Part 7
I see at last I am not one but many minds at once, And many personalities. As a boy I took the color of the leaves or wall Where I was resting, climbing. If in truth I lived three months with an uncle, then they said You look just like your uncle. When I worked Under a lawyer's tutelage, they said: How much your face resembles his. I knew My face and voice and gestures simulated Those I admired or lived with. But besides I took a certain pleasure, impish, maybe, In egging on, agreeing with, the souls Whom I sought out; I used to tell my uncle, A man of firmest piety, what I heard Of blasphemy about the village, just To hear him deprecate it, look with dark And flashing eyes upon such sin, while I, With serious face and earnest sympathy With what he felt, was laughing in my sleeve. Here is the germ then of my after life: The faculty that harmonized my hue Of spirit with the place, the person, while Something in me, perhaps supremest self, Stood quite aloof and smiled.
But, as I said, When our Republic left its hill of vision, Descended to the place of herding hogs, This self of me, the adventurer, rose up And led me forth to play with life, and first To try theology, as I have said... I was a wonder bred among the crew Of quiet, gate-toothed, crook-nosed psychopaths, The foul-breathed, thick-lipped onanists who filled The seminary, stared at me to see How I learned Sanscrit, could defend and rout The atheistic speculations. Well, What I enjoyed most was to get a crowd Of celibates and talk of chastity, And get them in a glow, and say to them: The mind is fortified by abstinence, The spirit clarified and lifted up-- I got a thrill somehow. But all the time I knew a girl named Ella. Oftentimes Lying beside her I would shriek with laughter And she would ask, what is the matter, John? And I would say: I'm thinking of a song I heard one time: "They'd never know me now." And Ella said: If Dr. Simpson knew That you were here with me, you'd take a fall Out of the Seminary's second floor....
But I went through and didn't fall. And thought This is a way to live, I'll preach awhile, And see what comes. I took a church and preached, Was known as Smith the eloquent, the earnest. But all the time I heard a voice that said: "They'd never know me now." When I came in The Sunday School and little children flocked About my knees and patient teachers looked With white, pure faces at me, then that voice "They'd never know me now" was in my ear....
Well, to go on, a widow in my church Young, beautiful and rich began to beat Her wings around my flame, and on the Sunday I preached about the rich young man, she came, Invited me to dinner. We commenced, Were married in six months. And to conserve Her properties I studied law, at last Was spending days with brokers, business men, Began to tell her that my health was failing, Saw doctors frequently to play the part. And then she said: You must resign your charge, Your health is breaking, dear. And I resigned To spend the time in checking mortgages, Collecting rents:--"They'd never know me now"...
We went the round of summer places, travel, Saw Europe, China, India and the Isles. Near Florence had a villa for a time, Met people of all kinds, when I was forty I had a thousand selves, but if I had A self in truth it was submerged or scrawled Like a palimpsest all over and so lost. I didn't know myself, was anything To every one, and everything to all. I felt the walking age come on me now: A polar bear in a terrible rhythm swings His body back and forth behind the bars, And I would walk in restlessness or think Of other skies and places, teased and stung By memories of my other selves, by wonder About what may be happening here or there; What are they doing now? What is she doing? There were a dozen shes to wonder about, And if you think of one you wish to see, And dream she knows delight apart from you, You simply thrill, the wings you lost revolve, Like thumbs, vestigial stubs--but there you sit. Thank God the aeroplane came on to help, And wipe out distance, for you find at last Distance is tragedy, terrifies the soul With space which must be mastered by the soul.
And so I bought a hydroplane. Perhaps Would be upon my lawn at sun-down holding These children on my knees, a lovely picture! Then as a fish darts out of darkened water Into a water sun-lit, there would come A thought--we'll say of Alice--in two hours I'd be upon her little sleeping porch Two hundred miles away, beneath the stars Of middle summer, having killed that space, And found the hour I wanted--hearing too "They'd never know me now" sung in my ears.
And I remember when we were in Florence My tribe had gone to Milan for some weeks, And I was quite alone, too bored to live. One listless afternoon who should come in? My wife's friend Constance--but to tell the truth More friend of mine than hers, for all my life I seemed to have these secret understandings, And was two persons to a twain who thought They were the bond, whereas the bond existed Between myself and one, and to the other Was not so much as dreamed.
And Constance brought A certain Countess with her. In a glance We two, the Countess and myself, beheld A flame that joined our hands. And in a week The Countess took me on her yacht to Capri, And round the Mediterranean. No one knew, Not Constance, nor my wife, for I returned Before she came from Milan.
Oh that week! That breeze that sung the port-holes, waters blue And stars at night and music; and the Countess Whose voice was like a lute of gold, who lived, Knew life, was unafraid. She heard me say "They'd never know me now." And softly murmured Smiling the while: il lupo cangia Il pelo ma non il vizio Adding, Qual matto! Something yet remains That makes you charming! Oh the feasts and wine, The songs and poems, till at last too soon We anchored in the bay of Naples. When I saw Vesuvius, then I felt again That sinking of the heart that I had known, That sickness, strange, nostalgia, from a boy, Of which a word again. But now it was Precursive of the end, the finished idyll. The Countess took my hand, with misty eyes-- They let me off and rowed me to the dock, I caught the train to Florence, magically Before I had forgotten, seemed to be Upon the yacht still, was in truth alone Amid the silence of my dining room, Supping alone--"They'd never know me now!"
Later I had the fever, was delirious And saw myself receding as if backing Into a funnel toward the little end, And growing smaller as the funnel narrowed Until I was so small I held myself Within the palm's hand of my other self, Laughed like a devil, scared the nurse to death, Saying "They'd never know me now--just look!" My wife too had the fever. I awoke Out of this illness, found that she was gone, Had died a week before and for a week Had been entombed while I was raving--then If any real self of me ever was it came Back to me then. I bowed my head and wept And scanned my life back:
What was that in me Which made me homesick from a boy right through This life of mine, not for my home, for something, Some place, some hand, some scene, which made me dread All partings, overwhelmed me with a grief For ended raptures, kept my brain too full Of memories, never lost, that grew until I lost myself, and seemed a thousand selves Wandering through a thousand years, how restless!
Then mutterings shook our skies! Another war, France, Germany and England, so it seemed Best to return here to America. I gathered up the children--all but one, The boy eighteen escaped me, ran away And joined the English army. Now I saw One self of me repeated, that which went To free the Cubans! Curse these freedom wars! They shipped him off to India, soon he had His fill of liberty. But I came back And here I am. "They'd never know me now!"
For what is left of me, what ever was To be peeled off to realest core? The soldier Gone out of me entirely; long ago, The dreamer of a better world; the self That said I'm on the pinnacle, took arms To free the Cubans; self of me that hungered For pyramids and mountains, ancient streams, Nile and the Ganges; self of me that turned To be a father holding on his knees A romping bevy; self of me that dreamed One heart, one hand enough, oh even the self That dreamed there is a hand a heart for me, Who found in truth no solace in the wife But only a teasing, torturing recollection That I had missed the one, or missed the many.
So I was in America again, Had fled the war and plunged into the war:-- The waves roared yonder, but the shores were here Where wreckage, putrid monsters were thrown up, Corpses of ancient liberties and bones Of treasured beauty; and I saw the Land Don every despot weapon, as it did When I fought for the Cubans, even worse. They shipped my boy to Africa; in spite Of censorship I pieced the picture out, Knew what he suffered, how they took his faith And dimmed its flame with ordure. Then came forth That father self of me. I brooded on His blue eyes, gentle ways, sat terrified And tried to trace the days through and the years When he had slipped from just a little boy Into a stripling, soldier finally-- While I--what was I doing? Oh, my God, Living these other selves, oblivious That this boy was. I'd jump from soundest sleep Thinking of him in Africa, and seized With dreams that I must fly to him. O years Wherein I lost that boy. How could I live So many lives and not lose out of some, Some precious thing? Well, then I broke at last, They brought me here: "They'd never know me now."
NEL MEZZO DEL CAMMIN
You call this a world! Cloud cuckoo town, Nephelo coccygia, warp and woof, Now at the last I write it down, Since I no longer have the proof To show it isn't opera bouffe, A moving picture film and scene; Stage world, with the glue between The angels' feathers, the devil's hoof Neither violent nor venene.
* * * * *
Eheu! The middle of the way too-- Gethsemane and left in the lurch. Storms frowning up the dying day too, Bending a weed that was a birch. I can step right over the tallest church. Trumpets have shrunk to trumpet toys, Tottle-te-toot! I hear the clocks Ticking in paper breasts. What noise! Gorges and towering rocks Are just the canvas He employs, With gelatine rivers and candy lochs, Shored in with painted blocks.
I passed through a jungle where smoky mosses Hung from the trees, the crocodile Slept or clambered about the fosses; Buzzards roosting, not very vile; Rivers of red-ink shed for crosses. Centaurs with arrows file on file Drew and shouted: he seems to smile Let's make him weep a while.
Look out for the lion! Said I, with a scowl, Let the lion growl: Cat-gut scraped in the painted wings. Does the terrible tiger howl: Tin cans and resined strings. Do the dead gibber and does the owl Hoot where the shroud is slipping, clings? Who pressed the squeaky springs In the death bird that it sings?
And you, sir! Well, one time I was sure You carried a poisoned dart! And now you're empty space as pure As the sky when clouds are blown apart. Ether! Radium! Nothing! A cure For grit and dust which start Grief in this Waterbury heart.
For I had trod the cobra, found He is but calico, cotton stuffed. The boa chased me round and round, Hyenas tracked me, licked and snuffed, And made my poor heart flutter and pound, Until I saw the mirror is all, And the wood became a rare-bit dream With monstrous faces and figures packed. And then you ask: Is the mirror cracked, Or is it so bright that it casts a beam Through all the shadow scheme?
One time I saw a river's bank Shaved down with spades as sheer as a wall, Wasp holes, snake holes cut in two Brought these molds of earth to view. I turned away where the air was blank And here was a thing fantastical: Space was cored like the honey comb With forms of things that crawl and roam, Animals, men. As I am alive I saw the form of a horse and cow Edged with air and hollow as space. But a horse and cow began to thrive In just a second, a drifting mist Flowed into the molds before my face. And the animals moved, I don't know how, Out of the all surrounding mesh, Creatures of bone and flesh!
And it was just the same with men. I vow I saw an astral stuff poured in Pockets of air and men became Voices talking of good and evil, Virtue, courage, vice and sin, God and the devil.
For the all unfolding Air is what? The Great Idea, if so I may say, A sort of Ocean leaping to waves. And what do you care if they pass away? They sink to their source, not into graves. Beasts may vanish, races decay, The Ocean will always remain the same; With new waves rising, no two alike; Waves that are little and waves that rise In storms and touch the skies.
R. Browning, you were a man of power, But I don't think much of your tower. And I see no use of blowing a horn, The tower is merely papier-maché, And comes no higher than to my knees. I step right over it--pick a flower, Purple, it may be, called heart's ease And go with the way of the seas.
For I am an optimist better than you: This dream is hell, but it's all to the good: The Ocean is water in calm or flood. There's nothing wrecked, or wrongly wrought, There's nothing real but Thought!
THE OAK TREE
The oak in later August, Before his leaves are strewn, And the sky is blue as June, Trembles from trunk to branches For frosts that will be soon From the valleys of the moon!
For breezes blown in August Veer north with cold and rain; And the oak tree sighs and shivers For lights that shift and wane: As a strong man sees the specters Of age, disease and pain, The oak flings up to heaven His branches in the rain.
September comes, September Spreads out a sky that chills. The owl hoots and the cricket Beside the roadway shrills, And on the stricken hills. But the oak tree, the oak tree Still flaunts his shining leaves. No change has come but swallows Who fled the summer eaves!
But when October breezes, And cold November gales Descend upon the oak tree What strength of him avails, Grown naked to the tempest, For life that sleeps and fails? O oak tree, oak tree, The winter snow prevails! It cannot be your branches, It is the wind that wails!
THE HOUSE ON THE HILL
Eagle, your broken wings are tangled Among the mountain ferns On a ledge of rock on high. Below the yawning chasm turns To blackness, but the evening planet burns Above the gulf in a gold and purple sky!
Vultures and kites Fly to their rookeries In the rocks With swift and ragged wings against the lights. From levels and from leas Haste the returning flocks. Foxes have holes and serpents the grass for flight. Eagle, arise! It is night.
The world's wanderer finds you As he climbs the mountains In the unending quest. Can you spread wings across the darkening chasm To the craggy nest, Where the foreboding mate lies still? Croak for the evening star, And beat your shattered wings against your breast! Across the gulf the wanderer sees afar A light in the house on the hill!
WASHINGTON HOSPITAL
That's right, sponge off his face. My name? Oh, yes, James Frothingham, a reverend, have the church At the corner of Ayer and Knox Streets, Methodist. As I was passing by a vile saloon Some men were entering the back room, saying Is he dead or drunk, and such things. I looked in, Went in at last and saw this fellow there, Hunched, doubled down into a chair asleep, Mud on his face as you saw, clothes bespattered, The smell of drink upon him. Then we took him And brought him here, I helped, a Christian duty. But more important, if he wakes I'm here To bring his soul to Christ before he dies-- And he is dying. Yes, it's plain enough The snows of death are falling. Sponge his face, And wash his hands! I never saw such hands Slender and beautiful! Now you have sponged His face, look at that brow--it terrifies-- He looks now like a god--who is this man? I'll tell you all I know: These men were talking And this is what they said: This is the fellow They voted yesterday from booth to booth, They voted him twenty times, and kept him drunk To vote him. First they found him at the station, A little tipsy, talking of his griefs. The conductor put him off here, being drunk. And so these fellows for election day Took him in hand and voted him around, This was the talk.
Look at the curse of drink! If he had touched no drink, he had not been Tipsy to fall into these ruffian hands, Who gave him drink and drink and used him thus To violate the suffrage, lose his life Through drink, as he will lose it. He is dying, Death comes of Sin--what plainer truth than this? Sin blinds, too, for that brow could comprehend All things by using what God gave to it. I do not know his name, with your permission I'll search his pockets--yes, here is a letter-- No signature, looks like a draught--I'll read:
"Why have you wounded me with words like these: 'He has great genius but no moral sense,' And written to another! Oh my love! By this love which I bear you, by the God Who reigns in heaven do I swear to you My soul is like a wandering star, consumed By its own passion, fire, and the eternal Longing for the eternal, wandering, erring, But flaming, loving light, aspiring to The Light of Lights, some sun, I do not know. It is incapable of aught but honor. And save for follies, trifles in excess, Which I lament, but which in men of wealth, Or worldly power would never raise a word, I can recall no act of mine to bring A blush to your cheek or to mine.
My love, My erring which has counted, by the test Of strength or weakness for the game of life, Has been Quixotic honor, chivalry. And to indulge this feeling I have paid, Though it has been my true voluptuousness, My highest, purest pleasure. Yes, for this I threw away a fortune, glad to throw it, Rather than suffer wrong, though trivial, As worldly men would count it:--for a father's Laughter at my writing turned away To follow voices, and defied his will To harness me to business. So it is To keep my spirit spotless from the world, As I have visioned things, I came at last By this deserted shore, alone, alone, Now quite alone since you withdrew yourself, Took back your hand and left me to my way, Traveled so long that I can see the tomb At the vista's end not very far.
Oh, love, Why is there not a heart that loves but mine? If you had been a Magdalen, I had pressed Your head against my breast and kept you there-- But you--my spirit drifts with stricken wings-- But you because of gossip, crawling words About my drinking, lies as I shall prove, Can hold a handkerchief upon your eyes To hide tumultuous tears, extend your hand And say farewell forever, cut our lives Of days or months, fragile and trivial Asunder--when your hand, your faith, your love Had cured me of my spirit's desolation, My terror of this solitude in life-- Or if it cured me not, I had been eased, And you had gained for giving--what have you For your decision? Sorrow, if you love me, Perhaps a conscience whisper that you failed In justice, sacrifice; perhaps the thought Life with me drinking, to the excess you thought, Is better than a life where I am not. What have you gained? In a few years we two Will be at one with earth--before it comes Are not sweet hours together worth the cost Of a little drink? You who have riches, need not My labors for your bread, but need my love, Which you crush out. But as to drink, I swear I do not drink."
Ahem! the fellow stirs But will not wake, I fear. You heard that last: He swears he does not drink. Drink and untruth Go always hand in hand. This letter's long-- Let's see what he comes up with at the last:
"But as to drink, I swear I do not drink-- How if I drank could I produce the works I have produced? A giant's task, when drink Sustains me not, is not my nutriment As hock and soda water were for Byron, But sets me flaming wild, a little drink Will set me flaming, poisons me, I know. And yet I must partake of drink sometimes For life is flying, is recession, we Are shrinking back into ourselves, at last The arms we shrank from close about us--death's. And there are souls born lonely; I am one. And gifted with the glance of looking through The shams, the opera bouffe, and I am one. Often after a stretch of toil when I Come out of the trance of writing spent and wracked, I used to walk to High Bridge, sit and muse, (For this brain never stops and that's my curse,) Upon this monstrous world and why it is; And why the souls who love the beautiful, And love it only and are doomed to speak Its wonder and its terror are alone, Misunderstood and hunted, fouled by falsehood, Have crumbs upon the steps, are licked by dogs, Or else are starved. And why it is that I Must go about, a beggar, with my songs Exchanging them for bread. And then it is When this poor brain like the creative stuff, The central purpose, whirls, as I have written, And will not stop--drink! for oblivion, For rest, to get away from self, back faster From the pursuing Nothing.