soul from murder I must fly-- I felt an urging as one does in sleep Pursued by giant things to fly, to fly From terror, death, from blankness on the scene, From emptiness, from beauty gone. The world Seemed something seen in fever, where the steps Of men are muffled, and a futile scheme Impels all steps. So packing up my kit, My Bible in my pocket, secretly I disappeared. Next day took up my life In Barrington, a village thirty miles From all I knew, besides a lovely lake, Reached by a road that crossed a bridge Over a little bay, the bridge's ends Clustered with boats for fishermen. And here Night after night I fished, or stood and watched The star-light on the water.
I grew calmer Almost found peace, got work to do, and lived Under a widow's roof, who was devout And knew my love for God. Now listen, doctor, To every word: I was now twenty-five, In perfect health, no longer persecuted, At peace with all the world, if not my soul Had wholly found its peace, for truth to tell It had an ache which sometimes I could feel, And yet I had this soul awakening. I know I have been counted mad, so watch Each detail here and judge.
At four o'clock The thirtieth day of June, my work being done, My kit upon my back I walked this road Toward the village. 'Twas an afternoon Of clouds, no rain, a little breeze, the tinkle Of cow bells in the air, a heavenly silence Pervading nature. Reaching the hill's foot I sat down by a tree to rest, enjoy The greenness of the forests, meadows, flats Along the bay, the blueness of the lake, The ripple of the water at my feet, The rythmic babble of the little boats Tied to the bridge. And as I sat there musing, Myself lost in the self, in time the clouds Lifted, blew off, to let the sun go down Over the waters gloriously to rest. So as I stared upon the sun on the water, Some minutes, though I know not for how long, Out of the splendor of the shining sun Upon the water, Jesus of Nazareth Clothed all in white, the nimbus round his brow, His face all wisdom, love, rose to my view, And then he spake: 'Jacob, my son, arise And come with me.'
"And in an instant there Something fell from me, I became a cloud, A soul with wings. A glory burned about me. And in that glory I perceived all things: I saw the eternal wheels, the deepest secrets Of creatures, herbs and grass, and stars and suns And I knew God, and knew all things as God: The All loving, the Perfect One, the Perfect Wisdom, Truth, love and purity. And in that instant Atoms and molecules I saw, and faces, And how they are arranged order to order, With no break in the order, one harmonious Whole of universal life all blended And interfused with universal love. And as it was with Shelley so I cried, And clasped my hands in ecstacy and rose And started back to climb the hill again, Scarce knowing, neither caring what I did, Nor where I went, and thinking if this be A fancy only of the Saviour then He will not follow me, and if it be Himself, indeed, he will not let me fall After the revelation. As I reached The brow of the hill, I felt his presence with me And turned, and saw Him. 'Thou hast faith, my son, Who knowest me, when they who walked with me Toward Emmaus knew me not, to whom I told All secrets of the scriptures beginning at Moses, Who knew me not till I brake bread and then, As after thought could say, Did not our heart Within us burn while he talked. O, Jacob Groesbell, Thou carpenter, as I was, greatly blessed With visions and my Father's love, this walk Is your walk toward Emmaus.' So he talked, Expounding all the scriptures, telling me About the race of men who live and move Along a life of meat and drink and sleep And comforts of the flesh, while here and there A hungering soul is chosen to lift up And re-create the race. 'The prophet, poet Must seek and must find God to keep the race Awake to the divine and to the orders Of universal and harmonious life, All interfused with Universal love, Which love is God, lest blindness, atheism, Which sees no order, reason, no intent Beat down the race to welter in the mire When storms, and floods come. And the sons of God, The leaders of the race from age to age Are chosen for their separate work, each work Fits in the given order. All who suffer The martyrdom of thought, whether they think Themselves as servants of my Father, or even Mock at the images and rituals Which prophets of dead creeds did symbolize The mystery they sensed, or whether they be Spirits of laughter, logic, divination Of human life, the human soul, all men Who give their essence, blindly or in vision In faith that life is worth their utmost love, They are my brothers and my Father's sons.' So Jesus told me as we took my walk Toward my Emmaus. After a time we turned And walked through heading rye and purple vetch Into an orchard where great rows of pears Sloped up a hill. It was now evening: Stretches of scarlet clouds were in the west, And a half moon was hanging just above The pears' white blossoms. O, that evening! We came back to the boats at last and loosed One of them and rowed out into the bay, And fished, while the stars appeared. He only said 'Whatever they did with me you too shall do.' A haziness came on me now. I seem To find myself alone there in that boat. At mid-night I awoke, the moon was sunk, The whippoorwills were singing. I walked home Back to the village in a silence, peace, A happiness profound.
"And the next morning I awoke with aching head, spent body, yet With spiritual vision so intense I looked Through things material as if they were But shadows--old things passed away or grew A lovelier order. And my heart was full. Infinitely I loved, and infinitely was loved. My landlady looked at me sharply, asked What hour I entered, where I was so late. I only answered fishing. For I told No person of my vision, went my way At carpentry in silence, in great joy. For archangels and powers were at my side, They led me, bore me up, instructed me In mysteries, and voices said to me 'Write' as the voice in Patmos said to John. I wrote and printed and the village read, And called me mad. And so I grew to see The deepest truths of God, and God Himself, The geniture of all things, of the Word Becoming flesh in Christ. I knew all ages, Times, empires, races, creeds, the human weakness Which makes life wearisome, confused and pained, And how the search for something (it is God) Makes divers worships, fire, the sun, and beasts Takes form in Eleusinian mysteries Or festivals where sex, the vine, the Earth At harvest time have praise or reverence. I knew God, talked with God, and knew that God Is more than Thought or Love. Our twisted brains Are but the wires in the bulb which stays, Resists the current and makes human thought. As the electric current is not light But heat and power as well. Our little brains Resist God and make thought and love as well. But God is more than these. Oh I heard much Of music, heard the whirring as of wheels, Or buzzing as of ears when a room is still. That is the axis of profoundest life Which turns and rests not. And I heard the cry And hearing wept, of man's soul, heard the ages, The epochs of this earth as it were the feet Of multitudes in corridors. And I knew The agony of genius and the woe Of prophets and the great.
"From that next morning I searched the scriptures with more fervid zeal Than I had ever done. I could not open Its pages anywhere but I could find Myself set forth or mirrored, pointed to. I could not doubt my destiny was bound With man's salvation. Jeremiah said 'Take forth the precious from the vile.' Those words To me were spoken, and to no one else. And so I searched the scriptures. And I found I never had a thought, experience, pang, A state in human life our Saviour had not. He was a carpenter, and so was I. He had his soul's illumination, so had I. His brethren called him mad, they called me mad. He triumphed over death, so shall I triumph. For I could, I can feel my way along Death's stages as a man can reach and feel Ahead of him along a wall. I know This body is a shell, a butterfly's Excreta pushed away with rising wings.
"I searched the scriptures. How should I believe Paul's story, not my own? Did he not see At mid-day in the way a light from heaven Above the brightness of the sun and hear The voice of Jesus saying to him 'Saul,' Why persecutest thou me?' And did not Festus, Before whom Paul stood speaking for himself, Call Paul a mad man? Even while he spake Such words as none but men inspired can speak, As well as words of truth and soberness, Such as myself speak now.
"And from the scriptures I passed to studies of the men who came To great illuminations. You will see There are two kinds: One's of the intellect, The understanding, one is of the soul. The x-ray lets the eye behind the flesh To see the ribs, or heart beat, choose! So men In their illumination see the frame-work Of life or see its spirit, so align Themselves with Science, Satire, or align Themselves with Poetry or Prophecy. So being Aristotle, Rabelais, Paul, Swedenborg.
"And as the years Went on, as I had time, was fortunate In finding books I read of many men Who had illumination, as I had it. Read Of Dante's vision, how he found himself Saw immortality, lost fear of death. Read Swedenborg, who left the intellect At fifty-four for God, and entered heaven Before he quitted life and saw behind The sun of fire, a sun of love and truth. Read Whitman who exclaimed to God: 'Thou knowest My manhood's visionary meditations Which come from Thee, the ardor and the urge. Thou lightest my life with rays ineffable Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages.' Read Blake, Spinoza, Emerson, read Wordsworth Who wrote of something 'deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue skies, and in the mind of man-- A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought And rolls through all things.'
"And at last they called me The mad, and learned carpenter. And then-- I'm growing faint. Your hand, hold ..."
At this point He fainted, sank into a stupor. There I watched him, to discover if 'twas death. But soon I saw him rally, then he spoke. There was some other talk, but not of moment. I had to change the cylinder--the talk Was broken, rambling, and of trifling things, Throws no light on the case, being sane enough. He died next morning.
Students who desire To examine the skull and brain may do so now At their convenience in the laboratory.
FRIAR YVES
Said Friar Yves: "God will bless Saint Louis' other-worldliness. Whatever the fate be, still I fare To fight for the Holy Sepulcher. If I survive, I shall return With precious things from Palestine-- Gold for my purse, spices and wine, Glory to wear among my kin. Fame as a warrior I shall win. But, otherwise, if I am slain In Jesus' cause, my soul shall earn Immortal life washed white from sin."
Said Friar Yves: "Come what will-- Riches and glory, death and woe-- At dawn to Palestine I go. Whether I live or die, I gain To fly the tepid good and ill Of daily living in Champagne, Where those who reach salvation lose The treasures, raptures of the earth, Captured, possessed, and made to serve The gospel love of Jesus' birth, Sacrifice, death; where even those Passing from pious works and prayer To paradise are not received As those who battled, strove, and lived, And periled bodies, as I choose To peril mine, and thus to use Body and soul to build the throne Of Louis the Saint, where Joseph's care Lay Jesus under a granite stone."
Then Friar Yves buckled on His breastplate, and, at break of dawn, With crossboy, halberd took his way, Walked without resting, without pause, Till the sun hovered at midday Over a tree of glistening leaves, Where a spring gurgled. "Hunger gnaws My stomach," whispered Friar Yves. "If I," he sighed, "could only gain, Like yonder spring, an inner source Of life, and need not dew or rain Of human love, or human friends, And thus accomplish my soul's ends Within myself! No," said the friar; "There is one water and one fire; There is one Spirit, which is God. And what are we but streams and springs Through which He takes His wanderings? Lord, I am weak, I am afraid; Show me the way!" the friar prayed. "Where do I flow and to what end? Am I of Thee, or do I blend Hereafter with Thee?"
Yves heard, While praying, sounds as when the sod Teems with a swarm of insect things. He dropped his halberd to look down, And then his waking vision blurred, As one before a light will frown. His inner ear was caught and stirred By voices; then the chestnut tree Became a step beside a throne. Breathless he lay and fearfully, While on his brain a vision shone. Said a Great Voice of sweetest tone: "The time has come when I must take The form of man for mankind's sake. This drama is played long enough By creatures who have naught of me, Save what comes up from foam of the sea To crawling moss or swimming weeds, At last to man. From heaven in flame, Pure, whole, and vital, down I fly, And take a mortal's form and name, And labor for the race's needs." Then Friar Yves dreamed the sky Flushed like a bride's face rosily, And shot to lightning from its bloom. The world leaped like a babe in the womb, And choral voices from heaven's cope Circled the earth like singing stars: "O wondrous hope, O sweetest hope, O passion realized at last; O end of hunger, fear, and wars, O victory over the bottomless, vast Valley of Death!"
A silence fell, Broke by the voice of Gabriel: "Music may follow this, O Lord! Music I hear; I hear discord Through ages yet to be, as well. There will be wars because of this, And wars will come in its despite. It's noon on the world now; blackest night Will follow soon. And men will miss The meaning, Lord! There will be strife 'Twixt Montanist and Ebionite, Gnostic, Mithraist, Manichean, 'Twixt Christian and the Saracen. There will be war to win the place Where you bend death to sovereign life. Armed kings will battle for the grace Of rulership, for power and gold In the name of Jesus. Men will hold Conclaves of swords to win surcease Of doctrines of the Prince of Peace. The seed is good, Lord, make the ground Good for the seed you scatter round!"
Said the Great Voice of sweetest tone: "The gardener sprays his plants and trees To drive out lice and stop disease. After the spraying, fruit is grown Ruddy and plump. The shortened eyes Of men can see this end, although Leaves wither or a whole tree dies From what the gardener does to grow Apples and plums of sweeter flesh. The gardener lives outside the tree; The gardener knows the tree can see What cure is needed, plans afresh An end foreseen, and there's the will Wherewith the gardener may fulfil The orchard's destiny."
So He spake. And Friar Yves seemed to wake, But did not wake, and only sunk Into another dreaming state, Wherein he saw a woman's form Leaning against the chestnut's trunk. Her body was virginal, white, and straight, And glowed like a dawning, golden, warm, Behind a robe of writhing green: As when a rock's wall makes a screen Whereon the crisscross reflect moves Of circling water under the rays Of April sunlight through the sprays Of budding branches in willow groves-- A liquid mosaic of green and gold-- Thus was her robe.
But to behold Her face was to forget the youth Of her white bosom. All her hair Was tangled serpents; she did wear A single eye in the middle brow. Her cheeks were shriveled, and one tooth Stuck from shrunken gums. A bough O'ershadowed her the while she gripped A pail in either hand. One dripped Clear water; one, ethereal fire. Then to the Graia spoke the friar: "Have mercy! Tell me your desire And what you are?"
Then the Graia said: "My body is Nature and my head Is Man, and God has given me A seeing spirit, strong and free, Though by a single eye, as even Man has one vision at a time. I lift my pails up; mark them well. With this fire I will burn up heaven, And with this water I will quench The flames of hell's remotest trench, That men may work in righteousness. Not for the fears of an after hell, Nor for the rewards which heaven will bless The soul with when the mountains nod And the sun darkens, but for love Of Man and Life, and love of God. Now look!"
She dashed the pail of fire Against the vault of heaven. It fell As would a canopy of blue Burned by a soldier's careless torch. She dashed the water into hell, And a great steam rose up with the smell Of gaseous coals, which seemed to scorch All things which on the good earth grew. "Now," said the Graia, "loiterer, Awake from slumber, rise and speed To fight for the Holy Sepulcher-- Nothing is left but Life, indeed-- I have burned heaven! I have quenched hell."
Friar Yves no longer slept; Friar Yves awoke and wept.
THE EIGHTH CRUSADE
June, but we kept the fire place piled with logs, And every day it rained. And every morning I heard the wind and rain among the leaves. Try as I would my spirits grew no better. What was it? Was I ill or sick in mind? I spent the whole day working with my hands, For there was brush to clear and corn to plant Between the gusts of rain; and there at night I sat about the room and hugged the fire. And the rain dripped and the wind blew, we shivered For cold and it was June. I ached all through For my hard labor, why did muscles grow not To hardness and cure body, if 'twere body, Or soul if it were soul?
But there at night As I sat aching, worn, before the hour Of sleep, and restless in this interval Of nothingness, the silence out-of-doors, Timed by the dripping rain, and by the slap Of cards upon a table by a boarder Who passed the time in playing solitaire, Sometimes my ancient host would fill his pipe, And scrape away the dust of long past years To show me what had happened in his life. And as he smoked and talked his aged wife Would parallel his theme, as a brooks' branches Formed by a slender island, flow together. Or yet again she'd intercalate a touch, An episode or version. And sometimes He'd make her hush; or sometimes he'd suspend While she went on to what she wished to finish, When he'd resume. They talked together thus. He found the story and began to tell it, And she hung on his story, told it too.
This night the rain came down in buckets full, And Claude who brought the logs in showed his breath Between the opening of the outer door And the swift on-rush of the room's warm air. And my host who had hoed the whole day long, Hearty at eighty years, sat with his pipe Reading the organ of the Adventists, His wife beside him knitting.
On the table Are several magazines with their monthly grist Of stories and of pictures. O such stories! Who writes these stories? How does it happen people Are born into the world to read these stories? But anyway the lamp is very bad, And every bone in me aches--and why always Must one be either reading, knitting, talking? Why not sit quietly and think?
At last Between the clicking needles and the slap Of cards upon the table and the swish Of rain upon the window my host speaks: "It says here when the Germans are defeated, And that means when the Turks are beaten too, The Christian world will take back Palestine, And drive the Turks out. God be praised, I hope so." "Amen" breaks in the wife. "May we both live To see the day. Perhaps you'll get your trunk back From Jaffa if the Allies win."
To me The wife turns and goes on, "He has a trunk, At least his trunk went on to Jaffa, and It never came back. The bishop's trunk came back, But his trunk never came."
And then the husband: "What are you saying, mother, you go on As if our friend here knew the story too. And then you talk as if our hope of the war Was centered on recovering that trunk."
"Oh, not at all But if the Allies win, and the trunk is there In Jaffa you might get it back. You know You'll never get it back while infidels Rule Palestine."
The husband says to me: "It looks as if she thought that trunk of mine, Which went to Jaffa fifty years ago, Is in existence yet, when chances are They kept it for awhile, and sold it off, Or threw it away."
"They never threw it away. Why I made him a dozen shirts or more, And knitted him a lot of lovely socks, And made him neck-ties, and that trunk contained Everything that a man might need in absence A year from home. And yet they threw it away!"
"They might have done so."
"But they never did, Perhaps they threw your cabinet tools away?" "They were too valuable."
"Too valuable, Fine socks and shirts are worthless are they, yes."
"Not worthless, but fine tools are valuable." He turns to me: "I lost a box of tools Sent on to Jaffa, too. The scheme was this: To work at cabinet making while observing Conditions there in Palestine, and get ready To drive the Turks from Palestine."
What's this? I rub my eyes and wake up to this story. I'm here in Illinois, in a farmer's house Who boards stray fishermen, and takes me in. And in a moment Turks and Palestine, And that old dream of Louis the Saint arise And show me how the world is small, and a man Native to Illinois may travel forth And mix his life with ancient things afar. To-day be raising corn here and next month Walking the streets of Jaffa, in Mycenæ, Digging for Grecian relics.
So I asked "Were you in Palestine?" And the wife spoke quick: "He didn't get there, that's the joke of it." And the husband said: "It wasn't such a joke. You see it was this way, myself and the bishop, He lived in Springfield, I in Pleasant Plains, Had planned to meet in Switzerland."
"Montreaux" The wife broke in.
"Montreaux" the husband added. "You said you two had planned it," she went on. Now looking over specks and speaking louder: "The bishop came to him, he planned it out. My husband didn't plan the trip at all. He knows the bishop planned it."
Then the husband: "Oh for that matter he spoke of it first, And I acceded and we worked it out. He was to go ahead of me, I was To come in later, soon as I could raise What funds my congregation could afford To spare for this adventure."
"Guess," she said, "How much it was."
I shook my head and she Said in a lowered and a tragic voice: "Four hundred dollars, and you can believe It strapped his church to raise so great a sum. And if they hadn't thought that Christ would come Scarcely before the plan could be put through Of winning back the Holy Land, that sum Had never been made up and put in gold For him to carry in a chamois belt."
And then the husband said: "Mother, be still, I'll tell our friend the story if you'll let me." "I'm done," she said. "I wanted to say that. Go on," she said.
And so he started over: "The bishop came to me and said he thought The Advent would be June of seventy-six. This was the winter of eighteen seventy-one. He said he had a dream; and in this dream An angel stood beside him, told him so, And told him to get me and go to Jaffa, And live there, learn the people and the country, We were to live disguised the better to learn The people and the country. I was to work At my trade as a cabinet maker, he At carpentry, which was his trade, and so No one would know us, or suspect our plan. And thus we could live undisturbed and work, And get all things in readiness, that in time The Lord would send us power, and do all things. We were the messengers to go ahead And make the ways straight, so I told her of it."
"You told me, yes, but my trust was as great As yours was in the bishop, little the good To tell me of it."
"Well, I told you of it. And she said, 'If the Lord commands you so You must obey.' And so she knit the socks And made that trunk of things, as she has said, And in six weeks I sailed from Philadelphia."
"'Twas nearer two months," said the wife.
"Perhaps, Somewhere between six weeks and that. The bishop Left Springfield in a month from our first talk. I knew, for I went over when he left. And I remember how his poor wife cried, And how the children cried. He had a family Of some eight children."
"Only seven then, The son named David died the year before."
"Mother, you're right, 'twas seven children then. The oldest was not more than twelve, I think, And all the children cried, and at the train His congregation almost to a man Was there to see him off."
"Well, one was missing. You know, you know," the wife said pregnantly.
"I'll come to that in time, if you'll be still. Well, so the bishop left, and in six weeks, Or somewhere there, I started for Montreaux To meet the bishop. Shipped ahead my trunk To Jaffa as the bishop did. But now I must tell you my dream. The night before I reached Montreaux I had a wondrous dream: I saw the bishop on the station platform His face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearing His gold head cane. And sure enough next day As I stepped from the train I saw the bishop His face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearing His gold head cane. And I thought something wrong, And still I didn't act upon the thought."
"I should say not," the wife broke in again.
"Oh, well what could I do, if I had thought More clearly than I did that things were wrong. You can't uproot the confidence of years Because of dreams. And as to brandy blossoms I knew his face was red, but didn't know, Or think just then, that brandy made it red. And so I went up to the house he lived in-- A mansion beautiful, and we sat down. And he sat there bolt upright in a rocker, Hands spread upon his knees, his black eyes bigger Than I had ever seen them, eyeing me Silently for a moment, when he said: 'What money did you bring?' And so I told him. And he said quickly 'let me have it.' So I took my belt off, counted out the gold And gave it to him. And he took it, thrust it With this hand in this pocket, that in that, And sat there and said nothing more, just looked! And then before a word was spoke again I heard a step upon the stair, the stair Came down into this room where we were sitting. And I looked up, and there--I rubbed my eyes-- I looked again, rose from my chair to see, And saw descending the most lovely woman, Who was"--
"A lovely woman," sneered the wife "Well, she was just affinity to the bishop, That's what she was."
"Affinity is right-- You see she was the leader in the choir, And she had run away with him, or rather Had gone abroad upon another boat And met him in Montreaux. Now from this time For forty hours or so all is a blank. I just remember trying to speak and choking, And flying from the room, the bishop clutching At my coat sleeve to hold me. After that I can't recall a thing until I saw A little cottage way up in the Alps. I was knocking at the door, was faint and sick, The door was opened and they took me in, And warmed me with a glass of wine, and tucked me In a good bed where I slept half a week. It seems in my bewilderment I wandered, Ran, stumbled, climbed for forty hours or so By rocky chasms, up the piney slopes."
"He might have lost his life," the wife exclaimed.
"These were the kindest people in the world, A French family. They gave me splendid food, And when I left two francs to reach the place Where lived the English Consul, who arranged After some days for money for my passage Back to America, and in six weeks I preached a sermon here in Pleasant Plains."
"Beware of false prophets was the text!" she said.
And I who heard this story through spoke up: "The thing about this that I fail to get Concerns this woman, the affinity. If, as seems evident, she and the bishop Had planned this run-a-way and used the faith, And you, the congregation to get money To do it with, or used you in particular To get the money for themselves to live on After they had arrived there in Montreaux, If all this be" I said, "why did this woman Descend just at the moment when he asked you For the money that you had. You might have seen her Before you gave the money, if you had You might have held it back."
"I would indeed, You can be sure I should have held it back."
And then the old wife gasped and dropped her knitting.
"Now, James, you let me answer that, I know. She was done with the bishop, that's the reason. Be still and let me answer. Here's the story: We found out later that the bishop's trunk And kit of tools had been returned from Jaffa There to Montreaux, were there that very day, Which means the bishop never meant to go To Palestine at all, but meant to meet This woman in Montreaux and live with her. Well, that takes money. So he used my husband To get that money. Now you wonder I see Why she would chance the spoiling of the scheme, Descend into the room before my husband Had given up this money, and this money, You see, was treated as a common fund Belonging to the church and to be used To get back Palestine, and so the bishop As head of the church, superior to my husband, Could say 'give me the money'--that was natural, My husband could not be surprised at that, Or question it. Well, why did she descend And almost lose the money? Oh, the cat! I know what she did, as well as I had seen Her do it. Yes, she listened at the landing. And when she heard my husband tell the sum Which he had brought, it wasn't enough to please her, And Satan entered in her heart, and she Waited until she heard the bishop's pockets Clink with the double eagles, then descended To expose the bishop and disgrace him there And everywhere in all the world. Now listen: She got that money or the most of it In spite of what she did. For in six weeks After my husband had returned, she walked, The brazen thing, the public streets of Springfield As jaunty as you please, and pretty soon The bishop died and all the papers printed The story of his shame."
She had scarce finished When the man at solitaire threw down the deck And make a whacking noise and rose and came Around in front of us and stood and looked The old man and old woman over, me He studied too. Then in an organ voice: "Is there a single verse in the New Testament That hasn't sprouted one church anyway, Letting alone the verses that have sprouted Two, three or four or five? I know of one: Where is it that it says that "Jesus wept"? Let's found a church on that verse, "Jesus wept." With that he went out in the rain and slammed The door behind him.
The old clergyman Had fallen asleep. His wife looked up and said, "That man is crazy, ain't he? I'm afraid."
THE BISHOP'S DREAM OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
A lassie sells the War Cry on the corner And the big drum booms, and the raucous brass horns Mingle with the cymbals and the silver triangle. I stand a moment listening, then my friend Who studies all religions, finds a wonder In orphic spectacles like this, lays hold Upon my arm and draws me to a door Through which we look and see a room of seats, A platform at the end, a table on it, And signs upon the wall, "Jesus is Waiting," And "God is Love."
We enter, take a seat. The band comes in and fills the room to bursting With horns and drums. They cease and feet are heard, The crowd has followed, half the seats are full. After a prayer, a song, the captain mounts The platform by the table and begins: "Praise God so many girls are here to-night, And Sister Trickey, by the grace of God Saved from the wrath to come, will speak to you." So Sister Trickey steps upon the platform, A woman nearing forty, one would say. Blue-eyed, fair skinned, and yellow haired, a figure Once trim enough, no doubt, grown stout at last. She was a pretty woman in her time, 'Twas plain to see. A shrewd intelligence From living in the world shines in her face. We settle down to hear from Sister Trickey And in a moment she begins:
"Young girls: I thank the Lord for Jesus, for he saved me, I thank the Lord for Jesus every hour. No woman ever stained with redder sins. Had greater grace than mine. Praise God for Jesus! Praise God for blood that washes sins away! I was a woman fallen till Lord Jesus Forgave me, helped me up and made me clean. My name is Lilah Trickey. Let me tell you How music was my tempter. Oh, you girls, If there be one before me who can sing Beware the devil and beware your voice That it be used for Jesus, not for Satan."
"I had a voice, was leader of the choir, But Satan entered in my voice to tempt The bishop of the church, and in my heart To tempt and use the bishop; in the bishop Old Satan slipped to lure me from the path. He fell from grace for listening. And I Whose voice had turned him over to the devil Fell as he fell. He dragged me down with him. No use to make it long, one word's enough: Old Satan is the first word and the last, And all between is nothing. It's enough To say the bishop and myself eloped Went to Montreaux. He left a wife and children. And I poor silly thing with promises Of culture of my voice in Paris, lost Good name and all. And he lost all as well. Good name, his soul I fear, because he took The church's money saying he would use it To win the Holy Sepulchre, in fact Intending all the while to use the money For travel and for keeping up a house With me as soul-mate. For he never meant To let me go to Paris for my voice, He never got enough to pay for that. On that point he betrayed me, now I see 'Twas God who used him to deceive me there, And leave me to return to Springfield broken, An out-cast, fallen woman, shamed and scorned."
"We took a house in Montreaux, plain enough As we looked at it passing, but within 'Twas sweet and fair as Satan could desire: Engravings on the wall and marble mantels, Gilt clocks upon the mantels, lovely rugs, Chests full of linen, silver, pewter, china, Soft beds with canopies of figured satin, The scent of apple blossoms through the rooms. A little garden, vines against the wall. There were the lake and mountains. Oh, but Satan Baited the hook with beauty. But the bishop Seemed self-absorbed, depressed and never smiled. And every time his face came close to mine I smelled the brandy on him. Conscience whipped Its venomed tail against his peace of mind. And so he took the brandy to benumb The sting of conscience and to dull the pain. He told me he had business in Montreaux Which would require some weeks, would there be met By people who had money for him. I Was twenty-three and green, besides I walked In dreamland thinking of the promised schooling In Paris--oh 'twas music, as I said.". ...
"At last one day he said a friend was coming, And he went to the station. Very soon I heard their steps, the bishop and his friend. They entered. I was curious and sat Upon the stair-way's landing just to hear. And this is what I heard. The bishop asked: 'You've brought some money, how much have you brought?'
The man replied 'four hundred dollars.' Then The bishop said: 'I'll take it.' In a moment I heard the clinking gold and heard the bishop Putting it in his pocket.'
"God forgive me, I never was so angry in my life. The bishop had been talking in big figures, We would have thousands for my voice and Paris, And here was just a paltry sum. Scarce knowing Just what I did, perhaps I wished to see The American who brought the money--well, No matter what it was, I walked in view Upon the landing, stood there for a moment And saw our visitor, a clergyman From all appearances. He stared, grew red, Large eyed and apoplectic, then he rose, Walked side-ways, backward, stumbled toward the door, Rattled with shaking hand the knob and jerked The door ajar, with open mouth backed out Upon the street and ran. I heard him run A square at least."
"The bishop looked at me, His face all brandy blossoms, left the room, Came back at once with brandy on his breath. And all that day was tippling, went to bed So drunk I had to take his clothing off And help him in."
"Young girls, beware of music, Save only hymns and sacred oratorios. Beware the theatre and dancing hall. Take lesson from my fate.
"The morning came. The bishop called me, he was very ill And pale with fear. He had a dream that night. Satan had used him and abandoned him. And Death, whom only Jesus can put down, Was standing by the bed. He called to me, And said to me:
"'That money's in that drawer. Use it to reach America, but use it To send my body back. Death's in the corner Behind that cabinet--there--see him look! I had a dream--go get a pen and paper, And write down what I tell you. God forgive me-- Oh what a blasphemer am I. O, woman, To lie here dying and to know that God Has left me--hell awaits me--horrible! Last night I dreamed this man who brought the money, This man and I were walking from Damascus, And in a trice came down to Olivet. Just then great troops of men sprang up around us And hailed us as expecting our approach. And there I saw the faces--hundreds maybe, Of congregations who had trusted me In all the long past years--Oh, sinful woman, Why did you cross my path,' he moaned at times, 'And wreck my ministry.'
"'And so these crowds Armed as it seemed, exulted, called me general, And shouted forward. So we ran like mad And came before a building with a dome-- You know--I've seen a picture of it somewhere. And so the crowds yelled: let the bishop enter And see the sepulchre, while we keep guard. They pushed me in. But when I was inside There was no dome, above us was the sky, And what seemed walls was nothing but a fence. Before us was a stable with a stall Where two cows munched the hay. There was a farmer Who with a pitchfork bedded down the stall. "Where is the holy sepulchre?" I asked-- "My army's at the door." He kept at work And never raised his eyes and only said: "Don't know; I haven't time for things like that. You're 'bout the hundredth man who's asked me that. We don't know where it is, nor do we care. We live here and we knew him, so we feel Less interest than you. But have you thought If you should find it it would only be A tomb like other tombs? Why look at this: Here is the very manger where he lay-- What is it? Just a manger filled with straw. These cows are not the very cows you know-- But cows are cows in every age and place. I think that board there has been nailed on since. Outside of that the place is just the same. Now what's the good of seeing it? His mother Lay in that corner there, what if she did? That lantern on the wall's the very one They came to see the child with from the inn-- What of it? Take your army and go on, And leave me with my barn and with my cows."
"'So all the glory vanished! Devil magic Stripped all the glory off. No angels singing, No star of Bethlehem, no magi kneeling, No Mary crowned, no Jesus King, no mystic Blood for sins' remission--just a barn, A stall, two cows, a lantern--all the glory-- Swept from the gospel. That's my punishment: My poor weak brain filled full of all this dream, Which seems as real as life--to lie here dying Too weak to shake the dream! To see Death there Behind that cabinet--there--see him look-- By God forsaken--all theology, All mystery, all wonder, all delight Of spiritual vision swept away as clean As winds sweep up the clouds, and thus to see While dying, just a manger, and two cows, A lantern on the wall.
"'And thus to see, For blasphemy that duped an honest heart, And took the pitiful dollars of the flock To win you with--oh, woman, woman, woman, A barn, a stall, a lantern limned so clear In such a daylight of clear seeing senses That all the splendor, the miraculous Wonder of the virgin, nimbused child, The star that followed till it rested over The manger (such a manger) all are wrecked, All blotted from belief, all snatched away From hands pushed off by God, no longer holding The robes of God.'
"And so the bishop raved While I stood terrified, since I could feel Death in the room, and almost see the monster Behind the cabinet.
"Then the bishop said: "'My dream went on. I crossed the stable yard And passed into a place of tombs. And look! Before I knew I stepped into a hole, A sunken grave with just a slab at head, And "Jesus" carven on it, nothing else, No date, no birth, no parentage.'"
"'I lie Tormented by the pictures of this dream. Woman, take to your death bed with clear mind Of gospel faith, clean conscience, sins forgiven. The thoughts that we must suffer with and die with Are worth the care of all the days of life. All life should be directed to this end, Lest when the mind lies fallen, vultures swoop, And with their wings blot out the sun of faith, And with their croakings drown the voice of God.'
"He ceased, became delirious. So he died, And I still unrepentant buried him There in Montreaux, and with what gold remained Went on to Paris.
"See how I was marked For God's salvation.
"There I went to see The celebrated teacher Jean Strakosch, Who looked at me with insolent, calm eyes, And face impassive, let me sing a scale, Then shook his head. A diva, as I thought, Came in just then. They talked in French, and I, Prickling from head to foot with shame, ignored, Left standing like a fool, passed from the room. So music turned on me, but God received me, And I came back to Springfield. But the Lord Made life too hard for me without the fold. I was so shunned and scorned, I had no place Save with the fallen, with the mockers, drinkers. Thus being in conviction, after struggles, And many prayers I found salvation, found My work in life: which is to talk to girls And stand upon this platform and relate My story for their good."
She ceased. Amens Went up about the room. The big drum boomed, And the raucous brass horns mingled with the cymbals, The silver triangle and the singing voices.
My friend and I arose and left the room.
NEANDERTHAL
"Then what is life?" I cried. And with that cry I woke from deeper slumber--was it sleep?-- And saw a hooded figure standing by The bed whereon I lay.
"Why do you keep, O spirit beautiful and swift, this guard About my slumber? Shelley, from the deep Why do you come with veiled face, mighty bard, As that unearthly shape was veiled to you At Casa Magni?"
Then the room was starred With light as I was speaking, and I knew The god, my brother, from whose face the veil Melted as mist.
"What mission fair and true, While I am sleeping, brings you? For I pale Amid this solemn stillness, for your face Unutterably majestic."
As when the dale At midnight echoes for a little space, The night-bird's cry, the god responded "Come," And nothing more. I left my bed apace, And followed him with wings above the gloom Of clouds like chariots driven on to war, Between whose wheels the swift moon raced and swum.
A mile beneath us lay the earth, afar Were mountains which as swift as thought drew near As we passed over pines, where many a star And heaven's light made every frond as clear As through a glass or in the lightning's flash. ... Yet I seemed flying from an olden fear, A bulk of black that sought to sting or gnash My breast or side--which was myself, it seemed, The flesh or thinking part of me grown rash And violent, a brain soul unredeemed, Which sometime earlier in the grip of Death Forgot its terror when my soul which streamed Like ribbons of silk fire, with quiet breath Said to the body, as it were a thing Separate and indifferent: "How uneath That fellow turns, while I am safe yet cling Close to him, both another and the same." Now was this mood reversed: That self must wing Its fastest flight to fly him, lest he maim With fleshly hands my better, stronger part, As dragon wings my flap and quench a flame. ... But as we passed o'er empires and athwart A bellowing strait, beholding bergs and floes And running tides which made the sinking heart Rise up again for breath, I felt how close The god, my brother, was, who would sustain My wings whatever dangers might oppose, And knowing him beside me, like a strain Of music were his thoughts, though nothing yet Was spoken by him.
When as out of rain Suddenly lights may break, the earth was set Beneath us, and we stood and paused to see The Düssel river from a parapet Of earth and rock. Then bending curiously, As reaching, in a moment with his hand He scraped the turf and stones, pried up a key Of harder granite, and at his command, When he had made an opening, I slid And sank, down, down through the Devonian land Until with him I reached a cavern hid From every eye but ours, and where no light But from our faces was, a pyramid Of hills that walled this crypt of soundless night. Then in a mood, it seemed more fanciful, He bent again and raked, and to my sight Upheaved and held the remnant of a skull-- Gorilla's or a man's, I could not guess. Yet brutal though it was, it was a hull Too fine and large to house the nakedness Of a beast's mind.
But as I looked the god Began these words: "Before the iron stress Of the north pole's dominion fell, he trod The wastes of Europe, ere the Nile was made A granary for the east, or ere the clod In Babylon or India baked was laid For hovels, this man lived. Ten thousand years Before the earliest pyramid cast its shade Upon the desolate sands this thing of fears, Lusts, hungers, lived and hunted, woke and slept, Mated, produced its kind, with hairy ears, And tiger eyes sensed all that you accept In terms of thought or vision as the proof Of immanent Power or Love. But this skull kept The intangible meaning out. This heavy roof Of brutish bone above the eyes was dead Even to lower ethers, no behoof Of seasons, stars or skies took, though they bred Suspicions, fears, or nervous glances, thought, Which silent as a lizard's shadow fled Before it graved itself, passed over, wrought No vision, only pain, which he deemed pangs Of hunger or of thirst."
As you have sought The meaning of life's riddle, since it hangs In waking or in slumber just above The highest reach of prophecy, and fangs With poison of despair all moods but love, Behold its secret lettered on this brow Placed by your own!
This is the word thereof: _Change and progression from the glazed slough, Where life creeps and is blind, ascending up The jungled slopes for prey till spirits bow On Calvaries with crosses, take the cup Of martyrdom for truth's sake._
It may be Men of to-day make monstrous war, sleep, sup, Traffic, build shrines, as earliest history Records the earliest day, and that the race Is what it was in virtue, charity, And nothing better. But within this face No light shone from that realm where Hindostan, Delving in numbers, watching stars took grace And inspiration to explore the plan Of heaven and earth. And of the scheme the test Is not five thousand years, which leave the van Just where it was, but this change manifest In fifty thousand years between the mind Neanderthal's and Shelley's.
Man progressed Along these years, found eyes where he was blind, Put instinct under thought, crawled from the cave, And faced the sun, till somewhere heaven's wind Mixed with the light of Lights descending, gave To mind a touch of divinity, making whole An undeveloped growth.
As ships that brave Great storms at sea on masts a flaming coal From heaven catch, bear on, so man was wreathed Somewhere with lightning and became a soul. Into his nostrils purer fire was breathed Than breath of life itself, and by a leap, As lightning leaps from crag to crag, what seethed In man from the beginning broke the sleep That lay on consciousness of self, with eyes Awakened saw himself, out of the deep And wonder of the self caught the surmise Of Power beyond this world, and felt it through The flow of living.
And so man shall rise From this illumination, from this clue To perfect knowledge that this Power exists, And what man is to this Power, even as you Have left Neanderthal lost in the mists And ignorance of centuries untold. What would you say if learned geologists Out of the rocks and caverns should unfold The skulls of greater races, records, books To shame us for our day, could we behold Therein our retrogression? Wonder looks In vain for these, discovers everywhere Proof of the root which darkly bends and crooks Far down and far away; a stalk more fair Upspringing finds its proof, buds on the stalk The eye may see, at last the flowering flare Of man to-day!
I see the things which balk, Retard, divert, draw into sluices small, But who beholds the stream turned back to mock, Not just itself, but make equivocal A Universal Reason, Vision? No. You find no proof of this, but prodigal Proof of ascending Life!
So life shall flow Here on this globe until the final fruit And harvest. As it were until the glow Of the great blossom has the attribute In essence, color of eternal things, And shows no rim between its hues which suit The infinite sky's. Then if the dead earth swings A gleaned and stricken field amid the void What matters it to you, a soul with wings, Whether it be replanted or destroyed? Has it not served you?"
Now his voice was still, Which in such discourse had been thus employed. And in that lonely cavern dark and chill I heard again, "Then what is life?" And woke To find the moonlight on the window sill That which had seemed his presence. And a cloak, Whose hood was perked upon the moonbeams, made The skull of the Neanderthal. The smoke Blown from the fireplace formed the cavern's shade. And roaring winds blew down as they had tuned The voice which left me calm and unafraid.
THE END OF THE SEARCH
_There's the dragon banner, says Old King Cole, And the tiger banner, he cries. Pantagruel breaks into a laugh As the monarch dries his eyes.--The Search_
_"The tiger banyer, that is what you call much Bad men in China, Amelica. The dragon banyer. That is storm, leprosy, no rice, what you call Nature. See! Nature!"--King Joy_
* * * * *
Said Old King Cole I know the banner Of dragon and tiger too, But I would know the vagrant fellows Who came to my castle with you.
* * * * *
And I would know why they rise in the morning And never take bread or scrip; And why they hasten over the mountain In a sorrowed fellowship.
* * * * *
Then said Pantagruel: Heard you not? One said he goes to Spain. One said he goes to Elsinore, And one to the Trojan plain.
* * * * *
Faith, if it be, said Old King Cole, There is a word that's more: Who is it goes to Spain and Troy? And who to Elsinore?
* * * * *
One may be Quixote, said Pantagruel, Out for the final joust. One may be Hamlet, said Pantagruel And one I think is Faust.
* * * * *
Whoever they be, said Pantagruel, Why stand at the window and drool? Let's out and catch the runaways While the morning hour is cool.
* * * * *
Pantagruel runs to the castle court, And King Cole follows soon. The cobblestones of the court yard ring To the beat of their flying shoon.
* * * * *
Pantagruel clutches the holy bottle, And King Cole clutches his crown. They throw the bolt of the castle gate And race them through the town.
* * * * *
They cross the river and follow the road, They run by the willow trees, And the tiger banner and dragon banner Wait for the morning breeze.
* * * * *
They clamber the wall and part the brambles, And tear through thicket and thorn. And a wild dove in an olive tree Does mourn and mourn and mourn.
* * * * *
A green snake starts in the tangled grass, And springs his length at their feet. And a condor circles the purple sky Looking for carrion meat.
* * * * *
And mad black flies are over their heads, And a wolf looks out of his hole. Great drops of sweat break out and run From the brow of Old King Cole.
* * * * *
Said Old King Cole: A drink, my friend, From the holy bottle, I pray. My breath is short, my feet run blood, My throat is baked as clay.
* * * * *
Anon they reach a mountain top, And a mile below in the plain Are the glitter of guns and a million men Led by an idiot brain.
* * * * *
They come to a field of slush and flaw Red with a blood red dye. And a million faces fungus pale Stare horribly at the sky.
* * * * *
They come to a cross where a rotting thing Is slipping down from the nails. And a raven perched on the eyeless skull Opens his beak and rails:
* * * * *
"If thou be the Son of man come down, Save us and thyself save." Pantagruel flings a rock at the raven: "How now blaspheming knave!"
* * * * *
"Come down and of my bottle drink, And cease this scurvy rune." But the raven flapped its wings and laughed Loud as the water loon.
* * * * *
Said Old King Cole: A drink, my friend, I faint, a drink in haste. But when he drinks he pales and mutters: "The wine has lost its taste."
* * * * *
"You have gone mad," said Pantagruel, "In faith 'tis the same old wine." Pantagruel drinks at the holy bottle But the flavor is like sea brine.
* * * * *
And there on a rock is a cypress tree, And a form with a muffled face. "I know you, Death," said Pantagruel, "But I ask of you no grace."
* * * * *
"Empty my bottle, sour my wine, Bend me, you shall not break." "Oh well," said Death, "one woe at a time Before I come and take."
* * * * *
"You have lost everything in life but the bottle, Youth and woman and friend. Pass on and laugh for a little space yet The laugh that has an end."
* * * * *
Pantagruel passes and looks around him Brave and merry of soul. But there on the ground lies a dead body, The body of Old King Cole.
* * * * *
And a Voice said: Take the body up And carry the body for me Until you come to a silent water, By the sands of a silent sea.
* * * * *
Pantagruel takes the body up And the dead fat bends him down. He climbs the mountains, runs the valleys With body, bottle and crown.
* * * * *
And the wastes are strewn with skulls, And the desert is hot and cursed. And a phantom shape of the holy bottle Mocks his burning thirst.
* * * * *
Pantagruel wanders seven days, And seven nights wanders he. And on the seventh night he rests him By the sands of the silent sea.
* * * * *
And sees a new made fire on the shore, And on the fire is a dish. And by the fire two travelers sleep, And two are broiling fish.
* * * * *
Don Quixote and Hamlet are sleeping, And Faust is stirring the fire. But the fourth is a stranger with a face Starred with a great desire.
* * * * *
Pantagruel hungers, Pantagruel thirsts, Pantagruel falls to his knees. He flings down the body of Old King Cole As a man throws off disease.
* * * * *
And rolls his burden away and cries: "Take and watch, if you will. But as for me I go to France My bottle to refill."
* * * * *
"And as for me I go to France To fill this bottle up." He felt at his side for the holy bottle, And found it turned a cup.
* * * * *
And the stranger said: Behold our friend Has brought my cup to me. That is the cup whereof I drank In the garden Gethsemane.
* * * * *
Pantagruel hands the cup to Jesus Who dips it in sea brine. This is the water, says Jesus of Nazareth, Whereof I make your wine.
* * * * *
And Faust takes the cup from Jesus of Nazareth, And his lips wear a purple stain. And Faust hands the cup to Pantagruel With the dregs for him to drain.
* * * * *
Pantagruel drinks and falls into slumber, And Jesus strokes his hair. And Faust sings a song of Euphorion To hide his heart's despair.
* * * * *
And Faust takes the hand of Jesus of Nazareth, And they walk by the purple deep. Says Jesus of Nazareth: "Some are watchers, And some grow tired and sleep."
BOTANICAL GARDENS
He follows me no more, I said, nor stands Beside me. And I wake these later days In an April mood, a wonder light and free. The vision is gone, but gone the constant pain Of constant thought. I see dawn from my hill, And watch the lights which fingers from the waters Twine from the sun or moon. Or look across The waste of bays and marshes to the woods, Under the prism colors of the air, Held in a vacuum silence, where the clouds, Like cyclop hoods are tossed against the sky In terrible glory.
And earth charmed I lie Before the staring sphinx whose musing face Is this Egyptian heaven, and whose eyes Are separate clouds of gold, whose pedestal Is earth, whose silken sheathed claws No longer toy with me, even while I stroke them: Since I have ceased to tease her.
Then behold A breeze is blown out of a world becalmed, And as I see the multitudinous leaves Fluttered against the water and the light, And see this light unveil itself, reveal An inner light, a Presence, Secret splendor, I clap hands over eyes, for the earth reels; And I have fears of dieties shown or spun From nothingness. But when I look again The earth has stayed itself, I see the lake, The leaves, the light of the sun, the cyclop hoods Of thunder heads, yet feel upon my arm A hand I know, and hear a voice I know-- He has returned and brought with him the thought And the old pain.
The voice says: "Leave the sphinx. The garden waits your study fully grown." And I arise and follow down a slope To a lawn by the lake and an ancient seat of stone, And near it a fountain's shattered rim enclosing An Eros of light mood, whose sculptured smile Consciously dimples for the unveiled pistil of love, As he strokes with baby hand the slender arching Neck of a swan. And here is a peristyle Whose carven columns are pink as the long updrawn Stalks of tulips bedded in April snow. And sunk amid tiger lillies is the face Of an Asian Aphrodite close to the seat With feet of a Babylonian lion amid This ruined garden of yellow daisies, poppies And ruddy asphodel from Crete, it seems, Though here is our western moon as white and thin As an abalone shell hung under the boughs Of an oak, that is mocked by the vastness of sky between His boughs and the moon in this sky of afternoon. ... We walk to the water's edge and here he shows me Green scum, or stalks, or sedges, grasses, shrubs, That yield to trees beyond the levels, where The beech and oak have triumph; for along This gradual growth from algae, reeds and grasses, That builds the soil against the water's hands, All things are fierce for place and garner life From weaker things.
And then he shows me root stocks, And Alpine willow, growths that sneak and crawl Beneath the soil. Or as we leave the lake And walk the forest I behold lianas, Smilax or woodbine climbing round the trunks Of giant trees that live and out of earth, And out of air make strength and food and ask No other help. And in this place I see Spiral bryony, python of the vines That coils and crushes; and that banyan tree Whose spreading branches drop new roots to earth, And lives afar from where the parent trunk Has sunk its roots, so that the healthful sun Is darkened: as a people might be darkened By ignorance or want or tyranny, Or dogma of a jungle hidden faith. Why is it, think I, though I dare not speak, That this should be to forests or to men; That water fails, and light decreases, heat Of God's air lessens, and the soil goes spent, Till plants change leaves and stalks and seeds as well, Or migrate from the olden places, go In search of life, or if they cannot move Die in the ruthless marches.
That is life, he said. For even these, the giants scatter life Into the maws of death. That towering tree That for these hundred years has leafed itself, And through its leaves out of the magic air Drawn nutriment for annual girths, took root Out of an acorn which good chance preserved, While all its brother acorns cast to earth, To make trees, by a parent tree now gone, Were crushed, devoured, or strangled as they sprouted Amid thick jealous growth wherein they fell. All acorns but this one were lost.
Then he reads My questioning thought and shows me yuccas, cactus Whose thick leaves in the rainless places thrive. And shows me leaves that must have rain, and roots That must have water where the river flows. And how the spirit of life, though turned or driven This way or that beyond a course begun, Cannot be stayed or quenched, but moves, conforms To soil and sun, makes roots, or thickens leaves, Or thins or re-adjusts them on the stem To fashion forth itself, produce its kind. Nor dies not, rests not, nor surrenders not, Is only changed or buried, re-appears As other forms of life.
We had walked through A forest of sequoias, beeches, pines, And ancient oaks where I could see the trace Of willows, alders, ruined or devoured By the great Titans.
At last We reached my hill and sat and overlooked The garden at our feet, even to the place Of tiger lilies and of asphodel, By now beneath the self-same moon, grown denser: As where the wounded surface of the shell Thickens its shimmering stuff in spiral coigns Of the shell, so was the moon above the seat Beside the Eros and the Aphrodite Sunk amid yellow daisies and deep grass. And here we sat and looked. And here my vision Was over all we saw, but not a part Of what we saw, for all we saw stood forth As foreign to myself as something touched To learn the thing it is.
I might have asked Who owns this garden, for the thought arose With my surprise, who owns this garden, who Planted this garden, why and to what end, And why this fight for place, for soil and sun Water and air, and why this enmity Between the things here planted, and between Flying or crawling life and plants, and whence The power that falls in one place but arises Some other place; and why the unceasing growth Of all these forms that only come to seed, Then disappear to enrich the insatiate soil Where the new seed falls? But silence kept me there For wonder of the beauty which I saw, Even while the faculty of external vision Kept clear the garden separate from me, Envisioned, seen as grasses, sedges, alders, As forestry, as fields of wheat and corn, As the vast theatre of unceasing life, Moving to life and blind to all but life; As places used, tried out, as if the gardener, For his delight or use, or for an end Of good or beauty made experiments With seed or soils or crossings of the seed. Even as peoples, epochs, did the garden Lie to my vision, or as races crowding, Absorbing, dispossessing, killing races, Not only for a place to grow, but under A stimulus of doctrine: as Mahomet, Or Jesus, like a vital change of air, Or artifice of culture, made the garden, Which mortals call the world, grow in a way, And overgrow the world as neither dreamed. Who is the Gardener then? Or is there one Beside the life within the plant, within The python climbers, wandering sedges, root stalks, Thorn bushes, night-shade, deadly saprophytes, Goths, Vandals, Tartars, striving for more life, And praying to the urge within as God, The Gardener who lays out the garden, sprays For insects which devour, keeps rich the soil For those who pray and know the Gardener As One who is without and over-sees? ...
But while in contemplation of the garden, Whether from failing day or from departure Of my own vision in the things it saw, Bereft of penetrating thought I sank, Became a part of what I saw and lost The great solution.
As we sat in silence, And coming night, what seemed the sinking moon, Amid the yellow sedges by the lake Began to twinkle, as a fire were blown-- And it was fire, the garden was afire, As it were all the world had flamed with war. And a wind came out of the bright heaven And blew the flames, first through the ruined garden, Then through the wood, the fields of wheat, at last Nothing was left but waste and wreaths of smoke Twisting toward the stars. And there he sat Nor uttered aught, save when I sighed he said "If it be comforting I promise you Another spring shall come."
"And after that?" "Another spring--that's all I know myself, There shall be springs and springs!"