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 toyou. Considerations of an intimate nature, not to mention a literaryencouragement which was before yours, crowded you from the page. Yetyou know that it was you who pressed upon my attention in June, 1909, the Greek Anthology. It was from contemplation of its epitaphs that myhand unconsciously strayed to the sketches of "Hod Putt, " "Serepta TheScold" ("Serepta Mason" in the book), "Amanda Barker" ("Amanda" in thebook), "Ollie McGee" and "The Unknown, " the first written and thefirst 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 andtouch of irony and turn it from its prose form to a verse form, makingverses according to the breath pauses:

"The holy night and thou, O Lamp, we took as witness of our vows; andbefore thee we swore, he that would love me always and I that I wouldnever leave him. We swore, and thou wert witness of our doublepromise. But now he says that our vows were written on the runningwaters. 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. Theymerely become noticeable and imperative when arranged in verses. Butso it is, even in the briefest and starkest rendering of theseepigrams from the Greek the humanism and dignity of the originaltransfer themselves, making something, if less than verse, yet morethan prose; as Byron said of Sheridan's speeches, neither poetry nororatory, but better than either. It was no difficult matter to passfrom 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 iambicsor what not, and so to make a book, which for the first third requireda practiced voice or eye to yield the semblance of verse; and for thelast two-thirds, or nearly so, accommodated itself to the lesssensitive conception of the average reader. The prosody was allowedto take care of itself under the emotional requirements andinspiration of the moment. But there is nothing new in Englishliterature for some hundreds of years in combinations of dactyls, anapests or trochees, and without rhyme. Nor did I discover to theworld that an iambic pentameter can be lopped to a tetrameter withoutthe verse ceasing to be an iambic; though it be no longer the blankverse which has so ennobled English poetry. A great deal of unrhymedpoetry is yet to be written in the various standard rhythms and incarefully fashioned metres. 

But obviously a formal resuscitation of the Greek epigrams, ironicaland tender, satirical and sympathetic, as casual experiments inunrelated themes would scarcely make the same appeal that an epicrendition of modern life would do, and as it turned out actuallyachieved. 

The response of the American press to Spoon River Anthology during thesummer of 1914 while it was appearing in the _Mirror_ is mywarrant for saying this. It was quoted and parodied during that timein the country and in the metropolitan newspapers. _CurrentOpinion_ in its issue of September, 1914, reproduced from the_Mirror_ some of the poems. Though at this time the schematiceffect of the Anthology could not be measured, Edward J. Wheeler, thatdevoted patron of the art and discriminating critic of itsmanifestations, was attracted, I venture to say, by the substance of"Griffy, The Cooper, " for that is one of the poems from the Anthologywhich he set forth in his column "The Voice of Living Poets" in theissue referred to. _Poetry, A Magazine of Verse_, followed inits issue of October, 1914, with a reprinting from the _Mirror_. In a word, the Anthology went the rounds over the country before itwas issued in book form. And a reception was thus prepared for thecomplete work not often falling to the lot of a literary production. I must not omit an expression of my gratitude for the very high praisewhich John Cowper Powys bestowed on the Anthology just before itappeared in book form and the publicity which was given his lecture bythe _New York Times_. Nathan Haskell Dole printed an article inthe Boston _Transcript_ of June 30, 1915, in which he contrastedthe work with the Greek Anthology, pointing in particular to certainepitaphs by Carphylides, Kallaischros and Pollianos. The criticaltestimony of Miss Harriet Monroe in her editorial comments and in herpreface to "The New Poetry" has greatly strengthened the judgment ofto-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 somuch as to the substance. It was accepted as a picture of our life inAmerica. It was interpreted as a transcript of the state of mind ofmen and women here and elsewhere. You called it a Comedy Humaine inyour announcement of my identity as the author in the _Mirror_ ofNovember 20, 1914. If the epitaphic form gave added novelty I mustconfess that the idea was suggested to me by the Greek Anthology. Butit was rather because of the Greek Anthology than from it that Ievolved the less harmonious epitaphs with which Spoon River Anthologywas commenced. As to metrical epitaphs it is needless to say that Idrew upon the legitimate materials of authentic English versification. Up to the Spring of 1914, I had never allowed a Spring to pass withoutreading Homer; and I feel that this familiarity had its influence bothas to form and spirit; but I shall not take the space now to pursuethis line of confessional. 

What is the substance of which I have spoken if it be not the lifearound 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 oneunderstands America better than you do. As a denizen of the west, butas a surveyor of the east and west you have brought to the country'sinterpretation a knowledge of its political and literary life as wellas a proficiency in the history of other lands and other times. Youhave seen and watched the unfolding of forces that sprang up after theCivil War. Those forces mounted in the eighties and exploded in freesilver in 1896. They began to hit through the directed marksmanship ofTheodore Roosevelt during his second term. You knew at first hand allthat went with these forces of human hope, futile or valiant endeavor, articulate or inarticulate expression of the new birth. You saw andlived, but in greater degree, what I have seen and lived. And withthis back-ground you inspired and instructed me in my analysis. Standing by you confirmed or corrected my sculpturing of the claytaken out of the soil from which we both came. You did this with aneye familiar with the secrets of the last twenty years, familiar alsowith the relation of those years to the time which preceded and borethem. 

So it is, that not only because I could not dedicate Spoon River toyou, but for the larger reasons indicated, am I impelled to do youwhatever honor there may be in taking your name for this book. By thisoutline confession, sometime perhaps to be filled in, do I make knownwhat your relation is to these interpretations of mine resulting froma spirit, life, thought, environment which have similarly come to usand have similarly affected us. 

I call this book "Toward the Gulf, " a title importing a continuationof the attempts of Spoon River and The Great Valley to mirror the ageand the country in which we live. It does not matter which one ofthese books carries your name and makes these acknowledgments; so far, anyway, as the opportunity is concerned for expressing my appreciationof your friendship and the great esteem and affectionate interest inwhich 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 myBirthday, Dear Old Dick, The Letter, My Light with Yours, WidowLaRue, 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 ofthe Hour. 

TOWARD THE GULF

_Dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt_

From the Cordilleran Highlands, From the Height of LandFar north. From the Lake of the Woods, From Rainy Lake, From Itasca's springs. From the snow and the iceOf the mountains, Breathed on by the sun, And given life, Awakened by kisses of fire, Moving, gliding as brightest hyalineDown the cliffs, Down the hills, Over the stones. Trickling as rills;Swiftly running as mountain brooks;Swirling through runnels of rock;Curving in spheréd silenceAround the long worn walls of granite gorges;Storming through chasms;And flowing for miles in quiet over the Titan basinTo 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 libertyLeaving your pure retreatsFor work in the world. Soiling your crystal springsWith the waste that is whirled to your breast as you run, Until you are foul as the crawling leviathanThat devours you, And uses you to carry waste and earthFor the making of land at the gulf, For the conquest of land for the feet of men. 

 * * * * *

De Soto, Marquette and La SallePlanting your cross in vain, Gaining neither gold nor ivory, Nor tributeFor France or Spain. Making land aloneFor liberty!You could proclaim in the name of the crossThe dominion of kings over a world that was new. But the river has altered its course:There are fertile fieldsFor a thousand miles where the river flowed that you knew. And there are liberty and democracyFor thousands of milesWhere in the name of kings, and for the crossYou tramped the tangles for treasure. 

 * * * * *

The Falls of St. Anthony tumble the watersIn 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 breezesBlown 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, fightingErupting 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 kingsAnd handing its allegiance to the Republic. What riflemen with Daniel Boone for leader, And conquerors with Clark for captainPlunge down like melted snowsThe rocks and chasms of forbidden mountains, And make more land for freemen!Clear-eyed, hard-muscled, dauntless hunters, Choppers of forests and tillers of fieldsMeet at last in a field of snow-white cloverTo make wise laws for states, And to teach their sons of the new WestThat 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 republicBy 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 SpainThe 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 GreatOn 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 freeBy our word and the might that is back of our word!

 * * * * *

The falls of St. Anthony tumble the watersIn 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 sleepsWith Daniel Boone and the hunters, The rifle men, the revelers, The laughers and dancers and choppersWho 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 awayDrift-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 choppersThe 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 causeOf 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 dayBy the rising sun of a Freedom bright and strong, Slipped like the loosened snows of your mountain streamsInto a channel of fate as sure as your own--A fate which said: till the thing be doneTurn not back nor stop. Ulysses of the great Atlantis, Wholly American, Patient, silent, tireless, watchful, undismayedGrant at Fort Donelson, Grant at Vicksburg, Leading the sons of choppers and riflemen, Pushing on as the hunters and farmersPoured from the mountains into the West, Freed you, Father of Waters, To flow to the Gulf and be oneWith the earth-engirdled tides of time. And gave us states made ready for the handsWholly American:Hunters, choppers, tillers, fightersFor epochs vast and newIn Truth, in Liberty, Posters from land to land and sea to seaTill all the earth be free!

 * * * * *

Ulysses of the great Atlantis, Dream not of disaster, Sleep the sleep of the braveIn your couch afar from the Father of Waters!A new Ulysses arises, Who turns not back, nor stopsTill the thing is done. He cuts with one stroke of the swordThe stubborn neck that keeps the GulfAnd the CaribbeanFrom the luring Pacific. Roosevelt the hunter, the pioneer, Wholly American, Winner of greater westsTill all the earth be free!

 * * * * *

And forever as long as the river flows toward the GulfUlysses reincarnate shall comeTo guard our places of sleep, Till East and West shall be one in the west of heaven and earth!

 * * * * *

In an old printI see a thicket of masts on the river. But in the prints to beThere 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 visionOf impatient lovers wounded by SpringTo the shaded rivers of Michigan, That it was the Missouri, the Iowa, And the City of Benton HarborWhich 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 MarchWrinkle you and drive on the shoreThe 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 tonsOf 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 foreverAll lovers could know the raptureOf the lake boats sailing the first Spring daysTo 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 railingPuffing 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 deckA 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 boatFrom the dock at Chicago to the dock at HollandAnd back again. "

One time I went to Grand HavenOn 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 lakePast the lighthouse into the river. And afterward laughing and talkingHurried to Van Dreezer's restaurantFor breakfast. (Charley knew him and talked of thingsUnknown to me as he cooked the breakfast. )Then we fished the mile's length of the pierIn a gale full of warmth and moistureWhich blew the gulls about like confetti, And flapped like a flag the linen dusterOf a fisherman who paced the pier--(Charley called him Rip Van Winkle). The only thing that could be betterThan this day on the pierWould 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 riverAt Berrien Springs. There is a cottage that eyes the lakeBetween pines and silver birchesAt South Haven. There is the inviolable wonder of wooded shoreCurving for miles at Saugatuck. And at Holland a beach like Scheveningen's. And at Charlevoix the sudden quaintnessOf an old-world place by the sea. There are the hills around Elk LakeWhere the blue of the sky is so still and clearIt seems it was rubbed above themBy the swipe of a giant thumb. And beyond these the little Traverse BayWhere the roar of the breeze goes roundLike 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 palsyStays the tide in the river. 

LAKE BOATS

And under the shadows of cliffs of brickThe lake boatsHuddled like swansTurn 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 citiesFor miles and miles toward the prairie sprawled, Ignorant, soul-less, rich, Smothered in fumes of pitch?

 * * * * *

Rooms of mahogany in tall sky scrapersSee the unfolding and the folding upOf ring-clipped papers, And letters which keep drugged the public cup. The walls hear whispers and the semi-tonesOf voices in the corner, over telephonesMuffled 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 movingUnconscious of obedience, the plasticYielders to satanic and dynasticHands 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'sIn messages received or sent. Signals are flying from the battlement. And every presidentOf 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 wealthWatch for the flags of stealth!

 * * * * *

Acres of coal lie fenced along the tracks. Tracks ribbon the streets, and beneath the streetsWires for voices, fire, thwart the plebiscites, And choke the counsels and symposiacsOf dreamers who have pity for the backsThat 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 cynicalDiscuss fresh wonders of the old cabal. But nothing of its work in type is hinted:Taxes are high! The mentors of the townMust keep their taxes downOn buildings, presses, stocksIn gas, oil, coal and docks. The mahogany rooms conceal a spider manWho holds the taxing bodies through the church, And knights with arms concealed. The mentors searchThe spider man, the master publican, And for his friendship silence keep, Letting him herd the populace like sheepFor self and for the insatiable desiresOf 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 crackersOf priceless safes, the spiritual slackers, The flash and thunder of front pages!And the gulled millions stare and fling their wagesWhere they are bidden, helpless and emasculate. And the unilluminate, Whose brows are brass, Who weep on every Sabbath dayFor 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 gasFirst spur then fell them from the task. 

 * * * * *

Through the parade runs swift the psychic cackleLike thorns beneath a boiling pot that crackle. And the angels say to Yahveh looking downFrom the alabaster railing, on the town, O, cackle, cackle, cackle, crack and crackWe wish we had our little Sodom back!

EXCLUDED MIDDLE

Out of the mercury shimmer of glassOver these daguerreotypesThe balloon-like spread of a skirt of silk emergesWith its little figure of flowers. And the enameled glair of parted hairLies over the oval brow, From under which eyes of fiery blacknessLook through you. And the only repose of spirit shownIs in the handsLying loosely one in the other, Lightly clasped somewhat below the breast. ... And in the companion folder of this caseOf gutta perchaIs the shape of a man. His brow is oval too, but broader. His nose is long, but thick at the tip. His eyes are blueWherein faith burns her signal lights, And flashes her convictions. His mouth is tense, almost a slit. And his face is a massive CalvinismResting on a stock tie. 

They were married, you see. The clasp on this gutta percha caseLocks them together. They were locked together in life. And a hasp of brassKeeps their shadows face to face in the caseWhich has been handed down--(The pictures of noble ancestors, Showing what strains of gentle bloodFlow in the third generation)--From Massachusetts to Illinois. ... 

Long ago it was over for them, Massachusetts has done its part, She raised the seedAnd a wind blew it over to IllinoisWhere it has mixed, multiplied, mutatedUntil 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 branchBears 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 astersNight-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 beingsLocked in this gutta percha caseIs 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 placesTo feel clouds about his face, and get the lightsOf 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 manThrough the coming of Christ. 

And she sat in a pew shading her great eyesTo hide her scorn for it all. She was crucified, And raged to the last like the impenitent thiefAgainst the fate which wasted and trampled downHer wisdom, sagacity, versatile skill, Which would have piled up gold or honorsFor 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 prunersDeciding to clip, sometimes not clippingJust for the dread. She had married him--but why?Some inscrutable airWafted 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 sexThat produces devils or angels, And it is the sex reaction in men and womenThat 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-groundWhere only blind things swim. God year by year removing himself to remoter thronesOf inexorable law. God coming closer even while diseaseAnd total blindness came between him and GodAnd defeated the mercy of God. And a love and a trust growing deeper in himAs 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 raisedAfter 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 yearsScarcely spoke to her. She died a convert to Catholicism. They had two children:The boy became a forgererOf notorious skill. The daughter married, but was barren. 

Miranda married a rich manAnd spent his money so fast that he failed. She lashed him with a scorpion tongueAnd made him believe at lastWith her incessant reasoningsThat 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 thingsTabooed 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 generousVery 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 swiftnessThe falsest trails to her own undoing--All in all the strangest mixture of colors and scentDerived 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 eyesTurned from his father's blue to gray, his noseWas like his mother's, skin was dark like hers. His shapely body, hands and feet belongedTo some patrician face, not to Marat's. And his was like Marat's, fanatical, Materialistic, fierce, as it might guideA reptile's crawl, but yet he crawled to peaksLoving the hues of mists, but not the mistsHis father loved. And being a rebel soulHe thought the world all wrong. A nothingnessMoving 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 manTo free the world from error, suffer, dieFor liberty of thought. You see his motherIs in possession of one part of him, Or all of him for some time. 

 So he livesNursing the dream (like father he's a dreamer)That genius fires him. All the while a giftFor analytics stored behind that brow, That bulges like a loaf of bread, is allOf which he well may boast above the manHe 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 grainsRun counter in him, end in knots at times. He takes from father certain tastes and traits, From mother certain others, one can seeHis mother's sex re-actions to his father, Not passed to him to make him celibate, But holding back in sleeping passions whichBurst over bounds at last in lust, not love. Not love since that great engine in the browTears off the irised wings of love and baresThe poor worm's body where the wings had been:What is it but desire? Such stuff in rhymeIn music over what is but desire, And ends when that is satisfied!

 He's a crank. And follows all the psychic thrills which runTo 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 faithOf Jesus am I, without hope or faith, Than churchmen. He's a prohibitionist, The poor's protagonist, the knight at armsOf fallen women, yelling at the richWhose wicked greed makes all the prostitutes--No prostitutes without the wicked rich!But as he ages, as the bitter daysApproach 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--thereIt lies with his youth's textual skepticism, And laughter at the supernatural. 

Now what's the motivating principleOf such a mind? In youth he sought for rulesWherewith to trail and capture truths. He found itIn 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 thirdHypothesis, so God is or is not. That's very good to start with, how to endAnd 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 seeExcluded middle use reductio. God is or God is not, but then what God?Excluded Middle never sought a GodTo suffer demolition at his handsExcept the God of Illinois, the GodGrown but a little with his followersSince Moses lived and Peter fished. So nowGod is or God is not. Let us assumeGod is and use reductio ad absurdum, Taking away the rotten props, the postsThat do not fit or hold, and let Him fall. For if he falls, the other postulateThat God is not is demonstrated. SeeA universe of truth pass on the wayCleared by Excluded Middle through the stuffOf thought and visible things, a way that letsA greater God escape, uncaught by allThe nippers of reductio ad absurdum. But to resume his argument was this:God is or God is not, but if God isWhy pestilence and war, earthquake and famine?He either wills them, or cannot prevent them, But if he wills them God is evil, ifHe can't prevent them, he is limited. 

But God, you say, is good, omnipotent, And here I prove Him evil, or too weakTo stay the evil. Having shown your GodLacking in what makes God, the propositionWhich I oppose to this, that God is notStands proven. For as evil is most clearIn sickness, pain and death, it cannot beThere is a Power with strength to overcome them, Yet suffers them to be. 

 And so this manWent through the years of life, and stripped the fieldsOf beauty and of thought with mandiblesInsatiable as the locust's, which devoursA season's care and labor in an hour. He stripped these fields and ate them, but they madeNo meat or fat for him. And so he livedOn his own thought, as starving men may liveOn 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 worldOf man and nature, stripped it to the bone, Nothing but skull and cross-bones greeted himWherever he turned--the world became a bottleFilled with a bitter essence he could drinkFrom long accustomed doses--labeled poisonAnd marked with skull and cross-bones. Could he laughAs mother laughed? No more! He tried to findThe mother's laugh and secret for the laughWhich kept her to the end--but did she laugh?Or if she laughed, was it so hollow, forcedAs all his laughter now was. He had provedToo much for laughter. Nothing but himselfRemained to keep himself, he lived aloneUpon his stored up fat, now daily growingTo 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 handIs flesh and hands may touch, if so, the loins--Reductio ad absurdum, O you fools, Who see a wrong in touch of loins, no wrongIn clasp of hands. And so again, againWith his own tools of thought he bruised his handsUntil they grew too callous to perceiveWhen they were touched. 

 So by analysisHe turned on everything he once believed. Let's make an end!

 Men thought Excluded MiddleWas born for great things. Why that bulging browAnd analytic keen if not for greatness?

In those old days they thought so when he foughtFor lofty things, a youthful radicalCome here to change the world! But now at lastHe lectures in back halls to youths who areWhat he was in his youth, to acid soulsWho must have bitterness, can take enoughTo kill a healthy soul, as fiends for dopeMust have enough to kill a body clean. And so upon a night Excluded MiddleIs lecturing to prove that life is evil, Not worth the living--when his auditorsBehold him pale and sway and take his seat, And later quit the hall, the lecture leftHalf 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 oftenAs he had struck it with an argumentThat it is not worth living, snap, the bagWould fly back for another punch. For lifeJust like a punching bag will stand your whacksOf hatred and denial, let you punchAlmost at will. But sometime, like the bag, The strap gives way, the bag flies up and fallsAnd lies upon the floor, you've knocked it out. And this is what Excluded Middle doesThis night, the strap breaks with his blows. He provesHis strength, his case and for the first he seesLife 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 beThe crisis of a long neurosis, wellWhat caused it? But his eyes are wondrous clearPerceiving life knocked out. His heart is sick, He takes his seat, admiring friends swarm round him, Conduct him to a carriage, he goes homeAnd 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 soothesNeuritic pains, he takes the rubber caseWhich 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 wreckOf all his logic tools, machines; for nowSince pains in back and shoulder like to father'sFall to him at the age that father had them, Father has entered him, has settled downTo live with him with those neuritic pangs. Thus are his speculations. Over allHow comes it that a sudden feel of life, Its wonder, terror, beauty is like father's?As if the soul of father entered in himAnd made the field of consciousness his own, Emotions, powers of thought his instruments. That is a horrible atavism, whenYou find yourself reverting to a soulYou have not loved, despite yourself becomingThat other soul, and with an out-worn selfCrying for burial on your hands, a lifeNot yours till now that waits your new found powers--Live now or die indeed!

SAMUEL BUTLER ET AL. 

Let me consider your emergenceFrom 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 againYou look at us, say nothing, are absorbed, Or chide us for our dirty frocks or faces. Of running wild without our mealsYou 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, biteEars 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'clockWe sit down to a meal of hodge-podge stuff. I understand now how your youth and spiritsFought back the drabness of the village, And wonder not you spent the afternoonsWith 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 childrenWho lived in order, sat down thrice a dayTo cream and porridge, bread and meat. We think to corner you--alas for us!Your anger flashes swords! Reasons pour outLike 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 resolutionTo 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 wordProvokes your laughter. He shows us rolls of precious money earned;He's given you a silk dress, money tooFor suits and shoes for us--all is forgiven. You run about the house, As with a winged descending flight and cryHalf song, half exclamation. 

We're sick so much. But then no human soulCould be more sweet when one of us is sick. We run to colds, have measles, mumps, our throatsAre 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 mildewsGet in our throats. I spend a certain springBent 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 quarrelWe cry, take sides, sometimes are whippedFor taking sides. 

Our broken school days lose us clues, Some lesson has been missed, the final meaningAnd 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 wordsOf foulness on the fences. So it isAn American village, in a great Republic, Where men are free, where therefore goodness, wisdomMust 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 fleshCrawls by an instinct from you. You repel meSometimes with an insidious smile, a look. What are these phantasies I have? They breedStrange hatred for you, even while I feelMy soul's home is with you, must be with youTo find my soul's rest. ... 

I must go back a little. At ten yearsI 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 treeCalling her doll our child. You catch my coatAnd 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 backWith love of Paula!So I lose Paula. 

I am a man at last. I now can master what you are and seeWhat 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 youWhere 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 devourCould have its peace with you. You've dwindled to a quiet word like this:"You are unfilial. " Which means at lastThat I have conquered you, at least it meansThat you could not devour me. 

Yet am I blind to you? Let me confessYou 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 selfWhich 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 windWhich swayed the blossomed cherry trees, Bent last year's reeds, Shook early dandelions, and tossed a birdThat 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 hopeSaw turned to fine companionship;What in your marriage, what in seeing me, The fruit of marriage, recreated traitsOf 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 lastIn you, in issues of such moment, In our dissevered beings, In what the world will take from meIn 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 applesHanging ungathered in frosted orchards along the Grand River, I take the road that winds by the resting fields and wanderFrom 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 onesThat 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 himClearing pines and oaks for a place for an apple orchard. 

Peter Van Zylen says: He got that name from the peopleFor carrying apple-seed with him and planting orchardsAll 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 hereFor 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 timberFive 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 blossomsBecoming 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 sickOf heaven's heights. We plunge to the valley to hear the tickOf days and nights. We walk and loiter around the LoomTo see, if we may, The Hand that smashes the beam in the gloonTo 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 aroundYou shall but hearA murmuring life, as it were the soundOf bees or a sphere. No Hand is seen, but still you may feelA pulse in the thread, And thought in every lever and wheelWhere the shuttle sped, Dripping the colors, as crushed and urged--Is it cochineal?--Shot from the shuttle, woven and mergedA tale to reveal. Woven and wound in a bolt and driedAs it were a plan. Closer I looked at the thread and criedThe thread is man!

Then my brother curious, strong and bold, Tugged hard at the boltOf the woven life; for a length unrolledThe cryptic cloth. He gasped for labor, blind for the moultOf the up-winged moth. While I saw a growth and a mad crusadeThat the Loom had made;Land and water and living things, Till I grew afraidFor mouths and claws and devil wings, And fangs and stings, And tiger faces with eyes of hellIn caves and holes. And eyes in terror and terribleFor awakened souls. 

I stood above my brother, the godUnwinding the roll. And a tale came forth of the woven slainSequent and whole, Of flint and bronze, trowel and hod, The wheel and the plane, The carven stone and the graven clodPainted and baked. And cromlechs, proving the human heartHas always ached;Till it puffed with blood and gave to artThe dream of the dome;Till it broke and the blood shot up like fireIn tower and spire. 

And here was the Persian, Jew and GothIn the weave of the cloth;Greek and Roman, Ghibelline, Guelph, Angel and elf. They were dyed in blood, tangled in dreamsLike a comet's streams. And here were surfaces red and roughIn the finished stuff, Where the knotted thread was proud and rebelledAs the shuttle provedThe fated warp and woof that heldWhen the shuttle moved;And pressed the dye which ran to lossIn a deep maroonAround an altar, oracle, crossOr a crescent moon. Around a face, a thought, a starIn 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 tapestryBe woven and hushed;The Loom has a tale, you can see, to tell, And a tale has told. I love this Gobelin epicalOf scarlet and gold. If the heart of a god may look in prideAt the wondrous weaveIt 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. YouJust lie there half asleep. What's on your mind?

JACK

What time is it? Where is my watch?

FLORENCE

 Your watchUnder 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 playedWhere 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 seeYour 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 isWhether 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 byTo marry me then I could get away. It happens all the time. Last week in factChrist Perko married Rachel who lived here. He's rich as cream. 

JACK

 What corresponds to marriageTo 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 ratherBe 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 beforeHe married Rachel, he was lover toThe madam here. 

JACK

 The stories tally, forThe pulp mill took my first assistant editorTo wife by making him the editor. And I was fired just as the madam hereLost 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 areThrown in one integrated lot. You seeThere is no "They, " except the terms, the thoughtWhich ramifies and vivifies the whole. ... So I came to the city, went to workReporting for a paper. Having saidThere is no "They"--I've freed myself to sayWhat bitter things I choose. For how they drive you, And terrify you, mock you, ridicule you, And call you cub and greenhorn, send you roundTo courts and dirty places, make you riskYour body and your life, and make you watchThe 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 watchOf some Christ Perko. So my managerBlue 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 letMy conscience have full scope, as you might liveIn 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 meSuch lying, hatred, malice, prostitution. And when this offer came to be an editorOf a great magazine, I seemed to feelMy 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 seeWere written to be sold, to please a taste, Placate a prejudice, keep still aliveAn era dying, ready for the tomb, Already smelling. And that was not all. Just as the madam here must make reportTo Perko, so the magazine had to runTo suit the pulp mill. As the madam here, Assistant to Christ Perko, must keep friendsWith alderman, policemen, magistrates, So I was just a wheel in a machineTo keep it running with such larger wheels, And by them run, of policies, and politicsOf State and Nation. Here was I locked inAnd given dope to keep me still lest ICry out and wake the copper-who's the copperFor such as I was? If he heard me cryHow could he raid the magazine? If he raidedWhere was the court to take me and the rest--That's it, where is the court?

FLORENCE

 It seems to meYou'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 boyAnd 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 creedCracked through and crumbled like a falling house. And then you say: What is the difference?As you might ask what virtue is and whyShould woman keep it. 

 I have reached this placeSave 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 worldFrom vast disintegration is a brute, And marked for a brute's death--that is his hell. 'Twas loyalty to this truth that made me loseMy place as editor. For when they cameAnd tried to make me pass an articleTo 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 youAnd used you as an editor. I am nothingBut 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 farmWhere 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 hereAnd keeps you here as editor is not. I'm going to economize my lifeBy freeing it of systems which grow richBy using me, and for the privilegeBestow 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 StreetWho said to me: "I'm going for the train, I want you with me. "

 And it happened thenMy mind was hard, as muscles of the backGrow hard resisting cold or shock or strainAnd need the osteopath to be made supple, To give the nerves and streams of life a chance. Hosea Job was just the osteopathTo loose, relax my mood. And so I said"All right"--and went. 

 Hosea was a manWhom nothing touched of danger, or of harm. His life was just a rare-bit dream, where some oneSeems like to fall before a truck or train--Instead he walks across them. Or you seeShadows of falling things, great buildings topple, Pianos skid like bulls from hellish cornersAnd chase the oblivious fool who stands and smiles. The buildings slant and sway like monstrous searchlights, But never touch him. And the mad pianoComes up to him, puts down its angry head, Runs out a friendly tongue and licks his hand, And lows a symphony. 

 By which I meanHosea had some money, and would signA 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 placesCancelled some how, was never sued for rent. One time he had a fancy he would seeSouth Africa, took ship with a load of mules, First telegraphing home from New OrleansHe'd be back in the Spring. Likewise he wentTo Klondike with the rush. I think he ownedMore kinds of mining stock than there were mines. He had more quaint, peculiar men for friendsThan one could think were living. He believedIn every doctrine in its time, that promisedSalvation for the world. He took no thoughtFor 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 savedHe only said: "I see things. I lie backAnd take it easy. Nothing can go wrongIn any serious sense. "

 So many thoughtHosea was a nut, and others thought, That I was just a nut for liking him. And what would any man of business sayIf he knew that I didn't ask a question, But simply went with him to take the trainThat day he asked me. 

 And the train had goneFive miles or so when I said: "Where you going?"Hosea answered, and it made me start--Hosea answered simply, "We are goingTo see Sir Galahad. "

 It made me startTo hear Hosea say this, for I thoughtHe was now really off. But, I looked at himAnd 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-enteringThe game and run for governor again. "

So then I knew he was the man our fathersWorked 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 nowMust be some fifty-five while I am forty. So flashed across my thought the matter of timeAnd ages. So I thought of all he did:Of how he went from faith to faith in politicsAnd 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, reformAdministration, than the legislatureCould read, much less digest or understand. The people beat him and the leaders flogged him. They shut the door against his face untilHe had no place to go except a farmAmong the stony hills, and there he went. And thither we were going to see the knight, And call him from his solitude to the fightAgainst injustice, greed. 

 So we got offThe train at Alden, just a little villageOf fifty houses lying beneath the sprawlOf hills and hills. And here there was a stillnessMade lonelier by an anvil ringing, byA plow-man's voice at intervals. 

 Here HoseaEngaged a horse and buggy, and we droveAnd wound about a crooked road betweenGreat hills that stood together like the backsOf elephants in a herd, where boulders layAs thick as hail in places. Ruined pinesStood like burnt matches. There was one which stuckAgainst a single cloud so white it seemedA bursted bale of cotton. 

 We reached the summitAnd drove along past orchards, past a fieldLevel and green, kept like a garden, richAgainst the coming harvest. Here we metA scarecrow man, driving a scarecrow horseHitched to a wobbly wagon. And we stopped, The scarecrow stopped. The scarecrow and HoseaTalked much of people and of farming--ISat listening, and I gathered from the talk, And what Hosea told me as we drove, That once this field so level and so greenThe 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 succeedIn further time. Now having lost the fieldSo many years ago, could be a scarecrow, And drive a scarecrow horse, yet laugh againAnd have no care, the sorrow healed. 

 It seemedThe clearing of the stumps was scarce a starterToward a field of profit. For in truth, The soil possessed a secret which the scarecrowNever went deep enough to learn about. His problem was all stumps. Not solving that, He sold it to a farmer who out-slavedThe 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 failureWas just the thing that gave another manThe secret of the soil. For he had studiedThe properties of soils and fertilizers. And when he heard the field had failed to raisePotatoes, beans and wheat, he simply said:There are other things to raise: the question isWhether the soil is suited to the thingsHe tried to raise, or whether it needs buildingTo raise the things he tried to raise, or whetherIt 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 outI'll pass it on. The field is his, he saidWho can make something grow. 

 And so this fieldOf waving wheat along which we were drivingWas just the very field the scarecrow manHad failed to master, as that other manHad failed to master after him. 

 HoseaKept talking of this field as we drove on. That field, he said, is economicalOf men compared with many fields. You seeIt only used two men. To grub the stumpsTook all the scarecrow's strength. That other manRan off to Oklahoma from this field. I have known fields that ate a dozen menIn country such as this. The field remainsAnd laughs and waits for some one who divinesThe secret of the field. Some farmers liveTo prove what can't be done, and narrow downThe guess of what is possible. It's rightA certain crop should prosper and anotherShould fail, and when a farmer tries to raiseA crop before it's time, he wastes himselfAnd wastes the field to try. 

 We now were climbingTo higher hills and rockier fields. HoseaHad fallen into silence. I was thinkingAbout Sir Galahad, was wonderingWhich man he was, the scarecrow, or the farmerWho didn't know the seed to sow, or whetherHe might still prove the farmer raising wheat, Now we were come to give him back the fieldWith all the stumps grubbed out, the secret lyingRevealed and ready for the appointed hands. 

We passed an orchard growing on a knollAnd 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 countryAt mid-day on a day in June. No birdWas 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 perhapsIs mending fences, cutting weeds. " It seemedToo bad to come so far and not to find him. "We'll find him, " said Hosea. "Let us sitUnder that tree and wait for him. "

 And thenWe turned the corner of the house and thereUnder a tree an old man sat, his headBowed down upon his breast, locked fast in sleep. And by his feet a dog half blind and fatLay 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 yearsGo by unnoticed. Come! Sir GalahadShould sleep and not be waked. "

 We tip-toed offAnd hurried back to Alden for the train. 

ST. DESERET

You wonder at my bright round eyes, my lipsPressed 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 blindsYour vision not at all, and you have passionFor 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 itTo you who know I fear you. 

 Here am IWho 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 pickHis photograph from mantels, dressers, drawlOut of ironic strength, and smile the while:"You did not love this man. " You probe my soulAbout 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 inkedThe story in my flesh. And now at lastYou 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 deathI gave him. 

 Listen since you know alreadyAll 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 manSo love a woman, see a living thingSo love another. Why he could not touchMy hand but that his heart went up ten beats. His eyes would grow as bright as flames, his breathCome short when speaking. When he felt my breastCrush soft around him he would reel and walkAway from me, while I stood like a snakePoised for the strike, as quiet and possessedAs 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 backTo what you left for me. 

 Not so with him:I was all through his blood, had made his fleshMy 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 backInto his hands to use for me and liveMy pities, hatreds, loves and passions with. I loved all this and thrived upon it, stillI 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 passionThat showed in his poor eyes, his broken breath, His chivalry, his gifts, his poignant letters, His failing health, why even woman's crueltyCannot deny such passion. Woman's crueltyTakes other means for finding its expression. And mine found its expression--you have guessedAnd so I tell you all. 

 We were married then. He made a sacrament of our nuptials, Knelt with closed eyes beside the bed, my lipsPressed to his brow and throat. Unveiled my breastAnd looked, then closed his eyes. He did not take meAs man takes his possession, nature's way, In triumph of life, in lightning, no, he cameA suppliant, a worshipper, and whispered:"What angel child may lie upon the breastOf this it's angel mother. "

 Well, you seeThe 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 raptureTo give or to withhold. And in that momentContempt of which I had been scarcely consciousLying diffused like dew around my heartDrained down itself into my heart's dark cupTo one bright drop of vital power, whereHe could not see it, scarcely knew that somethingGradually drugged the potion that he drankIn life with me. 

 So we were wed a year, And he was with me hourly, till at lastI could not breathe for him, while he could breatheNo where but where I was. Then the bazaarWas coming on where I was to dance, and heHad long postponed a trip to England whereGreat interests waited for him, and with kissesI pushed him to his duty, and he wentShame stricken for a duty long postponed, Unable to retort against my wordsWhen I said "You must go;" for well he knewHe should have gone before. And as for goingI 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 manyTo stand the strain that came. There was the worryAbout the business, and the labor over it. There was the war, and all the fear and turmoilIn London for the war. But most of allThere was the separation. And his letters!You've read them, wretch. Such letters never wereOf aching loneliness and pining loveAnd hope that lives across three thousand miles, And waits the day to travel them, and fearOf something which may bar the way forever:A storm, a wreck, a submarine and no dayWithout a letter or a cablegram. And look at the endearments--oh you fiendTo pick their words to pieces like a botanistWho cuts a flower up for his microscope. And oh myself who let you see these letters. Why did I do it? Rather why is itYou master me, even as I mastered him?

At last he finished, got his passage back. He had been gone three months. And all these lettersShowed how he starved for me, and scarce could waitTo take me in his arms again, would chokeWith fast and heavy feeding. 

 Well, you seeThe contempt I spoke of which lay long diffusedLike dew around my heart, and which at onceDrained down itself into my heart's dark cupGrew brighter, bitterer, for this obvious hunger, This thirst which could not wait, the piteous trembling. And all the while it seemed he thought his loveGrew sacreder as it grew uncontrolled, And marked by trembling, choking, tears and sighs. This is not love which should be, has no useIn this or any world. And as for meI could not stand it longer. And I thoughtOf what was best to do: if 'twas not bestTo kill him as the queen bee kills the mateIn rapture's own excess. 

 Then he arrived. I went to meet him in the car, pretendedThe 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 aroundFrom place to place, wherever in the villageHe 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 IStood silent as a shadow in our room, My round bright eyes grown brighter for the lightHis life was feeding them. And then he stoodBreathless and trembling in the door-way, stoodTransfixed with ecstacy, then rushed and caught meAnd 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 loveI gave him to his death. 

 Why tell you detailsAnd ways with which I maddened him, and whippedThe energies of love? You have extractedThe secret in the main, that 'twas from loveHe came to death. His life had been too fast, His years too many for the daily raptureI gave him after three months' separation. And so he died one morning, made me freeOf 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 holdThe guarded heart against excess of rain. Hands spirit tipped through which a genius playsWith paints and clays, And strings in many keys--Clothed in an aura of thought as soundless as a floodOf 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 wroughtFrom Plato's dream, made manifest in hair, Eyes, lips and hands and voice, As if the stored up thoughtFrom the earth sphereHad given down the being of your choiceConjured by the dream long sought. 

 * * * * *

For you have moved in madness, rapture, wrathIn and out of the pathDrawn by the dream of a face. You have been watched, as star-men watch a starThat leaves its way, returns and leaves its way, Until the exploring watchers find, can traceA hidden star beyond their sight, whose swayDraws the erratic star so long observed--So have you wandered, swerved. 

 * * * * *

Always pursued and lost, Sometimes half found, half-faced, Such years we wasteWith the almost:The lips flower pressed like buds to holdGuarded the heart of the flower, But over them eyes not hued as the Dream foretold. Or to find the lips too rich and the dowerOf eyes all gaietyWhere wisdom scarce can be. Or to find the eyes, but to find offenceIn fingers where the senseFalters with colors, strings, Not touching with closed eyes, out of an immanenceOf flame and wings. Or to find the light, but to find it set behindAn eye which is not your dream, nor the shadow thereof, As it were your lamp in a stranger's window. And so almost to findIn the great weariness of love. 

 * * * * *

Now this is the tragedy:If the Idea did not moveSomewhere 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 discontentBeside the Almost--And then the face appearsEvoked 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 youthWith its half of the truth. 

 * * * * *

A beach as yellow as goldDaisied 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 holdWith stitches the canopy rare as the tileOf old Damascus. And O the windWhich roars to the roaring water brightenedBy the beating wings of the sun!And here I walk, not seeking the Dream, As men walk absent of heart or mindWho have no wish for a sorrow lightenedSince all things now seem lost or won. And here it is that your face appears!Like a star brushed out from leaves by a breezeWhen day's in the sky, though evening nears. You are here by a tent with your little brood, And I approach in a quiet moodAnd see you, know that the DestiniesHave surrendered you at last. Voice, lips and hands and the light of the eyes. 

 * * * * *

And I who have asked so much discoverThat you find in me the man and loverYou have divined and visualized, In quiet day dreams. And what is strangeYour boy of eight is subtly guisedIn fleeting looks that half resembleSomething in me. Two souls may rangeMid 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 lawBind souls as like as sister, brother. There are two at least who are for each other. If we are such, it is not fatedYou are for him, howe'er belatedThe 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 seizeThe hour that brings realities. ... 

Yes, I admit it all, we crushUnder our feet the world's contempt. But when I raise the cup, it's blushReveals the snake's eyes, there's a hushWhile a hand writes upon the wall:Life cannot be re-made, exemptFrom life that has been, something's goneOut of the soil, in life updrawnTo growths that vine, and tangle, crawl, Withered in part, or gone to seed. 'Tis not the same, though you have freedThe soil from what was grown. ... 

 * * * * *

Heaven is but the hourOf 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 soundAnd show that the waters search and move. And what is time but an infinite wholeRevealed by the breaks in thought, desire?To put it away is to know one's soul. Love is music unheard and fireToo rare for eyes; between hurt beatsThe heart detects it, sees how pureIts essence is, through heart defeats. --You are the silence making sureThe 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 cryWhen she saw amiable passion in my eyes--She loves me, if you'd know. I saw in her eyesMore in those moments than whole hours of talkFrom witness stands exculpate could make clearMy innocence. 

 But if I did a crimeMy excuse is hunger, hunger for more life. Oh what a world, where beauty, rapture, loveAre walled in and locked up like coal or foodAnd only may he had by purchasersFrom whose fat fingers slip the unheeded gold. Oh what a world where beauty lies in waste, While power and freedom skulk with famished lipsToo tightly pressed for curses. 

 So do men, Save for the thousandth man, deny themselvesAnd live in meagreness to make sure a lifeOf meagreness by hearth stones long since stale;And live in ways, companionships as fixedAs 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 equivalentOf war is freedom. Art does not suffice--Religion is not life, but life is living. And painted cherries to the hungry thrushIs 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 cherriesWho hope to live through art. Beer-soaked Goliaths, The story's coming of her nakednessBe patient for a time. 

 All this I learnedWhile painting pictures no one ever bought, Till hunger drove me to this servile workAs butler in her father's house, with timeOn certain days to walk the galleriesAnd look at pictures, marbles. For I sawI 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 feltThrough gazing at the thing the artist made, In memory of the life he lived himself:As we preserve the fragrance of a flowerBy drawing off its essence in a bottle, Where color, fluttering leaves, are thrown awayTo get the inner passion of the flowerExtracted to a bottle that a queenMay act the flower's part. 

 Say what you will, Make laws to strangle life, shout from your pulpits, Your desks of editors, your woolsack benchesWhere judges sit, that this dull hypocrite, You call the State, has fashioned life aright--The secret is abroad, from eye to eyeThe secret passes from poor eyes that winkIn boredom, in fatigue, in furious strengthRoped down or barred, that what the human heartDreams of and hopes for till the aspiring flameFlaps in the guttered candle and goes out, Is love for body and for spirit, loveTo satisfy their hunger. Yet what is it, This earth, this life, what is it but a meadowWhere spirits are left free a little whileWithin a little space, so long as strength, Flesh, blood increases to the day of useAs roasts or stews wherewith this witless beast, Society may feed himself and keepHis olden shape and power?

 Fools go cropThe herbs they turn you to, and starve yourselfFor what you want, and count it righteousness, No less you covet love. Poor shadows sighing, Across the curtain racing! Mangled soulsPecking so feebly at the painted cherries, Inhaling from a bottle what was livedThese summers gone! You know, and scarce denyThat 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 turnedFrom painting and from art, yet found myselfFull of all lusts while bound to menial workWhere my eyes daily rested on this womanA thought came to me like a little sparkOne sees far down the darkness of a cave, Which grows into a flame, a blinding lightAs one approaches it, so did this thoughtBoth 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 thenWhich will is better, mine or hers? Which willDeserves achievement? Which has rights aboveThe other? I desire her, her desireIs not toward me, which of these two desiresShall triumph? Why not mine for me and hersFor her, at least the stronger must prevail, And wreck itself or bend all else before it. That millionaire who wooed her, tried in vainTo overwhelm her will with gold, and IWith passion, boldness would have overwhelmed it, And what's the difference?

 But as I saidI walked the galleries. When I stood in the yardBare armed, bare throated at my work, she cameAnd gazed upon me from her window. ICould feel the exhausting influence of her eyes. Then in a concentration which was blindnessTo all else, so bewilderment of mind, I'd go to see Watteau's AntiopeWhere he sketched Zeus in hunger, drawing backThe veil that hid her sleeping nakedness. There was Correggio's too, on whom a satyrSmiled for his amorous wonder. A Semele, Done by an unknown hand, a thing of lightningMoved through by Zeus who seized her as the flamesConsumed her ravished beauty. 

 So I looked, And trembled, then returned perhaps to findHer 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 workedTo climaxes. For first she dressed for dinnerTo show more back and bosom than before. And as I served her, her down-looking eyesWere more than glances. Then she dropped her napkin. Before I could begin to bend she leanedAnd let me see--oh yes, she let me seeThe white foam of her little breasts caressingThe scarlet flame of silk, a swooning shoreOf bright carnations. It was from such foamThat Venus rose. And as I stooped and gaveThe napkin to her she pushed out a foot, And then I coughed for breath grown short, and sheConcealed a smile--and you, you jailers laughCoarse-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 hearThe desultory taking up of books, And through her open door, see her at lastCast off her dinner gown and to the bathStep like a ray of moonlight. Then she snapsThe light on where the onyx tub and wallsDazzle the air. I enter then her roomAnd stand against the closed door, do not pryUpon her in the bath. Give her the chanceTo fly me, fight me standing face to face. I hear her flounder in the water, hearHands slap and slip with water breast and arms;Hear little sighs and shudders and the roughnessOf crash towels on her back, when in a minuteShe stands with back toward me in the doorway, A sea-shell glory, pink and white to hairSun-lit, a lily crowned with powdered gold. She turned toward her dresser then and shookWhite dust of talcum on her arms, and lookedSo lovingly upon her tense straight breasts, Touching them under with soft tapering handsTo blue eyes deepening like a brazier flameTurned by a sudden gust. Who gives her these, The thought ran through me, for her joy aloneAnd not for mine?

 So I stood there like ZeusComing in thunder to Semele, likeThe diety of Watteau. CorreggioHad never painted me a satyr thereDrinking her beauty in, so worshipful, My will subdued in worship of her beautyTo obey her will. 

 And then she turned and saw me, And faced me in her nakedness, nor triedTo hide it from me, faced me immovableA 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 touchedThe whiteness of her bosom. Then it seemedThat smile of hers not wilting me she clappedHands over eyes and said: "I am afraid--Oh no, it cannot be--what would they say?"Then rushing in the bathroom, quick she slammedThe door and shrieked: "You scoundrel, go--you beast. "My dream went up like paper charred and whirledAbove a hearth. Thrilling I stood aloneAmid her room and saw my life, our lifeEmbodied in this woman lately thereLying and cowardly. And as I turnedTo leave the room, her father and the gardenerPounced on me, threw me down a flight of stairsAnd turned me over, stunned, to you the lawHere with these others who have stolen coalTo keep them warm, as I have stolen beautyTo keep from freezing in this arid countryOf winter winds on which the dust of customRides like a fog. 

 Now do your worst to me!

THE LANDSCAPE

You and your landscape! There it liesStripped, resuming its disguise, Clothed in dreams, made bare again, Symbol infinite of pain, Rapture, magic, mysteryOf vanished days and days to be. There's its sea of tidal grassOver which the south winds pass, And the sun-set's Tuscan goldWhich the distant windows holdFor an instant like a sphereBursting ere it disappear. There's the dark green woods which throveIn the spell of Leese's Grove. And the winding of the road;And the hill o'er which the skyStretched its pallied vacancyEre the dawn or evening glowed. And the wonder of the townSomewhere from the hill-top downNestling under hills and woodsAnd the meadow's solitudes. 

 * * * * *

And your paper knight of oldSecrets of the landscape told. And the hedge-rows where the pondTook the blue of heavens beyondThe hastening clouds of gusty March. There you saw their wrinkled archWhere the East wind cracks his whipsRound the little pond and clipsMain-sails from your toppled ships. ... 

Landscape that in youth you knewPast and present, earth and you!All the legends and the talesOf the uplands, of the vales;Sounds of cattle and the criesOf ploughmen and of travelersWere its soul's interpreters. And here the lame were always lame. Always gray the gray of head. And the dead were always deadEre the landscape had becomeYour cradle, as it was their tomb. 

 * * * * *

And when the thunder storms would wakenOf 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 greenGabled roofs and the demesneOf faery kingdoms and faery timeStoried in pre-natal rhyme. ... Past the orchards, in the plainThe cattle fed on in the rain. And the storm-beaten horseman spedRain blinded and with bended head. And John the ploughman comes and goesIn labor wet, with steaming clothes. This is your landscape, but you seeNot terror and not destinyBehind its loved, maternal face, Its power to change, or fade, replaceIts wonder with a deeper dream, Unfolding to a vaster theme. From time eternal was this earth?No less this landscape with your birthArose, nor leaves you, nor decayFinds 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 yearsOf higher raptures, dumber tears. 

 * * * * *

For soon you lose the landscape throughAbsence, sorrow, eyes grown trueTo the naked limbs which showBuds that never more may blow. Now you know the lame were straightEre you knew them, and the fateOf the old is yet to die. Now you know the dead who lieIn the graves you saw where firstThe landscape on your vision burst, Were not always dead, and nowShadows rest upon the browOf the souls as young as you. Some are gone, though years are fewSince you roamed with them the hills. So the landscape changes, willsAll the changes, did it tryIts 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 vagabondBeast will not drink, and where the archOf heaven in the days of MarchRefrains to look. A blinding rainBeats the once gilded window pane. John, the poor wretch, is gone, but breadTempts other feet that path to treadBetween the barn and house, and braveThe March rain and the winds that rave. ... O, landscape I am one who standsReturned with pale and broken handsGlad for the day that I have known, And finds the deserted doorway strownWith shoulder blade and spinal bone. And you who nourished me and bredI find the spirit from you fled. You gave me dreams, 'twas at your breastMy soul's beginning rose and pressedMy steps afar at last and shapedA world elusive, which escapedWhatever love or thought could findBeyond the tireless wings of mind. Yet grown by you, and feeding onYour strength as mother, you are goneWhen I return from living, traceMy steps to see how I began, And deeply search your mother faceTo know your inner self, the placeFor which you bore me, sent me forthTo wander, south or east or north. ... Now the familiar landscape liesWith breathless breast and hollow eyes. It knows me not, as I know notIts secret, spirit, all forgotIts kindred look is, as I standA stranger in an unknown land. 

 * * * * *

Are we not earth-born, formed of dustWhich seeks again its love and trustIn an old landscape, after changeIn hearts grown weary, wrecked and strange?What though we struggled to emergeDividual, footed for the urgeOf further self-discoveries, thoughIn the mid-years we cease to know, Through disenchanted eyes, the spellThat clothed it like a miracle--Yet at the last our steps returnIts deeper mysteries to learn. It has been always us, it mustClasp to itself our kindred dust. We cannot free ourselves from it. Near or afar we must submitTo what is in us, what was grownOut of the landscape's soil, the knownAnd unknown powers of soil and soul. As bodies yield to the controlOf the earth's center, and so bendIn age, so hearts toward the endBend down with lips so long athirstTo waters which were known at first--The little spring at Leese's GroveWas your first love, is your last love!

 * * * * *

When those we knew in youth have creptUnder the landscape, which has keptNothing we saw with youthful eyes;Ere God is formed in the empty skies, I wonder not our steps are pressedToward the mystery of their rest. That is the hope at bud which kneelsWhere ancestors the tomb conceals. Age no less than youth would leanUpon some love. For what is seenNo more of father, mother, friend, For hands of flesh lost, eyes grown blindIn death, a something which assures, Comforts, allays our fears, endures. Just as the landscape and our homeIn childhood made of heaven's dome, And all the farthest ways of earthA place as sheltered as the hearth. 

 * * * * *

Is it not written at the last dayHeaven and earth shall roll away?Yes, as my landscape passed through death, Lay like a corpse, and with new breathBecame 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, whenceI shall pass too, its child in faithOf dreams it gave me, which nor deathNor change can wreck, but still revealIn change a Something vast, more realThan sunsets, meadows, green-wood trees, Or even faery presences. A Something which the earth and airTransmutes but keeps them what they were;Clear films of beauty grown more thinAs we approach and enter in. Until we reach the scene that madeOur 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-morrowI 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 beThat then and jump at this most crescent hourHeaven inspired the deed. 

 As a mad younkerI knew an aged man in WarwickshireWho used to say, "Ah, mercy me, " for sadnessOf change, or passing time, or secret thoughts. If it was spring he sighed it, if 'twas fall, With drifting leaves, he looked upon the rainAnd with doleful suspiration keptThis habit of his grief. And on a timeAs 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 offAnd 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 gladI say, "Tra-la" unknowing. Oft at tableI say, "Tra-la. " And 'tother day, poor AnneLooked 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 manWho used to say, "Ah, mercy me, " but answered:"Perhaps I am so happy when awakeThe 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 childCan wilt a lion, who is cowed to seeSuch bland unreckoning of his strength--but I, Having so greatly lived, would sink awayUnknowing my departure. I have diedA thousand times, and with a valiant soulHave drunk the cup, but why? In such a deathTo-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 soulGrows sick, and like a falling dream we shrinkFrom that inane which gulfs us, without placeFor us to stand and see it. 

 Yet, dear Ben, This thing must be; that's what we live to knowOut of long dreaming, saying that we know it. As yeasty heroes in their braggart teensSpout learnedly of war, who never sawA 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 beastThey cart you off. What matter if your thoughtOutsoared the Phoenix? Like a beast you rot. Methinks that something wants our flesh, as weHunger for flesh of beasts. But still to-morrow, To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrowCreeps in this petty pace--O, Michael Drayton, Some end must be. But 'twixt the fear of ceasingAnd weariness of going on we lieUpon these thorns!

 These several springs I findNo new birth in the Spring. And yet in LondonI 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 sorrowSprouts, winds and crawls in London's darkness. ComeBack to your landscape! Peradventure waitsSome 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, "BeholdHere are we, and what would you, can you use us?What good is air if lungs are out, or springsWhen 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 youthThe life is in the loins; by thirty yearsIt travels through the stomach to the lungs, And then we strut and crow. By forty yearsThe fruit is swelling while the leaves are fresh. By fifty years you're ripe, begin to rot. At fifty-two, or fifty-five or sixtyThe 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 IWill drain it like a sea. The more I drinkThe 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 yeAnd takes your stalk. " The rich and sappy greensOf spring or June show life within the loins, And all the world is fair, for now the plantCan drink the level cup of flame where heavenIs poured full by the sun. But when the blossomFlutters its colors, then it takes the cupAnd waves the stalk aside. And having drunkThe stalk to penury, then slumber comesWith 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 oursBecomes entailed on our seed in the spring, Fees in possession and enjoyment too. ... 

The thing is sex, Ben. It is that which livesAnd dies in us, makes April and unmakes, And leaves a man like me at fifty-two, Finished but living, on the pinnacleBetwixt a death and birth, the earth consumedAnd heaven rolled up to eyes whose troubled glancesWould shape again to something better--what?Give me a woman, Ben, and I will pickOut of this April, by this larger artOf fifty-two, such songs as we have heard, Both you and I, when weltering in the cloudsOf that eternity which comes in sleep, Or in the viewless spinning of the soulWhen most intense. The woman is somewhere, And that's what tortures, when I think this fieldSo often gleaned could blossom once againIf 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 spiritAs fine to that as sense is fine to flesh. Good friends, my soul beats up its prisoned wingsAgainst the ceiling of a vaster whorlAnd 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 natureRelumed 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 bestIs just another delving in the mineThat 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 itAs wretched as the souls whose lives he lived. Here is a play for you: Poor William Shakespeare, This moment growing drunk, the famous authorOf certain sugared sonnets and some plays, With this machine too much to him, which startedSome years ago, now cries him nay and runsEven when the house shakes and complains, "I fall, You shake me down, my timbers break apart. Why, if an engine must go on like thisThe building should be stronger. "

 Or to mix, And by the mixing, unmix metaphors, No mortal man has blood enough for brainsAnd stomach too, when the brain is never doneWith 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 outWith thinking "Now I'm done, " a hundred othersCrowd up for voices, and, like twins unbornKick and turn o'er for entrance to the world. And I, poor fecund creature, who would rest, As 'twere from an importunate husband, flyTo money-lending, farming, mulberry trees, Enclosing Welcombe fields, or idling hoursIn common talk with people like the Combes. All this to get a heartiness, a holdOn earth again, lest Heaven Hercules, Finding me strayed to mid-air, kicking heelsAbove the mountain tops, seize on my scruffAnd bear me off or strangle. 

 Good, my friends, The "Tempest" is as nothing to the voiceThat calls me to performance--what I know not. I've planned an epic of the Asian washWhich slopped the star of Athens and put out, Which should all history analyze, and presentA thousand notables in the guise of life, And show the ancient world and worlds to comeTo the last blade of thought and tiniest seedOf growth to be. With visions such as theseMy 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 butterflyGummed 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 hourI 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 findsA change of heart, but mine has changed not, onlyI cannot be my old self. I blaspheme:I hunger for broiled fish, but fly the touchOf hands of flesh. 

 I am most passionate, And long am used perplexities of loveTo 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 standsIn lava wrinkles, eight years older than I am, As years go, but I am a youth afireWhile she is lean and slippered. It's a FuryWhich takes me sometimes, makes my hands clutch outFor virgins in their teens. O sullen fancy!I want them not, I want the love which springsLike flame which blots the sun, where fuel of bodyIs piled in reckless generosity. ... You are most learned, Ben, Greek and Latin know, And think me nature's child, scarce understandHow much of physic, law, and ancient annalsI have stored up by means of studious zeal. But pass this by, and for the braggart breathEnsuing 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 additionOf man and country, on my honor, ShakespeareAt 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 speakOf the most common thing to sense, outsideMyself to touch or analyze, this mindWhich has been used by Something, as I useA quill for writing, never in this worldIn 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 trailsOf passions curious, countless lives exploredAs 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 essenceFrom which their utterance came, myself a flowerOf every graft and being in myselfThe recapitulation and the complexOf all the great. Were not brains before books?And even geometries in some brainBefore 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 beIn your regard, have come to fifty-two, Defeated in my love, who knew too wellThat poets through the love of women turnTo satyrs or to gods, even as womenBy the first touch of passion bloom or rotAs angels or as bawds. 

 Bethink you alsoHow I have felt, seen, known the mystic processWorking in man's soul from the woman soulAs part thereof in essence, spirit and flesh, Even as a malady may be, while this thingIs 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 topmostRung a place for stepping into heaven. ... 

This I have know, but had not. Nor have IStood coolly off and seen the woman, usedHer blood upon my palette. No, but heavenCommanded my strength's use to abort and slayWhat grew within me, while I saw the bloodOf love untimely ripped, as 'twere a childKilled i' the womb, a harpy or an angelWith my own blood stained. 

 As a virgin shamedBy the swelling life unlicensed needles it, But empties not her womb of some last shredOf flesh which fouls the alleys of her body, And fills her wholesome nerves with poisoned sleep, And weakness to the last of life, so IFor some shame not unlike, some need of lifeTo rid me of this life I had conceivedDid up and choke it too, and thence begotA fever and a fixed debilityFor killing that begot. 

 Now you see that IHave not grown from a central dream, but grownDespite a wound, and over the wound and usedMy flesh to heal my flesh. My love's a feverWhich 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 keptHas left me. And as reason is past careI am past cure, with ever more unrestMade frantic-mad, my thoughts as madmen's are, And my discourse at random from the truth, Not knowing what she is, who swore her fairAnd thought her bright, who is as black as hellAnd dark as night. 

 But list, good gentlemen, This love I speak of is not as a cloakWhich one may put away to wear a coat, And doff that for a jacket, like the lovesWe 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 meWithout a sense of loss, without a tear, And make me fool and perjured for the oathThat swore her fair and true. I feel myselfAs like a virgin who her body givesFor love of one whose love she dreams is hers, But wakes to find herself a toy of blood, And dupe of prodigal breath, abandoned quiteFor other conquests. For I gave myself, And shrink for thought thereof, and for the lossOf myself never to myself restored. The urtication of this shame made playsAnd sonnets, as you'll find behind all deedsThat 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 wasteRichly and freely in the good brown earth, Untrumpeted and by no bust marked out. What good, Ben Jonson, if the world could seeWhat face was mine, who wrote these plays and sonnets?Life, you have hurt me. Since Death has a veilI take the veil and hide, and like great CæsarWho 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 powerTo save, guide, mould you? Naughty world you need meAs 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 warsThe ever-replenished youth of earth shall shriekAnd clap their gushing wounds--but I shall sleep, Nor earthy thunder wake me when the cannonShall shake the throne of Tartarus. OratorsShall fulmine over London or AmericaOf rights eternal, parchments, sacred chartersAnd cut each others' throats when reason fails--But I shall sleep. This globe may last and breedThe 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 blossomMy 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 seeWhat comes of letting Hunter do your work. The ground was not plowed right, or disced perhaps, Or harrowed fine enough, or too little seedWas sown. 

 But John, who knows a clover field, Pulls up a plant and cleans the roots of soilAnd studies them. 

 He says, Look at the roots!Hunter neglected to inoculateThe seed, for clover seed must always haveClover bacteria to make it grow, And blossom. In a thrifty field of cloverThe roots are studded thick with tubercles, Like little warts, made by bacteria. And somehow these bacteria lay holdUpon 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 fieldFrom some old clover field, or made a cultureOf these bacteria and soaked the seedIn it before he sowed it. 

 As I said, Hunter was sick when he was working here. And then he ran away to IndianaAnd left his wife and children. Now he's back. His cough was just as bad in IndianaAs it is here. A cough is pretty hardTo run away from. Wife and children tooAre pretty hard to leave, since thought of themStays 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 makingProvision for his family. Hunter's changed. He is a better man. It almost seemsThat Hunter's blossomed. ... 

 I am sorry for him. The doctor says he has tuberculosis. 

SOMETHING BEYOND THE HILL

To a western breezeA row of golden tulips is nodding. They flutter their golden wingsIn a sudden ecstasy and say:Something comes to us from beyond, Out of the sky, beyond the hillWe give it to you. 

 * * * * *

And I walk through rows of jonquilsTo a beloved door, Which you open. And you stand with the priceless gold of your tulip headNodding to me, and saying:Something comes to meOut 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 robinSinging at dawn amid new leaves. It is like sun-light on blue waterWhere the south-wind is on the waterAnd the buds of the flags are green. It is like the wild bird of the sedgesWith fluttering wings on a wind-blown reedShowering lyrics over the sun-lightBetween rhythmical pausesWhen his heart has stopped, Making light and waterInto song. 

 * * * * *

Let me hear your voice, And the voice of Eternal BeautyThrough 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 youFor the Voice. 

FRONT THE AGES WITH A SMILE

How did the sculptor, Voltaire, keep you quiet and posedIn an arm chair, just think, at your busiest age we are told, Being better than seventy? How did he manage to stay youFrom 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 hereEnwrapped of this face of you, frail little frame of you, And think of your work--how nothing could balk youOr 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 fearFor your eighty-four years!

 And they say of you stillYou 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 livedIn 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 flashesOf 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 rowdiesStep from county to county ahead of the frustrate policeman. And here you have printers to print what you write and a houseFor 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 essayedTo 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 breastWas thrown on the handles. 

 And yet to this day, O Voltaire, They charge you with levity, scoffing, when all that you didWas 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 listenThe strength of a nation is mind, I will grant you, and stillBut 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 judgmentTo save you from this? Is it German, or Russian, or French?

Did you give up three years of your lifeTo 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 plentyTo weigh what you did, put it by with a generous gesture, Give the minds of the student your measure, impress themForever 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 recordOf all of these years of hard plowing in quack-grass, while battingAt 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 eyesAs 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 snakeDevouring the children of Fear! Ridiculous customs, Ridiculous judgments and laws, philosophies, worships. You saw through and laughed at--you saw above allThat a soul must make end with a groan, or a curse, or a laugh. 

So you smiled till the lines of your mouthA crescent became with dimples for horns, so expressingTo centuries after who see you in marble: Behold me, I lived, I loved, I laughed, I toiled without ceasingThrough 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 dunesI 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 lieHidden 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 fleeBe 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 playOf gods who touch the wires, dreaming infinite things;And there's a soul that wanders out when calledBy 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 dieIt might be better than living--who can say?

 * * * * *

Why do we thirst for urns beyond urns who knowHow 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 nodTo 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 hardenNor stay his hand, nor bestow

Their hearts filched out of their bosoms, Nor plan for dahlias to be. For the wind blows over the gardenAnd sets the dahlias free. 

They drift to the song of the warden, Heedless they give him heed. And he walks and blows through the gardenBlossom and leaf and seed. 

THE GRAND RIVER MARSHES

Silvers and purples breathing in a skyOf fiery mid-days, like a watching tiger, Of the restrained but passionate JulyUpon the marshes of the river lie, Like the filmed pinions of the dragon fly. 

 * * * * *

A whole horizon's waste of rushes bendUnder the flapping of the breeze's wing, Departing and revisitingThe haunts of the river twisting without end. 

 * * * * *

The torsions of the river make long milesOf the waters of the river which remainCoiled by the village, tortuous aislesOf water between the rushes, which restrainThe bewildered currents in returning files, Twisting between the greens like a blue racer, Too hurt to leap with body or upliftIts head while gliding, neither slow nor swift

 * * * * *

Against the shaggy yellows of the dunesThe iron bridge's reticulesAre seen by fishermen from the Damascened lagoons. But from the bridge, watching the little steamerPaddling against the current up to Eastmanville, The river loosened from the abandoned spoolsOf earth and heaven wanders without will, Between the rushes, like a silken streamer. And two old men who turn the bridgeFor 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 sacrilegeWhich 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 moreSlaughter of forests up and down the riverAnd along the lake's shore. 

 * * * * *

But all is quiet on the river nowAs when the snow lay windless in the wood, And the last Indian stoodAnd looked to find the broken boughThat told the path under the snow. All is as silent as the spiral lightsOf purple and of gold that from the marshes rise, Like the wings of swarming dragon flies, Far up toward Eastmanville, where the enclosing skiesQuiver with heat; as silent as the flightsOf the crow like smoke from shops against the glareOf 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 heardOn a summer dawnWhen we two fished among the river reeds. As silent as the painIn a heart that feedsA sorrow, but does not complain. As silent as above the bridge in this July, Noiseless, far up in this mirror-lighted skyWheels 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 byDelilah and the People by Samson. )]

Much pleasure also made thee grieveFor that the goblet had been drained. The well spiced viand thou didst leaveTo 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 yokeTo fetch thee jewels white and blue, And rings to pass thy gold hair through. 

Therefore, Delilah wast thou called, Because the choice wines nourished theeIn Sorek, by the mountains walledAgainst the north wind's misery, Where flourished every pleasant tree. 

[Sidenote: (Delilah hath a taste for ease and luxury and wantonethwith divers lovers. )]

Thy lovers also were as greatIn 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 procureThe strong man Samson for my spouse, His death will make my ease secure. The god has heard this people's vowsTo recompense their injured house. "

Thereafter, when the giant laySupinely 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'sstrength. 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 loveWith 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 thenHe 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 hisbody 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 woveThe 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 tobe somewhat wearied hinteth very close to his secret. )]

Then the god Dagon speaking byThy 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 enticeSamson 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 ministerUnto 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'simportunities and guile telleth her wherein his great strengthconsisteth. )]

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 yetRazor or shears done despiteTo 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 foesAmong 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 trowThe 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 herminions with force falleth upon him and depriveth him of hisstrength. )]

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 boundWithin 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 ofhis eyes is reduced to slavery and made the sport of the heathen. )]

Now, therefore, when the festivalWaxed 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 thoughhimself should perish thereby. )]

And Samson made them sport and stoodBetwixt the pillars of the house, Above with scornful hardihood, Both men and women made carouse, And ridiculed his eyeless brows. 

Then Samson prayed "Remember meO 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 feastTo 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 havebeen blinded, and have not recovered their sight still that their haircontinueth 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 songSmiles, and the heavens glow with light!

--_Trueblood_

 * * * * *

Trueblood is bewitched to write a drama--Only one drama, then to die. EnoughTo win the heights but once! He writes me letters, These later days marked "Opened by the Censor, "About his drama, asks me what I thinkAbout this point of view, and that approach, And whether to etch in his hero's soulBy etching in his hero's enemies, Or luminate his hero by enshadowingHis hero's enemies. How shall I tell himWhich is the actual and the larger theme, His hero or his hero's enemies?And through it all I see that Trueblood's mindRuns to the under-dog, the fallen TitanThe god misunderstood, the lover of manDestroyed by heaven for his love of man. In July, 1914, while in LondonHe took me to his house to dine and showed meThe verses as above. And while I readHe left the room, returned, I heard him moveThe ash trays on the table where we satAnd set some object on the table. 

 ThenAs I looked up from reading I discoveredA 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 writeThe drama that possesses all my thought. You'd think the spirit of the man would comeAnd show me how to find the key that fitsThe story of his life, reveal its secret. I know the secrets, but I want the secret. You'd think his spirit out of gratitudeWould start me off. It's something, I insist, To find a haven with a dramatistAfter your bones have crossed the sea, and afterPassing from hand to hand they reach seclusion, And reverent housing. 

 Dying in New YorkHe lay for ten years in a lonely graveSomewhere 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 awakeIndignant sorrow, space in TrinityWas 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 yearsA mad admirer living here in EnglandWent to America and dug him up, And brought his bones to Liverpool. Just thenOur 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 fireThat France had lighted. England would abortThe era she embraced. Here is a pointThat vexes me in laying out the scenes, And persons of the play. For parliamentWent into fury that these bones were hereOn British soil. The city raged. They tookThe poor town-crier, gave him nine months' prisonFor 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 caseI 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 monumentThis zealous friend had planned was never raised. The city wouldn't have it--you can guessThe brain that filled this skull and moved this handHad 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 giftAgainst the mother country. How to show thisIn action, not in talk, is difficult. 

Well, then here is our friend who has these bonesAnd 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 ChancellorDoes not regard them so. I'd like to workSome humor in my drama at this point, And satirize his lordship just a little. Though you can scarcely call a skull an assetIf it be of a man who helped to cost youThe loss of half the world. So the receiverCast out the bones and for a time a laborerTook care of them. He sold them to a manWho dealt in furniture. The empty coffinAbout this time turned up in Guilford--thenIt's 1854, the man is deadNear forty years, when just the skull and handAre owned by Rev. Ainslie, who evadesAll questions touching on that ownership, And where the ribs, spine, arms and thigh bones are--The rest in short. 

 And as for me--no matterWho sold them, gave them to me, loaned them to me. Behold the good right hand, behold the skullOf _Thomas Paine_, theo-philanthropist, Of Quaker parents, born in England! Look, That is the hand that wrote the Crisis, wroteThe Age of Reason, Common Sense, and ralliedAmericans 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 JeffersonUpon the stage, and put into their mouthsThe eulogies they spoke on Thomas Paine, To get before the audience that they thoughtHe did as much as any man to winYour independence; that your DeclarationWas founded on his writings, even inspiredA clause against your negro slavery--how--Look at this hand!--he was the first to write_United States of America_--there's the handThat was the first to write those words. Good LordThis drama would out-last a Chinese dramaIf I put all the story in. But tell meWhat to omit, and what to stress?

 And stillI'd have the greatest drama in the worldIf 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 PaineBecause he was too great, and by this showingInstruct the world to honor its torch bearersFor time to come. No? Well, that can't be done--I know that; but it puzzles me to thinkThat Hamilton--we'll say, is so revered, So lauded, toasted, all his papers studiedOn tariffs and on banks, evoking ahs!Great genius! and so forth--and there's the CrisisAnd Common Sense which only little ShelleysHaunting the dusty book shops read at all. It wasn't that he liked his rum and drankToo much at times, or chased a pretty skirt--For Hamilton did that. Paine never mixedIn money matters to another's wrongFor his sake or a system's. Yes, I knowThe world cares more for chastity and temperanceThan 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 artistAnd Paine a mere logician and a wrangler?Your artist soul gets limed in this mad worldAs 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 backUp to Olympus whence they came. And someWhile fighting for the race fall into holesWhere to return and rescue them is death. Why look you here! You'd think AmericaHad gone to war to cheat the guillotineOf 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 revolutionFor words like these--and clap! the prison doorShuts on our Thomas. So he writes a letterTo president--of what! to WashingtonPresident of the United States of America, A title which Paine coined in seventy-sevenNow 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 wiseRespecting England's hatred of our Thomas, And wise to lift no finger to save Thomas, Incurring England's wrath, who hated ThomasFor pamphlets like the "Crisis" "Common Sense. "That may be just the story for my drama. Old Homer satirized the human raceFor warring for the rescue of a Cyprian. But there's not stuff for satire in a warEnsuing on the insult for the rescueOf nothing but a fellow who wrote pamphlets, And won a continent for the rescuer. That's tragedy, the more so if the fellowLikes rum and writes that Jesus was a man. This crushing of poor Thomas in the hateOf England and her power, America'sGreat fear and lowered strength might make a dramaAs showing how the more you do in lifeThe 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 turnFrom seeing Thomas Paine upon the stageWhat is the use to write it, if they'd turnNo matter how you wrote it? I believeThey 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 silverThere is no shrine to take it--no CologneFor 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 prisonLaid upon broken bodies, dying eyes, So do I suffer for splendor of your beingWhich leads you from me, and in separationLays on my breast the pain of memory. Over your hands I bendIn silent adoration, Dumb for a fear of sorrow without end, Asking for consolationOut 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 youAnd you to the world's end remain with me. 

 * * * * *

How may I justify the hope that risesThat 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 keepYour breast for me for comfort, if I fall, So I, though far away, shall kneel by youIf the last hour approaches, to bedewYour lips that from their infant wonderingLisped of a heaven lost. I shall kiss down your eyes, and count the costAs mine, who gave you, by the tragic giving. Go forth with spirit to death, and to the livingBearing a solace in death. God has breathed on you His transfiguring breath, --You are transfiguredBefore 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 hairTossed on your pillow, sea shell pinkEars that nestle, I forbearA moment while I look and thinkHow you are mine, and if I dareTo bend and kiss you lying there. 

 * * * * *

A Raphael in the flesh! ResistI cannot, though to break your sleepIs thoughtless of me--you are kissedAnd 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 awakeYou sing and dance, nor seem to knowYou slept a sleep too deep to breakFrom which I roused you long agoFor 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 gardenUnder 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 messageThe flowers of the garden. Poppies untie their scarlet hoods and wave themTo the south wind as he passes. But the zinnias and calendulas, In a mood of calm reserve, nod faintlyAs the south wind whispers the secretOf the dawn hour!

I stand in the silence of the dawn hourIn the garden, As the star of morning fades. Flying from scythes of airThe hare-bells, purples and golden glowOn the sand-hill back of the orchardRace before the feet of the wind. But clusters of oak-leaves over the yellow sand rimBegin 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 moonIs drowned in the waste of morning!

 * * * * *

In the silence of the garden, At the dawn hourI 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-windBearing the secret of the morningTo 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 youAmid a trance of color, silent music, The embodied spirit of the morning:Wind from the south-land, flashing beams of the sunCaught 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 lilacTurned white for the woe of the moon;And the silence of the dawn hour!

 * * * * *

And there to take you in my arms and feel youIn the glory of the dawn hour, Along the sinuous rhythm of flesh and flesh!To know your spirit by that onenessOf living and of love, in the twinkled passionOf life re-lit and visioned. In dryad eyes beholdingThe dancing, leaping, touching hands and racingRapturous moment of the arisen sun;And the first drop of day out of this cup of Favrile. There to behold you, Our spirits lost togetherIn 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 heelOf Europe, while the feudal world did rave. Thou France that didst burst through the rock-bound graveWhich 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 flowersIncarnate 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 laughWhich settles to a smile of lips and eyesMakes tears just drops of water on the leavesWhen rain falls from a sun-lit sky, my friend, Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, call meBeloved 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 memoriesTop-full--your hand--my breast is all afireWith happiness that warms, makes young again. 

You see it is not what we saw to-dayThat makes me spirit, rids me of the flesh:--But all that I remember, we rememberOf what the world was, what it is to-day, Beholding how it grows. Gourgaud, I seeNot in the rise of this man or of that, Nor in a battle's issue, in the blowThat lifts or fells a nation--no, my friend, God is not there, but in the living streamWhich sweeps in spite of eddies, undertows, Cross-currents, what you will, to that resultWhere stillness shows the star that fits the starOf truth in spirits treasured, imaged, keptThrough sorrow, blood and death, --God moves in thatAnd there I find Him. 

 But these tears--for whomOr what are tears? The Old Guard--oh, my friendThat melancholy remnant! And the horse, White, to be sure, but not Marengo, wearingThe saddle and the bridle which he used. My tears take quality for these pitiful things, But other quality for the purple robeOver the coffin lettered in pure gold"Napoleon"--ah, the emperor at lastCome back to Paris! And his spirit looksOver the land he loved, with what result?Does just the army that acclaimed him riseWhich rose to hail him back from Elba?--noAll France acclaims him! Princes of the church, And notables uncover! At the doorA herald cries "The Emperor!" Those assembledRise 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 laughFor thinking that the Emperor is home;For thinking I have laid upon his bedThe sword that makes inviolable his bed, Since History stepped to where I stood and standsTo say forever: Here he rests, be still, Bow down, pass by in reverence--the AgesLike giant caryatides that lookWith sleepless eyes upon the world and holdWith never tiring hands the Vault of Time, Command your reverence. 

 What have we seen?Why this, that every man, himself achievingExhausts the life that drives him to the workOf self-expression, of the vision in him, His reason for existence, as he sees it. He may or may not mould the epic stuffAs he would wish, as lookers on have hopeHis 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 dispraiseHave all his work misvalued for the time, And pump his heart up harder to subdueEnvy, or fear or greed, in any caseHe grows and leaves and blossoms, so consumesHis soul's endowment in the vision of life. And thus of him. Why, there at FontainebleauHe 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 shoutTheir hatred of him, but he sits for hoursKicking 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 powerKnew all the maps of Europe--could unfoldA map and say here is the place, the way, The road, the valley, hill, destroy them here. Why, all his memory of maps was blurredThe 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 ParisHelped by the Duke and Blücher, damn their souls. 

What is a man to do whose work is doneAnd does not feel so well, has cancer, say?You know he could have reached AmericaAfter his fall at Waterloo. Good God!If only he had done it! For they sayNew Orleans is a city good to live in. And he had ceded to AmericaLouisiana, which in time would curbThe English lion. But he didn't go there. His mind was weakened else he had foreseenThe lion he had tangled, wounded, scourgedWould claw him if it got him, play with himBefore it killed him. Who was England then?--

An old, mad, blind, despised and dying kingWho lost a continent for the lust that slewThe Emperor--the world will say at lastIt 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 whoHad cut his country's long before. The duke--Since Waterloo, and since the Emperor slept--The English stoned the duke, he bars his windowsWith 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 whenThe 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 deedStone him for wronging the democracyThe Emperor erected with the sword. The world's great conqueror's conqueror--Oh, I sicken!Odes are like head-stones, standing while the gravesAre guarded and kept up, but falling downTo ruin and erasure when the gravesAre left to sink. Hey! there you English poets, Picking from daily libels, slanders, junkOf 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 stopThe progress of democracy and chantingTo 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 NapoleonTo St. Helena--but the ashes soarGrown finer, grown invisible at last. And all the time a wind is blowing ashes, And sifting them upon the spotless linenOf kings and dukes in England till at lastThey 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 mindTo write to such an England: "My careerIs ended and I come to sit me downBefore the fireside of the British people, And claim protection from your Royal Highness"--This to the regent--"as a generous foeMost 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 filmDescending on those eyes of failing fire. ... 

One day the packet brought to him a bookInscribed by Hobhouse, "To the Emperor. "Lowe kept the book but when the Emperor learnedLowe kept the book, because 'twas so inscribed, The Emperor said--I stood near by--"Who gave youThe right to slur my title? In a few yearsYourself, Lord Castlereagh, the duke himselfWill be beneath oblivion's dust, rememberedFor your indignities to me, that's all. England expended millions on her libelsTo poison Europe's mind and make my purposeObscure or bloody--how have they availed?You have me here upon this scarp of rock, But truth will pierce the clouds, 'tis like the sunAnd like the sun it cannot be destroyed. Your Wellingtons and Metternichs may damThe liberal stream, but only to make strongerThe torrent when it breaks. "Is it not true?That's why I weep and laugh to-day, my friendAnd 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 bloodIs dated from the field of Montenotte, And from my mother there in Corsica, And from the revolution. I'm a manWho made himself because the people made me. You understand as little as she didWhen I had brought her back from Austria, And riding through the streets of Paris pointedUp to the window of the little roomWhere I had lodged when I came from Brienne, A poor boy with my way to make--as poorAs Andrew Jackson in America, No more a despot than he is a despot. Your England understands. I was a menaceNot as a despot, but as head and front, Eyes, brain and leader of democracy, Which like the messenger of God was markingThe doors of kings for slaughter. England lies. Your England understands I had to holdBy rule compact a people drunk with rapture, And torn by counter forces, had to fightThe royalists of Europe who beheldTheir peoples feverish from the great infection, Who hoped to stamp the plague in France and stopIts 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 manufacturesArts, sciences I builded, democraticTriumphs which I won will live for ages--These are my witnesses, will testifyForever what I was and meant to do. The ideas which I brought to power will stifleAll royalty, all feudalism--lookThey live in England, they illuminateAmerica, they will be faith, religionFor every people--these I kindled, carriedTheir flaming torch through Europe as the chiefTorch 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 EmperorContemptuous 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 sectOf smilers and of laughers through the world, Smilers and laughers that the EmperorTold 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 peoplesMade 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 wifeSilent or separate, waiting long for death, Looking with filmed eyes upon his wingsBroken, upon the rocks stretched out to gainA little sun, and crying to the seaWith broken voice--I weep when I rememberSuch things which you and I from day to dayBeheld, nor could not mitigate. But thenThere is that night of thunder, and the dawningAnd all that day of storm and toward the eveningHe says: "Deploy the eagles!" "Onward!" Well, I leave the room and say to Steward there:"The Emperor is dead. " That very momentA crash of thunder deafened us. You seeA 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 everywhereCrying 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 touchedTo 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 youthTo the day of trial;But as a strong man nurses it no moreOn 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 strengthBeyond this hour, O Republic!

For you have swornBy 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 holdAught 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 DickTo the colored waiter:"Here, George! be quickRoast 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 trickWith 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 ableI'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 stickA 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 CaliforniaOut of Kansas City; in the morning earlyI walked through the diner, feeling upsetFor 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 caresExcept to please the white man, serve him when he's starving, And who has as much fun when he sees you carvingThe 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 originalAs 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 figureAnything beside that is not imitationOf something in Europe in this hybrid nation. Return to this globe five hundred years hence--You'll see how the fundamental color of the coonIn 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 arisesTo 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 glowOf the life of Temu, the god who prizesFavorite 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 gleamOf the noonday sun on my dazzled sight. And a giant negro as black as nightIs 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 swayingWith 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 listeningTo 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 tookFrom 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 blewHis horn this minute, you'd up and ascendTo 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 glancingBoth flames of candles and the heaven's light, Though windows there were none for air or flight. The room was in a form polygonalReached 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 justA mirrored door through which a hand was thrustHere, there, around the room, a soul to seizeWhereat a scream would rise, but no surceaseOf music or of dancing, save by himDrawn through the mirrored panel to the dimAnd unknown space behind the flashing mirrors, And by his partner struck through by the terrorsOf sudden loss. 

 And looking I could seeThat scarcely any dancer here could freeHis eyes from off the mirrors, but would gazeUpon himself or others, till a crazeShone in his eyes thus to anticipateThe 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 faceThere in the mirrors as from place to placeHe quickly danced. 

 Until I saw at lastThis dancer by the whirling dancers castFace full against a mirrored panel whereBefore he could look at himself or stareHe plunged through to the other side--and quick, As water closes when you lift the stick, The mirrored panel swung in place and leftNo trace of him, as 'twere a magic trick. But all his partners thus so soon bereftWent dancing to the music as before. But I saw faces in that mirrored doorAnatomizing their forced smiles and watchingTheir faces over shoulders, even matchingTheir terror with each other's to repressA growing fear in seeing it was lessThan some one else's, or to ease despairBy looking in a face who did not care, While watching for the hand that through some doorCaught a poor dancer from the dancing floorWith 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 dyingIs lost worth having? What the daily thingsLived through together make them worth the whileFor their sakes or for life's? Where's the denyingOf souls through separation? There's your smile!And your hands' touch! And the long day that bringsHalf uttered nothings of delight! But thenNow that I see you not, and shall againTouch you no more--memory can possessYour soul's essential self, and none the lessYou live with me. I therefore write to youThis letter just as if you were awayUpon a journey, or a holiday;And so I'll put down everything that's newIn 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 DecemberGave way to sunshine. Then we swept your room, And laid your things away. And then one morningI saw the mother robin giving warningTo little bills stuck just above the rimOf 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 scannedA girl's face with such sunny smiles upon itShowing 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 gardenI read Sir Thomas More and Goethe's life. My heart was numb and still I had to hardenAll memory or die. And just the sameAs when you sat beside the window, passedLarson, 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 tiledHis bottom land. Then Judy Heaton's crimeHas shocked the village, for the monster killedGlendora 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 wayWith war in Europe and the same routineOf life among us that you knew when here. This gossip is not idle, since I sayBy means of it what I would tell you, dear:I have been near you, dear, for I have beenNot with you through these things, but in despiteOf living them without you, therefore nearIn spirit and in memory with you. 

 * * * * *

Do you remember that delightful InnAt Chester and the Roman wall, and howWe walked from Avon clear to Kenilworth?And afterward when you and I came downTo London, I forsook the murky town, And left you to quaint ways and crowded places, While I went on to Putney just to seeOld Swinburne and to look into his face'sChangeable lights and shadows and to seize onA finer thing than any verse he wrote?(Oh beautiful illusions of our youth!)He did not see me gladly. Talked of treasonTo 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 halfMy visit, so I left. 

 The thing was this:None of this talk was Swinburne any moreThan 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 fleshGave nothing closer, mind you, than his book, But rather blurred it; even his eyes' lookConfused "Madonna Mia" from its freshAnd liquid meaning. So I knew at lastHis 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 touchOf soul possession lies not in the walkOf daily life on earth, nor in the talkOf daily things, nor in the sight of eyesLooking in other eyes, nor daily breadBroken together, nor the hour of loveWhen flesh surrenders depths of things divineBeyond all vision, as they were the dreamOf other planets, but without these evenIn death and separation, there is heaven:By just that unison and its memoryWhich brought our lips together. To be freeFrom accidents of being, to be freeingThe soul from trammels on essential being, Is to possess the loved one. I have strayedInto 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 gongFor their strength's behests. Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thongIn games or testsWhen they run or box or swim the longSea-waves crestsWith their slender legs, and their hips so strong, And their rounded chests. 

I know a youth who raises his armsOver his head. He laughs and stretches and flouts alarmsOf flood or fire. He springs renewed from a lusty bedTo his youth's desire. He drowses, for April flames outspreadIn his soul's attire. 

The strength of men is for husbandryOf woman's flesh:Worker, soldier, magistrateOf city or realm;Artist, builder, wrestling FateLest it overwhelmThe brood or the race, or the cherished state. They sing at the helmWhen 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 spanEre the month be ten. Their rapturous arms entwine and clingIn 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 springIs 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 dipsFrom her white-rose chin. Her throat curves like a cloud to the landWhere her breasts begin. I close my eyes when I put my handOn her breast's white skin. 

The flesh of women is like the skyWhen bare is the moon:Rhythm of backs, hollow of necks, And sea-shell loins. I know a woman whose splendors vexWhere the flesh joins--A slope of light and a circumflexOf clefts and coigns. She thrills like the air when silence wrecksAn 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 neshAs 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 spiritIn its vase of clay!It takes no thought of the chary doleOf the light of day. It labors and loves, as it were a soulWhom the gods repayWith length of life, and a golden goalAt 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 plyThe laws of nature out of a willWhile the fates deny. 

I wonder and worship the human spiritWhen I beholdNumbers and symbols, and how they reachThrough 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 heardBeyond the rim of the world the swellOf an ocean stirredBy a Power on the waters inscrutable. There are souls who girdTheir 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 EagleTwelve hundred moons agoStood with folded arms, While a Pottawatomie fatherPlunged 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 ribsAnd into his heart. And like a wounded eagle's wingsHis 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 bloodOf 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 spiritsUnder the Great Spirit. Him I know not. Him I only feelWith closed eyes. Or when I look from my bed of moss by the riverAt a sky of stars, When the leaves of the oak are asleep. I will fill this birch bark full of writingAnd hide it in the cleft of an oak, Here where Black Eagle fell. Decipher my story who can:

When I was a boy of fourteenTobacco Jim, who owned many dogs, Rose from the door of his tentAnd 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 runI 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 FoxGrew 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 thereTo 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 riverThat 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 unknowingWhat the race meant to them!For we saw nothing but the track, We saw nothing but our trainersAnd 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 waysFrom 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 maidensWherever I went. But now I know that to Tobacco Jim, And the old fathers and young bucksThe 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 browWith 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 behindThe bend of the grass under the wind. But as we neared the end of the raceThe onlookers, the gamblers, the old Indians, And the young bucks, Crowded close to the track--I fell and lost. 

Next day Tobacco Jim went aboutLamenting his losses. And when I told him they tripped meHe cursed them. But later he went about asking in whispersIf 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 writingAnd 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 risesBy using wise Indians like meWho are rich in gifts and powers ... But at least it is true:All little great IndiansWho are after ponies, Jugs of whiskey and soft blanketsGain their ends through the gifts and powersOf 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 smallNot to do it. And until all the cards are laid on the tableYou 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 houseAnd 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 governmentTo reclaim stolen lands. (Many have told me it was Hungry MoleWho tripped me in the race. )Big Jawed Prophet is very rich. He has disappeared as an eagleWith a rabbit. And I have come back hereWhere twelve hundred moons agoBlack Eagle before meHad the knife run through his ribsAnd through his heart. ... 

I will hide this writingIn the cleft of the oakBy 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 towersHave gone back to the hills. And all the citiesAre one with the plains again. And the beauty of bronze, And the strength of steelAre 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 spinningDrifts and falls through the void--My light with yoursIn 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 standWith eyeless sockets playing on a flute. And an old woman holds the cup for you, Wherein a curious passer by at timesCasts a poor coin. 

You are so blind you cannot see us menAs walking trees!I fancy from the tuneYou play upon the flute, you have a visionOf leafy trees along a country road-side, Where wheat is growing and the meadow-larksRise singing in the sun-shine!In your darknessYou may see such things playing on your fluteHere 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 himThe flaring headlines? Yet he calls the news. That is his flute, perhaps, for one can call, Or play the flute in blindness. 

Yet I thinkIt'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 fearlessFlight in vast spacesClove the inane, While we stood tearless, White with rapt facesIn wonder and pain. ... 

Heights could not awe you, Depths could not stay you. Anguished we saw you, Saw Death way-lay youWhere the storm flingsBlack clouds to thickenRound France's defender!Archangel strickenFrom ramparts of splendor--Shattered your wings! ... 

But Lafayette called you, Rochambeau beckoned. Duty enthralled you. For France you had reckonedHer gift and your debt. Dull hearts could hardenHalf-gods could palter. For you never pardonIf Liberty's altarYou chanced to forget. ... 

Stricken archangel!Ramparts of splendorKeep you, evangelOf souls who surrenderNo banner unfurledFor ties ever living, Where Freedom has bound them. Praise and thanksgivingFor 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 roadA 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 rattleWhen he went over Houghton's Bridge. "

Said Roger Ragsdale: "I was doctorin'A heifer in the barn, and thenMy 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 BillyI 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 itI 'lowed 'twas Pin Hook's rowdy new 'uns. Them Cashner boys was at the schoolhouseDrinkin' there at the Christmas doin's. "

Said Pete McCue: "I lit a candleAnd 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 knowedI 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'sAnd 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 EmilyWar lyin' dead. ... She's thar alone. '

"I left him then to call my womanTo 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 likeTalked 'bout the fishin' times they had, And said for her to die on ChristmasWas 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 womanThat 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 ChristmasWhen 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 mufflerAnd sobbed and sobbed, 'O Emily. '"

WIDOW LA RUE

I

What will happen, Widow La Rue?For last night at three o'clockYou woke and saw by your window againAmid the shadowy locust groveThe phantom of the old soldier:A shadow of blue, like mercury light--What will happen, Widow La Rue?

 * * * * *

What may not happenIn 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 crestOf the bluff by the lakeCan take away the lonelinessOf this July by the lake!

 * * * * *

Last night you saw the old soldierBy 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 breathFrom emptied lungs. 

II

So Widow La Rue has gone to a friendFor 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 FloraSprings up from a drowsy chairAnd 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 coursesQuick as poison through all her frame. And something like bees swarming in her breastComes to her throat in a surge of fear, Rapture, passion, for what is the voiceBut the voice of her lover?And just because she is here aloneIn this desolate summer-house by the lake;And just because this man is forbiddenTo cross her way, for a taint in his bloodOf drink, from a father who died of drink;And just because he is in her thoughtBy 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 lakeIn a sky of lemon-dust down to the purple vastness. On the dizzy crest of the bluff the balls of cloverBow in the warm wind blowing across a meadowWhere hay-cocks stand new-piled by the harvestersClear to the forest of pine and beech at the meadow's end. A robin on the tip of a poplar's spireSings to the sinking sun and the evening planet. Over the olive green of the darkening forestA thin moon slits the sky and down the roadTwo lovers walk. 

 It is night when they reappearFrom the forest, walking the hay-field over. And the sky is so full of stars it seemsLike 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-fieldBlurred only by a lisp of the listless waterA 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 headPillowed upon the fragrant hay. You dare not open your moistened eyesFor fear of this sky of stars, For fear of your lover's eyes. The trance of nature has taken youRocked on creation's tide. And the kinship you feel for this man, Confessed this night--so often confessedAnd 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 handsAgainst his strength, then let them fall. Your lips are parted over set teeth;A dewy moisture with the aroma of a woman's bodyMaddens your lover, And in a swift and terrible momentThe 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 zephyrStirs your uncoiled hair on your bare bosom, But you do not move. And the sun comes up at lastFinding 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 goAnd take your vows before the Pastor there, And then return to the summer house. ... All is well. 

IV

Widow La Rue has returnedAnd is rocking on the porch--What is about to happen?For last night the phantom of the old soldierAppeared 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 daughterAnd the forbidden lover. 

 * * * * *

And then the daughter and her husbandCome 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 arisesAnd calmly takes her child in her arms, And clasps his hand. And after gazing upon himImperturbably as Clytemnestra lookedUpon 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 villageTo market for dinner, saying:"We'll talk over plans, my dear. "

V

And the young husbandRocks on the porch without a thoughtOf the lightning about to strike. And like Clytemnestra, Widow La RueEnters the house. And while he is rocking, with all his spirit in a rythmic rapture, The Widow La Rue takes a seat in the roomBy a window back of the chair where he rocks, And drawing the shadeShe speaks:

"These two nights past I have seen the phantom of the old soldierWho haunts the midnightsOf 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 whitenessWinds out of the July glareAnd stops the flow of his blood, As he hears from the re-echoing roomThe voice of Widow La RueMoving darkly between banksOf 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 herWhy 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 loveFor a man I loved before I married, And when, for five years, no child cameI went to this manAnd 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 faceHe went out of the house, where they found him laterBy the entrance gateWith 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 waxHiding the gash in his throat--The serum and blood blown up by the breathFrom 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 dayThat 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 RueWith the eyes of ClytemnestraStands at the window and watches himRunning 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 hairWas white as her mother's there in the grave. She was known as the bride whom the bridegroom leftAnd didn't say good-bye. 

DR. SCUDDER'S CLINICAL LECTURE

I lectured last upon the morbus sacer, Or falling sickness, epilepsy, of oldIn Palestine and Greece so much ascribedTo deities or devils. To resumeWe find it caused by morphologicalChanges of the cortex cells. Sometimes, More times, indeed, the anatomicalBasis, if one be, escapes detection. For many functions of the cortex areUnknown, as I have said. 

 And now rememberMercier's analysis of heredity:Besides direct transmission of unstableNervous systems, there remains the lawHereditary of sanguinity. Then here's another matter: Parents mayHave normal nervous systems, yet produceChildren of abnormal nerves and minds, Caused by unsuitable sexual germs. Let me repeat before I leave the matterThe 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 dreamWe are but plants, and all we are and doDepends upon the seed and on the soil. What Mendel found in raising peas may leadTo perfect knowledge of the human mind. There is one law for men and peas, the lawMakes peas of certain matter, and makes menAnd mind of certain matter, all dependsNot on a varying law, but on a lawVaried in its course by matter, asThe arm, which is a lever and which worksBy lever principle cannot make useAnd form cement with trowel to the formsIt makes of paint or marble. 

 To resume:A child may take the qualities of one parentIn some respects, and of the other parentIn some respects. A child may have the traitsOf father at one period of his life, The mother at one period of his life. And if the parents' traits are similarTheir traits may be prepotent in a child, Thus giving rise to qualities convergent. So if you take a circle and draw offA line which would become another circleIf drawn enough, completed, but is leftHalf drawn or less, that illustrates a mindOf 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 yeastIn brain cells, and his mind shot forth a lineTo make a larger thinking circle, sayAbout a great invention, heaven or God, Then John would be abnormal, till this lineShot round and joined, became a larger circle. This is the secret of eccentric genius, The man is half a sphere, sticks out in spaceDoes not enclose co-ordinated thought. He's like a plant mutating, half himselfHalf something new and greater. If we lookedTo John's heredity we'd find this changeWas manifest in mother or in fatherAbout the self-same period of life, Most likely in his father. AttributesOf fathers are inherited by sons, Of mothers by the daughters. 

 Now this morningI take up paranoia. ParanoicsAre often noted for great gifts of mind. Mahomet, Swedenborg were paranoics, Joan of Arc, and Ossawatomie Brown, Cellini, many others. All who thinkThemselves inspired of God, and all who seeThemselves appointed to a work, the subjectsOf prophecies are paranoics. AllWho visions have of God or archangels, Hear voices or celestial music, theseAre paranoics. And whether it be they riseEnough above the earth to look alongA longer arc and see realities, Or see strange things through atmospheric strataWhich build up or distort the things they seeRemains the question. Let us wait the proof. 

Last week I told you I would have to-dayThe skull and brain of Jacob Groesbell here, And lecture on his case. Here is the brain:Weight sixteen hundred grammes. Students may lookAfter the lecture at the brain and skull. There's nothing anatomical at faultWith this fine brain, so far as I can find. You'll note how deep the convolutions are, Arrangement quite symmetrical. The skullIs well formed too. The jaws are long you'll note, The palate roof somewhat asymmetrical. But this is scarce significant. Let me tellHow 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 lightAs of a sun-set shone behind them. EarsWere very large, projected at right angles. His neck was slender, womanish. His skinOf finest texture, white and very smooth. His voice was quiet, musical. His mannerPatient 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 GroesbellTen years before he died. I knew him firstWhen he was sent to mend my porch. A workmanWith saw and hammer never excelled him. ThenAs time went on I saw him when he cameAt my request to do my carpentry. I grew to know him, and by slow degreesHe told me of his readings in the Bible, And gave me his interpretations. At lastAged forty-six, had ulcers of the stomach, Which took him off. He sent for me, and saidHe wished me to attend him, which I did. He told me I could have his body and brainTo lecture on, dissect, since some had saidHe was insane, he told me, and if soI should find something wrong with brain or body. And if I found a wrong then all his visionsOf God and archangels were just the fanciesThat come to madmen. So he made provisionTo give his brain and body for this cause, And here's his brain and skull, and I am lecturingOn Jacob Groesbell as a paranoic. 

As I have said before, in making testsAnd observations of the patient, haveHis 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 makeA stenographic record. Strange enoughHe 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 whenA cylinder was full I'd stoop and putMy 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 megaphoneThe students in the farthest galleryCan hear what Jacob Groesbell said to me, And weigh the thought that stirred within the brainHere in this jar beside me. Listen nowTo Jacob Groesbell's voice:

 "Will you repeatFrom the beginning connectedly the storyOf your religious life, illumination, Vhat you have called your soul's escape?"

 "I will, Since I shall never tell it again. "

 "I grew upTimid and sensitive, not very strong, Not understood of father or of mother. They did not love me, and I never feltA 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 chumFrom time to time, that's all. And I rememberMy mother on a day put with my luncheonA bottle of milk, and when the noon hour cameI 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 IFlushed through with shame, and cried, and to this hourIt 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 nightDuring a thunderstorm heard clanking chains, And hid beneath the pillows. One spring dayAs I was walking on the village streetClose to the church I heard a voice which said'Behold, my son'--and falling on my kneesI prayed in ecstacy--but as I prayedSome 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 backInto the trap. I took to wanderingIn solitary places, could not bearTo see a human face. I slept for nightsIn still ravines, or meadows. But one timeReturning to my home, I found the roomFilled up with visitors--my heart stopped short, And glancing at the faces of my parentsI hurried, bolted through, and did not speak, Entered a bed-room door and closed it. SoI 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 seeHow I resembled the saints, our Saviour even, How even as my brothers called me madThey called our Saviour so. 

 "At fourteen yearsMy father taught me carpentry, his trade, And made me work with him. I seemed to beThe butt for jokes and laughter with the men--I know not why. For now and then they'd dropA word that showed they knew my secrets, knewI had heard voices, knew I loathed the lustsOf women, drink. Oh these were sorry years, God was not with me though I sought Him everAnd I was persecuted for His sake. My brainSeemed 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 eveningCalm, beautiful in June, after a dayOf healthful toil, while sitting on the porch, The sun just sinking, at my left I heardA voice of hollow clearness: "You are Christ. "My eyes grew blind with tears for the evilOf such a thought, soul stained with such a thought, So devil stained, soul damned with blasphemy. I ran into my room and seized a pistolTo end my life. God willed it otherwise. I fainted and awoke upon the floorAfter some hours. To heap my suffering fullA few days after this while in the villageI 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 hourHis saying rankled, I began to broodOn ways of vengeance, till it seemed at lastHis life must pay. O, soul so full of sin, So devil tangled, tortured--which not prayerNor watching could deliver. So I thoughtTo save my soul from murder I must fly--I felt an urging as one does in sleepPursued by giant things to fly, to flyFrom terror, death, from blankness on the scene, From emptiness, from beauty gone. The worldSeemed something seen in fever, where the stepsOf men are muffled, and a futile schemeImpels all steps. So packing up my kit, My Bible in my pocket, secretlyI disappeared. Next day took up my lifeIn Barrington, a village thirty milesFrom all I knew, besides a lovely lake, Reached by a road that crossed a bridgeOver a little bay, the bridge's endsClustered with boats for fishermen. And hereNight after night I fished, or stood and watchedThe star-light on the water. 

 I grew calmerAlmost found peace, got work to do, and livedUnder a widow's roof, who was devoutAnd 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 soulHad wholly found its peace, for truth to tellIt had an ache which sometimes I could feel, And yet I had this soul awakening. I know I have been counted mad, so watchEach detail here and judge. 

 At four o'clockThe thirtieth day of June, my work being done, My kit upon my back I walked this roadToward the village. 'Twas an afternoonOf clouds, no rain, a little breeze, the tinkleOf cow bells in the air, a heavenly silencePervading nature. Reaching the hill's footI sat down by a tree to rest, enjoyThe greenness of the forests, meadows, flatsAlong the bay, the blueness of the lake, The ripple of the water at my feet, The rythmic babble of the little boatsTied to the bridge. And as I sat there musing, Myself lost in the self, in time the cloudsLifted, blew off, to let the sun go downOver 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 sunUpon the water, Jesus of NazarethClothed all in white, the nimbus round his brow, His face all wisdom, love, rose to my view, And then he spake: 'Jacob, my son, ariseAnd come with me. '

 "And in an instant thereSomething 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 secretsOf creatures, herbs and grass, and stars and sunsAnd 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 instantAtoms and molecules I saw, and faces, And how they are arranged order to order, With no break in the order, one harmoniousWhole of universal life all blendedAnd interfused with universal love. And as it was with Shelley so I cried, And clasped my hands in ecstacy and roseAnd started back to climb the hill again, Scarce knowing, neither caring what I did, Nor where I went, and thinking if this beA fancy only of the Saviour thenHe will not follow me, and if it beHimself, indeed, he will not let me fallAfter the revelation. As I reachedThe brow of the hill, I felt his presence with meAnd turned, and saw Him. 'Thou hast faith, my son, Who knowest me, when they who walked with meToward Emmaus knew me not, to whom I toldAll 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 heartWithin us burn while he talked. O, Jacob Groesbell, Thou carpenter, as I was, greatly blessedWith visions and my Father's love, this walkIs your walk toward Emmaus. ' So he talked, Expounding all the scriptures, telling meAbout the race of men who live and moveAlong a life of meat and drink and sleepAnd comforts of the flesh, while here and thereA hungering soul is chosen to lift upAnd re-create the race. 'The prophet, poetMust seek and must find God to keep the raceAwake to the divine and to the ordersOf universal and harmonious life, All interfused with Universal love, Which love is God, lest blindness, atheism, Which sees no order, reason, no intentBeat down the race to welter in the mireWhen storms, and floods come. And the sons of God, The leaders of the race from age to ageAre chosen for their separate work, each workFits in the given order. All who sufferThe martyrdom of thought, whether they thinkThemselves as servants of my Father, or evenMock at the images and ritualsWhich prophets of dead creeds did symbolizeThe mystery they sensed, or whether they beSpirits of laughter, logic, divinationOf human life, the human soul, all menWho give their essence, blindly or in visionIn 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 walkToward my Emmaus. After a time we turnedAnd walked through heading rye and purple vetchInto an orchard where great rows of pearsSloped up a hill. It was now evening:Stretches of scarlet clouds were in the west, And a half moon was hanging just aboveThe pears' white blossoms. O, that evening!We came back to the boats at last and loosedOne 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 seemTo find myself alone there in that boat. At mid-night I awoke, the moon was sunk, The whippoorwills were singing. I walked homeBack to the village in a silence, peace, A happiness profound. 

 "And the next morningI awoke with aching head, spent body, yetWith spiritual vision so intense I lookedThrough things material as if they wereBut shadows--old things passed away or grewA lovelier order. And my heart was full. Infinitely I loved, and infinitely was loved. My landlady looked at me sharply, askedWhat hour I entered, where I was so late. I only answered fishing. For I toldNo person of my vision, went my wayAt carpentry in silence, in great joy. For archangels and powers were at my side, They led me, bore me up, instructed meIn 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 seeThe deepest truths of God, and God Himself, The geniture of all things, of the WordBecoming flesh in Christ. I knew all ages, Times, empires, races, creeds, the human weaknessWhich makes life wearisome, confused and pained, And how the search for something (it is God)Makes divers worships, fire, the sun, and beastsTakes form in Eleusinian mysteriesOr festivals where sex, the vine, the EarthAt harvest time have praise or reverence. I knew God, talked with God, and knew that GodIs more than Thought or Love. Our twisted brainsAre but the wires in the bulb which stays, Resists the current and makes human thought. As the electric current is not lightBut heat and power as well. Our little brainsResist God and make thought and love as well. But God is more than these. Oh I heard muchOf music, heard the whirring as of wheels, Or buzzing as of ears when a room is still. That is the axis of profoundest lifeWhich turns and rests not. And I heard the cryAnd hearing wept, of man's soul, heard the ages, The epochs of this earth as it were the feetOf multitudes in corridors. And I knewThe agony of genius and the woeOf prophets and the great. 

 "From that next morningI searched the scriptures with more fervid zealThan I had ever done. I could not openIts pages anywhere but I could findMyself set forth or mirrored, pointed to. I could not doubt my destiny was boundWith man's salvation. Jeremiah said'Take forth the precious from the vile. ' Those wordsTo me were spoken, and to no one else. And so I searched the scriptures. And I foundI 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 alongDeath's stages as a man can reach and feelAhead of him along a wall. I knowThis body is a shell, a butterfly'sExcreta pushed away with rising wings. 

"I searched the scriptures. How should I believePaul's story, not my own? Did he not seeAt mid-day in the way a light from heavenAbove the brightness of the sun and hearThe 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 spakeSuch words as none but men inspired can speak, As well as words of truth and soberness, Such as myself speak now. 

 "And from the scripturesI passed to studies of the men who cameTo great illuminations. You will seeThere are two kinds: One's of the intellect, The understanding, one is of the soul. The x-ray lets the eye behind the fleshTo see the ribs, or heart beat, choose! So menIn their illumination see the frame-workOf life or see its spirit, so alignThemselves with Science, Satire, or alignThemselves with Poetry or Prophecy. So being Aristotle, Rabelais, Paul, Swedenborg. 

 "And as the yearsWent on, as I had time, was fortunateIn finding books I read of many menWho had illumination, as I had it. ReadOf Dante's vision, how he found himselfSaw immortality, lost fear of death. Read Swedenborg, who left the intellectAt fifty-four for God, and entered heavenBefore he quitted life and saw behindThe sun of fire, a sun of love and truth. Read Whitman who exclaimed to God: 'Thou knowestMy manhood's visionary meditationsWhich come from Thee, the ardor and the urge. Thou lightest my life with rays ineffableBeyond all signs, descriptions, languages. 'Read Blake, Spinoza, Emerson, read WordsworthWho 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 impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thoughtAnd rolls through all things. '

 "And at last they called meThe mad, and learned carpenter. And then--I'm growing faint. Your hand, hold ... "

 At this pointHe fainted, sank into a stupor. ThereI 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 talkWas broken, rambling, and of trifling things, Throws no light on the case, being sane enough. He died next morning. 

 Students who desireTo examine the skull and brain may do so nowAt their convenience in the laboratory. 

FRIAR YVES

Said Friar Yves: "God will blessSaint Louis' other-worldliness. Whatever the fate be, still I fareTo fight for the Holy Sepulcher. If I survive, I shall returnWith 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 slainIn Jesus' cause, my soul shall earnImmortal 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 gainTo fly the tepid good and illOf daily living in Champagne, Where those who reach salvation loseThe treasures, raptures of the earth, Captured, possessed, and made to serveThe gospel love of Jesus' birth, Sacrifice, death; where even thosePassing from pious works and prayerTo paradise are not receivedAs those who battled, strove, and lived, And periled bodies, as I chooseTo peril mine, and thus to useBody and soul to build the throneOf Louis the Saint, where Joseph's careLay Jesus under a granite stone. "

Then Friar Yves buckled onHis breastplate, and, at break of dawn, With crossboy, halberd took his way, Walked without resting, without pause, Till the sun hovered at middayOver a tree of glistening leaves, Where a spring gurgled. "Hunger gnawsMy stomach, " whispered Friar Yves. "If I, " he sighed, "could only gain, Like yonder spring, an inner sourceOf life, and need not dew or rainOf human love, or human friends, And thus accomplish my soul's endsWithin 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 springsThrough 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 blendHereafter with Thee?"

 Yves heard, While praying, sounds as when the sodTeems 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 stirredBy voices; then the chestnut treeBecame 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 takeThe form of man for mankind's sake. This drama is played long enoughBy creatures who have naught of me, Save what comes up from foam of the seaTo 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 skyFlushed 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 copeCircled 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, vastValley of Death!"

 A silence fell, Broke by the voice of Gabriel:"Music may follow this, O Lord!Music I hear; I hear discordThrough 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 nightWill follow soon. And men will missThe 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 placeWhere you bend death to sovereign life. Armed kings will battle for the graceOf rulership, for power and goldIn the name of Jesus. Men will holdConclaves of swords to win surceaseOf doctrines of the Prince of Peace. The seed is good, Lord, make the groundGood for the seed you scatter round!"

Said the Great Voice of sweetest tone:"The gardener sprays his plants and treesTo drive out lice and stop disease. After the spraying, fruit is grownRuddy and plump. The shortened eyesOf men can see this end, althoughLeaves wither or a whole tree diesFrom what the gardener does to growApples and plums of sweeter flesh. The gardener lives outside the tree;The gardener knows the tree can seeWhat cure is needed, plans afreshAn end foreseen, and there's the willWherewith the gardener may fulfilThe orchard's destiny. "

 So He spake. And Friar Yves seemed to wake, But did not wake, and only sunkInto another dreaming state, Wherein he saw a woman's formLeaning 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 screenWhereon the crisscross reflect movesOf circling water under the raysOf April sunlight through the spraysOf budding branches in willow groves--A liquid mosaic of green and gold--Thus was her robe. 

 But to beholdHer face was to forget the youthOf her white bosom. All her hairWas tangled serpents; she did wearA single eye in the middle brow. Her cheeks were shriveled, and one toothStuck from shrunken gums. A boughO'ershadowed her the while she grippedA pail in either hand. One drippedClear water; one, ethereal fire. Then to the Graia spoke the friar:"Have mercy! Tell me your desireAnd what you are?"

 Then the Graia said:"My body is Nature and my headIs Man, and God has given meA seeing spirit, strong and free, Though by a single eye, as evenMan 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 quenchThe 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 blessThe soul with when the mountains nodAnd the sun darkens, but for loveOf Man and Life, and love of God. Now look!"

 She dashed the pail of fireAgainst the vault of heaven. It fellAs would a canopy of blueBurned by a soldier's careless torch. She dashed the water into hell, And a great steam rose up with the smellOf gaseous coals, which seemed to scorchAll things which on the good earth grew. "Now, " said the Graia, "loiterer, Awake from slumber, rise and speedTo 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 morningI 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 plantBetween the gusts of rain; and there at nightI sat about the room and hugged the fire. And the rain dripped and the wind blew, we shiveredFor cold and it was June. I ached all throughFor my hard labor, why did muscles grow notTo hardness and cure body, if 'twere body, Or soul if it were soul?

 But there at nightAs I sat aching, worn, before the hourOf sleep, and restless in this intervalOf nothingness, the silence out-of-doors, Timed by the dripping rain, and by the slapOf cards upon a table by a boarderWho passed the time in playing solitaire, Sometimes my ancient host would fill his pipe, And scrape away the dust of long past yearsTo show me what had happened in his life. And as he smoked and talked his aged wifeWould parallel his theme, as a brooks' branchesFormed by a slender island, flow together. Or yet again she'd intercalate a touch, An episode or version. And sometimesHe'd make her hush; or sometimes he'd suspendWhile 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 breathBetween the opening of the outer doorAnd 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 pipeReading the organ of the Adventists, His wife beside him knitting. 

 On the tableAre several magazines with their monthly gristOf stories and of pictures. O such stories!Who writes these stories? How does it happen peopleAre born into the world to read these stories?But anyway the lamp is very bad, And every bone in me aches--and why alwaysMust one be either reading, knitting, talking?Why not sit quietly and think?

 At lastBetween the clicking needles and the slapOf cards upon the table and the swishOf 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 liveTo see the day. Perhaps you'll get your trunk backFrom Jaffa if the Allies win. "

 To meThe wife turns and goes on, "He has a trunk, At least his trunk went on to Jaffa, andIt 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 onAs if our friend here knew the story too. And then you talk as if our hope of the warWas centered on recovering that trunk. "

 "Oh, not at allBut if the Allies win, and the trunk is thereIn Jaffa you might get it back. You knowYou'll never get it back while infidelsRule 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 areThey 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 containedEverything that a man might need in absenceA 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 toolsSent on to Jaffa, too. The scheme was this:To work at cabinet making while observingConditions there in Palestine, and get readyTo 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 houseWho boards stray fishermen, and takes me in. And in a moment Turks and Palestine, And that old dream of Louis the Saint ariseAnd show me how the world is small, and a manNative to Illinois may travel forthAnd mix his life with ancient things afar. To-day be raising corn here and next monthWalking 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 wasTo come in later, soon as I could raiseWhat funds my congregation could affordTo spare for this adventure. "

 "Guess, " she said, "How much it was. "

 I shook my head and sheSaid in a lowered and a tragic voice:"Four hundred dollars, and you can believeIt strapped his church to raise so great a sum. And if they hadn't thought that Christ would comeScarcely before the plan could be put throughOf winning back the Holy Land, that sumHad never been made up and put in goldFor 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 thoughtThe Advent would be June of seventy-six. This was the winter of eighteen seventy-one. He said he had a dream; and in this dreamAn 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 learnThe people and the country. I was to workAt my trade as a cabinet maker, heAt carpentry, which was his trade, and soNo one would know us, or suspect our plan. And thus we could live undisturbed and work, And get all things in readiness, that in timeThe Lord would send us power, and do all things. We were the messengers to go aheadAnd make the ways straight, so I told her of it. "

"You told me, yes, but my trust was as greatAs yours was in the bishop, little the goodTo tell me of it. "

 "Well, I told you of it. And she said, 'If the Lord commands you soYou must obey. ' And so she knit the socksAnd 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 bishopLeft 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 familyOf 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 trainHis congregation almost to a manWas 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 MontreauxTo meet the bishop. Shipped ahead my trunkTo Jaffa as the bishop did. But nowI must tell you my dream. The night beforeI reached Montreaux I had a wondrous dream:I saw the bishop on the station platformHis face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearingHis gold head cane. And sure enough next dayAs I stepped from the train I saw the bishopHis face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearingHis 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 thoughtMore clearly than I did that things were wrong. You can't uproot the confidence of yearsBecause of dreams. And as to brandy blossomsI 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 biggerThan I had ever seen them, eyeing meSilently for a moment, when he said:'What money did you bring?' And so I told him. And he said quickly 'let me have it. ' SoI took my belt off, counted out the goldAnd gave it to him. And he took it, thrust itWith this hand in this pocket, that in that, And sat there and said nothing more, just looked!And then before a word was spoke againI heard a step upon the stair, the stairCame 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 ratherHad gone abroad upon another boatAnd met him in Montreaux. Now from this timeFor forty hours or so all is a blank. I just remember trying to speak and choking, And flying from the room, the bishop clutchingAt my coat sleeve to hold me. After thatI can't recall a thing until I sawA 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 meIn a good bed where I slept half a week. It seems in my bewilderment I wandered, Ran, stumbled, climbed for forty hours or soBy 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 placeWhere lived the English Consul, who arrangedAfter some days for money for my passageBack to America, and in six weeksI 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 getConcerns this woman, the affinity. If, as seems evident, she and the bishopHad planned this run-a-way and used the faith, And you, the congregation to get moneyTo do it with, or used you in particularTo get the money for themselves to live onAfter they had arrived there in Montreaux, If all this be" I said, "why did this womanDescend just at the moment when he asked youFor the money that you had. You might have seen herBefore you gave the money, if you hadYou 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 trunkAnd kit of tools had been returned from JaffaThere to Montreaux, were there that very day, Which means the bishop never meant to goTo Palestine at all, but meant to meetThis woman in Montreaux and live with her. Well, that takes money. So he used my husbandTo get that money. Now you wonder I seeWhy she would chance the spoiling of the scheme, Descend into the room before my husbandHad given up this money, and this money, You see, was treated as a common fundBelonging to the church and to be usedTo get back Palestine, and so the bishopAs 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 descendAnd almost lose the money? Oh, the cat!I know what she did, as well as I had seenHer do it. Yes, she listened at the landing. And when she heard my husband tell the sumWhich he had brought, it wasn't enough to please her, And Satan entered in her heart, and sheWaited until she heard the bishop's pocketsClink with the double eagles, then descendedTo expose the bishop and disgrace him thereAnd everywhere in all the world. Now listen:She got that money or the most of itIn spite of what she did. For in six weeksAfter my husband had returned, she walked, The brazen thing, the public streets of SpringfieldAs jaunty as you please, and pretty soonThe bishop died and all the papers printedThe story of his shame. "

 She had scarce finishedWhen the man at solitaire threw down the deckAnd make a whacking noise and rose and cameAround in front of us and stood and lookedThe old man and old woman over, meHe studied too. Then in an organ voice:"Is there a single verse in the New TestamentThat hasn't sprouted one church anyway, Letting alone the verses that have sproutedTwo, 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 slammedThe door behind him. 

 The old clergymanHad 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 cornerAnd the big drum booms, and the raucous brass hornsMingle with the cymbals and the silver triangle. I stand a moment listening, then my friendWho studies all religions, finds a wonderIn orphic spectacles like this, lays holdUpon my arm and draws me to a doorThrough 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 burstingWith 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 mountsThe platform by the table and begins:"Praise God so many girls are here to-night, And Sister Trickey, by the grace of GodSaved 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 figureOnce trim enough, no doubt, grown stout at last. She was a pretty woman in her time, 'Twas plain to see. A shrewd intelligenceFrom living in the world shines in her face. We settle down to hear from Sister TrickeyAnd 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 JesusForgave me, helped me up and made me clean. My name is Lilah Trickey. Let me tell youHow music was my tempter. Oh, you girls, If there be one before me who can singBeware the devil and beware your voiceThat it be used for Jesus, not for Satan. "

"I had a voice, was leader of the choir, But Satan entered in my voice to temptThe bishop of the church, and in my heartTo tempt and use the bishop; in the bishopOld Satan slipped to lure me from the path. He fell from grace for listening. And IWhose voice had turned him over to the devilFell 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 enoughTo say the bishop and myself elopedWent to Montreaux. He left a wife and children. And I poor silly thing with promisesOf culture of my voice in Paris, lostGood name and all. And he lost all as well. Good name, his soul I fear, because he tookThe church's money saying he would use itTo win the Holy Sepulchre, in factIntending all the while to use the moneyFor travel and for keeping up a houseWith me as soul-mate. For he never meantTo 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 enoughAs 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 SatanBaited the hook with beauty. But the bishopSeemed self-absorbed, depressed and never smiled. And every time his face came close to mineI smelled the brandy on him. Conscience whippedIts venomed tail against his peace of mind. And so he took the brandy to benumbThe sting of conscience and to dull the pain. He told me he had business in MontreauxWhich would require some weeks, would there be metBy people who had money for him. IWas twenty-three and green, besides I walkedIn dreamland thinking of the promised schoolingIn Paris--oh 'twas music, as I said. ". ... 

"At last one day he said a friend was coming, And he went to the station. Very soonI heard their steps, the bishop and his friend. They entered. I was curious and satUpon 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. ' ThenThe bishop said: 'I'll take it. ' In a momentI heard the clinking gold and heard the bishopPutting 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 knowingJust what I did, perhaps I wished to seeThe American who brought the money--well, No matter what it was, I walked in viewUpon the landing, stood there for a momentAnd saw our visitor, a clergymanFrom 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 jerkedThe door ajar, with open mouth backed outUpon the street and ran. I heard him runA 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 bedSo drunk I had to take his clothing offAnd 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 illAnd 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 itTo send my body back. Death's in the cornerBehind 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 GodHas 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 usAnd hailed us as expecting our approach. And there I saw the faces--hundreds maybe, Of congregations who had trusted meIn 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 crowdsArmed as it seemed, exulted, called me general, And shouted forward. So we ran like madAnd 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 enterAnd see the sepulchre, while we keep guard. They pushed me in. But when I was insideThere was no dome, above us was the sky, And what seemed walls was nothing but a fence. Before us was a stable with a stallWhere two cows munched the hay. There was a farmerWho with a pitchfork bedded down the stall. "Where is the holy sepulchre?" I asked--"My army's at the door. " He kept at workAnd 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 feelLess interest than you. But have you thoughtIf you should find it it would only beA 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 motherLay in that corner there, what if she did?That lantern on the wall's the very oneThey 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 magicStripped all the glory off. No angels singing, No star of Bethlehem, no magi kneeling, No Mary crowned, no Jesus King, no mysticBlood 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 dyingToo weak to shake the dream! To see Death thereBehind that cabinet--there--see him look--By God forsaken--all theology, All mystery, all wonder, all delightOf spiritual vision swept away as cleanAs winds sweep up the clouds, and thus to seeWhile 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 flockTo win you with--oh, woman, woman, woman, A barn, a stall, a lantern limned so clearIn such a daylight of clear seeing sensesThat all the splendor, the miraculousWonder of the virgin, nimbused child, The star that followed till it rested overThe manger (such a manger) all are wrecked, All blotted from belief, all snatched awayFrom hands pushed off by God, no longer holdingThe robes of God. '

 "And so the bishop ravedWhile I stood terrified, since I could feelDeath in the room, and almost see the monsterBehind the cabinet. 

 "Then the bishop said:"'My dream went on. I crossed the stable yardAnd 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 lieTormented by the pictures of this dream. Woman, take to your death bed with clear mindOf gospel faith, clean conscience, sins forgiven. The thoughts that we must suffer with and die withAre 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 himThere in Montreaux, and with what gold remainedWent on to Paris. 

 "See how I was markedFor God's salvation. 

 "There I went to seeThe 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 LordMade life too hard for me without the fold. I was so shunned and scorned, I had no placeSave with the fallen, with the mockers, drinkers. Thus being in conviction, after struggles, And many prayers I found salvation, foundMy work in life: which is to talk to girlsAnd stand upon this platform and relateMy story for their good. "

 She ceased. AmensWent 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 cryI woke from deeper slumber--was it sleep?--And saw a hooded figure standing byThe bed whereon I lay. 

 "Why do you keep, O spirit beautiful and swift, this guardAbout my slumber? Shelley, from the deepWhy do you come with veiled face, mighty bard, As that unearthly shape was veiled to youAt Casa Magni?"

 Then the room was starredWith light as I was speaking, and I knewThe god, my brother, from whose face the veilMelted as mist. 

 "What mission fair and true, While I am sleeping, brings you? For I paleAmid this solemn stillness, for your faceUnutterably majestic. "

 As when the daleAt 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 gloomOf clouds like chariots driven on to war, Between whose wheels the swift moon raced and swum. 

A mile beneath us lay the earth, afarWere mountains which as swift as thought drew nearAs we passed over pines, where many a starAnd heaven's light made every frond as clearAs 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 gnashMy breast or side--which was myself, it seemed, The flesh or thinking part of me grown rashAnd violent, a brain soul unredeemed, Which sometime earlier in the grip of DeathForgot its terror when my soul which streamedLike ribbons of silk fire, with quiet breathSaid to the body, as it were a thingSeparate and indifferent: "How uneathThat fellow turns, while I am safe yet clingClose to him, both another and the same. "Now was this mood reversed: That self must wingIts fastest flight to fly him, lest he maimWith fleshly hands my better, stronger part, As dragon wings my flap and quench a flame. ... But as we passed o'er empires and athwartA bellowing strait, beholding bergs and floesAnd running tides which made the sinking heartRise up again for breath, I felt how closeThe god, my brother, was, who would sustainMy wings whatever dangers might oppose, And knowing him beside me, like a strainOf music were his thoughts, though nothing yetWas spoken by him. 

 When as out of rainSuddenly lights may break, the earth was setBeneath us, and we stood and paused to seeThe Düssel river from a parapetOf earth and rock. Then bending curiously, As reaching, in a moment with his handHe scraped the turf and stones, pried up a keyOf harder granite, and at his command, When he had made an opening, I slidAnd sank, down, down through the Devonian landUntil with him I reached a cavern hidFrom every eye but ours, and where no lightBut from our faces was, a pyramidOf hills that walled this crypt of soundless night. Then in a mood, it seemed more fanciful, He bent again and raked, and to my sightUpheaved 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 hullToo fine and large to house the nakednessOf a beast's mind. 

 But as I looked the godBegan these words: "Before the iron stressOf the north pole's dominion fell, he trodThe wastes of Europe, ere the Nile was madeA granary for the east, or ere the clodIn Babylon or India baked was laidFor hovels, this man lived. Ten thousand yearsBefore the earliest pyramid cast its shadeUpon 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 acceptIn terms of thought or vision as the proofOf immanent Power or Love. But this skull keptThe intangible meaning out. This heavy roofOf brutish bone above the eyes was deadEven to lower ethers, no behoofOf seasons, stars or skies took, though they bredSuspicions, fears, or nervous glances, thought, Which silent as a lizard's shadow fledBefore it graved itself, passed over, wroughtNo vision, only pain, which he deemed pangsOf hunger or of thirst. "

 As you have soughtThe meaning of life's riddle, since it hangsIn waking or in slumber just aboveThe highest reach of prophecy, and fangsWith poison of despair all moods but love, Behold its secret lettered on this browPlaced by your own!

 This is the word thereof:_Change and progression from the glazed slough, Where life creeps and is blind, ascending upThe jungled slopes for prey till spirits bowOn Calvaries with crosses, take the cupOf martyrdom for truth's sake. _

 It may beMen of to-day make monstrous war, sleep, sup, Traffic, build shrines, as earliest historyRecords the earliest day, and that the raceIs what it was in virtue, charity, And nothing better. But within this faceNo light shone from that realm where Hindostan, Delving in numbers, watching stars took graceAnd inspiration to explore the planOf heaven and earth. And of the scheme the testIs not five thousand years, which leave the vanJust where it was, but this change manifestIn fifty thousand years between the mindNeanderthal's and Shelley's. 

 Man progressedAlong these years, found eyes where he was blind, Put instinct under thought, crawled from the cave, And faced the sun, till somewhere heaven's windMixed with the light of Lights descending, gaveTo mind a touch of divinity, making wholeAn undeveloped growth. 

 As ships that braveGreat storms at sea on masts a flaming coalFrom heaven catch, bear on, so man was wreathedSomewhere with lightning and became a soul. Into his nostrils purer fire was breathedThan breath of life itself, and by a leap, As lightning leaps from crag to crag, what seethedIn man from the beginning broke the sleepThat lay on consciousness of self, with eyesAwakened saw himself, out of the deepAnd wonder of the self caught the surmiseOf Power beyond this world, and felt it throughThe flow of living. 

 And so man shall riseFrom this illumination, from this clueTo perfect knowledge that this Power exists, And what man is to this Power, even as youHave left Neanderthal lost in the mistsAnd ignorance of centuries untold. What would you say if learned geologistsOut of the rocks and caverns should unfoldThe skulls of greater races, records, booksTo shame us for our day, could we beholdTherein our retrogression? Wonder looksIn vain for these, discovers everywhereProof of the root which darkly bends and crooksFar down and far away; a stalk more fairUpspringing finds its proof, buds on the stalkThe eye may see, at last the flowering flareOf 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 equivocalA Universal Reason, Vision? No. You find no proof of this, but prodigalProof of ascending Life!

 So life shall flowHere on this globe until the final fruitAnd harvest. As it were until the glowOf the great blossom has the attributeIn essence, color of eternal things, And shows no rim between its hues which suitThe infinite sky's. Then if the dead earth swingsA gleaned and stricken field amid the voidWhat 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 chillI heard again, "Then what is life?" And wokeTo find the moonlight on the window sillThat which had seemed his presence. And a cloak, Whose hood was perked upon the moonbeams, madeThe skull of the Neanderthal. The smokeBlown from the fireplace formed the cavern's shade. And roaring winds blew down as they had tunedThe 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 laughAs the monarch dries his eyes. --The Search

"The tiger banyer, that is what you call muchBad men in China, Amelica. The dragon banyer. That is storm, leprosy, no rice, what you callNature. See! Nature!"--King Joy_

 * * * * *

Said Old King Cole I know the bannerOf dragon and tiger too, But I would know the vagrant fellowsWho came to my castle with you. 

 * * * * *

And I would know why they rise in the morningAnd never take bread or scrip;And why they hasten over the mountainIn 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 PantagruelAnd one I think is Faust. 

 * * * * *

Whoever they be, said Pantagruel, Why stand at the window and drool?Let's out and catch the runawaysWhile the morning hour is cool. 

 * * * * *

Pantagruel runs to the castle court, And King Cole follows soon. The cobblestones of the court yard ringTo the beat of their flying shoon. 

 * * * * *

Pantagruel clutches the holy bottle, And King Cole clutches his crown. They throw the bolt of the castle gateAnd 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 bannerWait 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 treeDoes 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 skyLooking 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 runFrom 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 plainAre the glitter of guns and a million menLed by an idiot brain. 

 * * * * *

They come to a field of slush and flawRed with a blood red dye. And a million faces fungus paleStare horribly at the sky. 

 * * * * *

They come to a cross where a rotting thingIs slipping down from the nails. And a raven perched on the eyeless skullOpens 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 laughedLoud 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 bottleBut 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 timeBefore 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 yetThe laugh that has an end. "

 * * * * *

Pantagruel passes and looks around himBrave 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 upAnd carry the body for meUntil you come to a silent water, By the sands of a silent sea. 

 * * * * *

Pantagruel takes the body upAnd the dead fat bends him down. He climbs the mountains, runs the valleysWith 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 bottleMocks his burning thirst. 

 * * * * *

Pantagruel wanders seven days, And seven nights wanders he. And on the seventh night he rests himBy 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 faceStarred with a great desire. 

 * * * * *

Pantagruel hungers, Pantagruel thirsts, Pantagruel falls to his knees. He flings down the body of Old King ColeAs 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 FranceMy bottle to refill. "

 * * * * *

"And as for me I go to FranceTo 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 friendHas brought my cup to me. That is the cup whereof I drankIn the garden Gethsemane. 

 * * * * *

Pantagruel hands the cup to JesusWho 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 PantagruelWith the dregs for him to drain. 

 * * * * *

Pantagruel drinks and falls into slumber, And Jesus strokes his hair. And Faust sings a song of EuphorionTo 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 standsBeside me. And I wake these later daysIn an April mood, a wonder light and free. The vision is gone, but gone the constant painOf constant thought. I see dawn from my hill, And watch the lights which fingers from the watersTwine from the sun or moon. Or look acrossThe 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 skyIn terrible glory. 

 And earth charmed I lieBefore the staring sphinx whose musing faceIs this Egyptian heaven, and whose eyesAre separate clouds of gold, whose pedestalIs earth, whose silken sheathed clawsNo longer toy with me, even while I stroke them:Since I have ceased to tease her. 

 Then beholdA breeze is blown out of a world becalmed, And as I see the multitudinous leavesFluttered against the water and the light, And see this light unveil itself, revealAn inner light, a Presence, Secret splendor, I clap hands over eyes, for the earth reels;And I have fears of dieties shown or spunFrom nothingness. But when I look againThe earth has stayed itself, I see the lake, The leaves, the light of the sun, the cyclop hoodsOf thunder heads, yet feel upon my armA hand I know, and hear a voice I know--He has returned and brought with him the thoughtAnd the old pain. 

 The voice says: "Leave the sphinx. The garden waits your study fully grown. "And I arise and follow down a slopeTo a lawn by the lake and an ancient seat of stone, And near it a fountain's shattered rim enclosingAn Eros of light mood, whose sculptured smileConsciously dimples for the unveiled pistil of love, As he strokes with baby hand the slender archingNeck of a swan. And here is a peristyleWhose carven columns are pink as the long updrawnStalks of tulips bedded in April snow. And sunk amid tiger lillies is the faceOf an Asian Aphrodite close to the seatWith feet of a Babylonian lion amidThis ruined garden of yellow daisies, poppiesAnd ruddy asphodel from Crete, it seems, Though here is our western moon as white and thinAs an abalone shell hung under the boughsOf an oak, that is mocked by the vastness of sky betweenHis boughs and the moon in this sky of afternoon. ... We walk to the water's edge and here he shows meGreen scum, or stalks, or sedges, grasses, shrubs, That yield to trees beyond the levels, whereThe beech and oak have triumph; for alongThis gradual growth from algae, reeds and grasses, That builds the soil against the water's hands, All things are fierce for place and garner lifeFrom weaker things. 

 And then he shows me root stocks, And Alpine willow, growths that sneak and crawlBeneath the soil. Or as we leave the lakeAnd walk the forest I behold lianas, Smilax or woodbine climbing round the trunksOf giant trees that live and out of earth, And out of air make strength and food and askNo other help. And in this place I seeSpiral bryony, python of the vinesThat coils and crushes; and that banyan treeWhose spreading branches drop new roots to earth, And lives afar from where the parent trunkHas sunk its roots, so that the healthful sunIs darkened: as a people might be darkenedBy 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, heatOf 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, goIn search of life, or if they cannot moveDie in the ruthless marches. 

 That is life, he said. For even these, the giants scatter lifeInto the maws of death. That towering treeThat for these hundred years has leafed itself, And through its leaves out of the magic airDrawn nutriment for annual girths, took rootOut 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 sproutedAmid thick jealous growth wherein they fell. All acorns but this one were lost. 

 Then he readsMy questioning thought and shows me yuccas, cactusWhose thick leaves in the rainless places thrive. And shows me leaves that must have rain, and rootsThat must have water where the river flows. And how the spirit of life, though turned or drivenThis way or that beyond a course begun, Cannot be stayed or quenched, but moves, conformsTo soil and sun, makes roots, or thickens leaves, Or thins or re-adjusts them on the stemTo fashion forth itself, produce its kind. Nor dies not, rests not, nor surrenders not, Is only changed or buried, re-appearsAs other forms of life. 

 We had walked throughA forest of sequoias, beeches, pines, And ancient oaks where I could see the traceOf willows, alders, ruined or devouredBy the great Titans. 

 At lastWe reached my hill and sat and overlookedThe garden at our feet, even to the placeOf tiger lilies and of asphodel, By now beneath the self-same moon, grown denser:As where the wounded surface of the shellThickens its shimmering stuff in spiral coignsOf the shell, so was the moon above the seatBeside the Eros and the AphroditeSunk amid yellow daisies and deep grass. And here we sat and looked. And here my visionWas over all we saw, but not a partOf what we saw, for all we saw stood forthAs foreign to myself as something touchedTo learn the thing it is. 

 I might have askedWho owns this garden, for the thought aroseWith my surprise, who owns this garden, whoPlanted this garden, why and to what end, And why this fight for place, for soil and sunWater and air, and why this enmityBetween the things here planted, and betweenFlying or crawling life and plants, and whenceThe power that falls in one place but arisesSome other place; and why the unceasing growthOf all these forms that only come to seed, Then disappear to enrich the insatiate soilWhere the new seed falls? But silence kept me thereFor wonder of the beauty which I saw, Even while the faculty of external visionKept 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 endOf good or beauty made experimentsWith seed or soils or crossings of the seed. Even as peoples, epochs, did the gardenLie to my vision, or as races crowding, Absorbing, dispossessing, killing races, Not only for a place to grow, but underA 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 oneBeside the life within the plant, withinThe 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, spraysFor insects which devour, keeps rich the soilFor those who pray and know the GardenerAs One who is without and over-sees? ... 

But while in contemplation of the garden, Whether from failing day or from departureOf my own vision in the things it saw, Bereft of penetrating thought I sank, Became a part of what I saw and lostThe great solution. 

 As we sat in silence, And coming night, what seemed the sinking moon, Amid the yellow sedges by the lakeBegan 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 heavenAnd blew the flames, first through the ruined garden, Then through the wood, the fields of wheat, at lastNothing was left but waste and wreaths of smokeTwisting toward the stars. And there he satNor uttered aught, save when I sighed he said"If it be comforting I promise youAnother spring shall come. "

 "And after that?""Another spring--that's all I know myself, There shall be springs and springs!"