Part 1
Produced by Chuck Greif, Larry B. Harrison, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
THE GREAT VALLEY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO
THE GREAT VALLEY
_By_ EDGAR LEE MASTERS AUTHOR OF “SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY”, “SONGS AND SATIRES,” ETC.
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1916 _All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1916. Reprinted November, 1916.
Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO THE MEMORY OF SQUIRE DAVIS AND LUCINDA MASTERS WHO, CLOSE TO NATURE, ONE IN DEEP RELIGIOUS FAITH, THE OTHER IN PANTHEISTIC RAPTURE AND HEROISM, LIVED NEARLY A HUNDRED YEARS IN THIS LAND OF ILLINOIS I INSCRIBE THE GREAT VALLEY IN ADMIRATION OF THEIR GREAT STRENGTH, MASTERY OF LIFE, HOPEFULNESS, CLEAR AND BEAUTIFUL DEMOCRACY
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
CONTENTS
PAGE
FORT DEARBORN 1
CAPT. JOHN WHISTLER 5
EMILY BROSSEAU: IN CHURCH 12
THE OUIJA BOARD 19
HANGING THE PICTURE 21
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATES 26
AUTOCHTHON 33
GRANT AND LOGAN AND OUR TEARS 43
THE MUNICIPAL PIER 49
GOBINEAU TO TREE 53
OLD PIERY 60
THE TYPICAL AMERICAN? 68
COME, REPUBLIC 72
PAST AND PRESENT 76
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 77
AT HAVANA 78
THE MOURNER’S BENCH 80
THE BAY WINDOW 83
MAN OF OUR STREET 90
ACHILLES DEATHERIDGE 93
SLIP SHOE LOVEY 95
THE ARCHANGELS 98
SONG OF CHANGE 101
MEMORABILIA 102
TO A SPIROCHÆTA 104
CATO BRADEN 106
WINSTON PRAIRIE 120
WILL BOYDEN LECTURES 125
THE DESPLAINES FOREST 129
THE GARDEN 131
THE TAVERN 134
O SAEPE MECUM 138
MALACHY DEGAN 141
MY DOG PONTO 144
THE GOSPEL OF MARK 147
MARSYAS 154
WORLDS BACK OF WORLDS 160
THE PRINCESS’ SONG 164
THE FURIES 166
APOLLO AT PHERÆ 168
STEAM SHOVEL CUT 173
THE HOUSES 178
THE CHURCH AND THE HOTEL 185
SUSIE 188
HAVING HIS WAY 190
THE ASP 198
THE FAMILY 206
THE SUBWAY 207
THE RADICAL’S MESSAGE 211
BOMBYX 216
THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS 218
A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS 224
THEODORE DREISER 228
JOHN COWPER POWYS 231
NEW YEAR’S DAY 234
PLAYING BLIND 240
I SHALL NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN 241
ELIZABETH TO MONSIEUR D---- 244
MONSIEUR D---- TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 249
THE LAST CONFESSION 261
IN THE LOGGIA 268
BE WITH ME THROUGH THE SPRING 272
DESOLATE SCYTHIA 273
THE SEARCH 274
THE GREAT VALLEY
I
FORT DEARBORN
Here the old Fort stood When the river bent southward. Now because the world pours itself into Chicago The Lake runs into the river Past docks and switch-yards, And under bridges of iron.
Sand dunes stretched along the lake for miles. There was a great forest in the Loop. Now Michigan Avenue lies Between miles of lights, And the Rialto blazes Where the wolf howled.
In the loneliness of the log-cabin, Across the river, The fur-trader played his fiddle When the snow lay About the camp of the Pottawatomies In the great forest. Now to the music of the Kangaroo Hop, And Ragging the Scale, And La Seduccion, The boys and girls are dancing In a cafe near Lake Street.
The world is theirs now. There is neither a past nor a to-morrow, Save of dancing. Nor do they know that behind them In the seed not yet sown There are eyes which will open upon Chicago, And feet which will blossom for the dance, And hands which will reach up And push them into the silence Of the old fiddler.
They threw a flag Over the coffin of Lieutenant Farnum And buried him back of the Fort In ground where now The spice mills stand. And his little squaw with a baby Sat on the porch grieving While the band played. Then hands pushing the world Buried a million soldiers and afterward Pale multitudes swept through the Court-house To gaze for the last time Upon the shrunken face of Lincoln.
And the fort at thirty-fifth street vanished. And where the Little Giant lived They made a park And put his statue Upon a column of marble. Now the glare of the steel mills at South Chicago Lights the bronze brow of Douglas. It is his great sorrow Haunting the Lake at mid-night.
When the South was beaten They were playing John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the Grave, And Babylon is Fallen and Wake Nicodemus. Now the boys and girls are dancing To the Merry Whirl and Hello Frisco Where they waltzed in crinoline When the Union was saved.
There was the Marble Terrace Glory of the seventies! They wrecked it, And brought colors and figures From later Athens and Pompeii And put them on walls. And beneath panels of red and gold, And shimmering tesseræ, And tragic masks and comic masks, And wreaths and bucrania, Upon mosaic floors Red lipped women are dancing With dark men. Some sit at tables drinking and watching, Amorous in an air of French perfumes.
Like ships at mid-night The kingdoms of the world Know not whither they go nor to what port. Nor do you, embryo hands, In the seed not yet sown Know of the wars to come.
They may fill the sky with armored dragons And the waters with iron monsters; They may build arsenals Where now upon marble floors The boys and girls Are dancing the Alabama Jubilee, The processional of time is a falling stream Through which you thrust your hand. And between the dancers and the silence forever There shall be the livers Gazing upon the torches they have lighted, And watching their own which are failing, And crying for oil, And finding it not!
II
CAPTAIN JOHN WHISTLER
(_Captain John Whistler built Fort Dearborn in 1803. His son, George Washington, who was an engineer and built a railroad in Russia for the Czar in 1842, was the father of the artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler._)
Throw logs upon the fire! Relieve the guard At the main gate and wicket gate! Lieutenant Send two men ’round the palisades, perhaps They’ll find some thirsty Indians loitering Who may think there is whiskey to be had After the wedding. Get my sealing wax! Now let me see “November, eighteen four: Dear Jacob: On this afternoon my daughter Was married to James Abbott, it’s the first Wedding of white people in Chicago-- That’s what we call Fort Dearborn now and then. They left at once on horseback for Detroit.” The “Tracy” will sail in to-morrow likely. “To Jacob Kingsbury”--that’s well addressed. Don’t fail to give this letter to the captain, That it may reach Detroit ere they do. I wonder how James Abbott and my Sarah Will fare three hundred miles of sand and marsh, And tangled forest in this hard November? More logs upon the fire! The mist comes down! The lake roars like a wind, and not a star Lights up the blackness. They have almost reached The Calumet by now. Good luck James Abbott! I’m glad my Sarah wed so brave a man, And one so strong of arm.
It’s eighteen four, It’s almost eighteen five. It’s twenty years Since I was captured when Burgoyne was whipped At Saratoga. Why, it’s almost twenty Since I became an American soldier. Now Here am I builder of this frontier fort, And its commander! Aged now forty-nine. But in my time a British soldier first, Now an American; first resident Of Ireland, then England, Maryland, Now living here. I see the wild geese fly To distant shores from distant shores and wonder How they endure such strangeness. But what’s that To man’s adventures, change of home, what’s that To my unsettled life? Why there’s La Salle: They say La Salle in sixteen seventy-one Was here, and now it’s almost eighteen five. And what’s your wild geese to La Salle! He’s born At Rouen, sails the seas, and travels over Some several thousand miles through Canada. Is here exploring portages and rivers. Ends up at last down by the Rio Grande, And dies almost alone half way around The world from where he started. There’s a man! May some one say of me: There was a man!...
I’m lonely without Sarah, without James. Tom bring my pipe and that tobacco bag. Here place my note to Jacob Kingsbury There on the shelf--remember, to the captain When the “Tracy” comes. Draw, boys, up to the fire I’ll tell you what a wondrous dream I had, And woke with on my Sarah’s wedding day....
I had an uncle back in Ireland Who failed at everything except his Latin. He could spout Virgil till your head would ache. And when I was a boy he used to roll The Latin out, translating as he went: The ghost of Hector comes before Æneas, And warns him to leave Troy. His mother Venus Tells him to settle in another land! The Delphic oracle misunderstood, Æneas goes to Crete. He finds at last His ships are fired by the Trojan women, Great conflagration! Down he goes to hell, And then the Sibyl shows him what’s to be: What race of heroes shall descend from him, And how a city’s walls he shall up-build In founding Rome....
So last night in my dream This uncle came to me and said to me: “‘Aeneas’ Whistler you shall found a city. You’ve built Fort Dearborn, that is the beginning. Imperial Rome could be put in a corner Of this, the city which you’ll found. Fear not The wooden horse, but have a care for cows: I see ships burning on your muddy Tiber, And toppling walls.” I dreamed I felt the heat. But then a voice said “Where’s your little boy George Washington?”--come sit on father’s knee, And hear about my dream--there little boy! Well, as I said, I felt the heat and then I felt the cruelest cold and then the voice: “You cannot come to Russia with your boy, He’ll make his way.” I woke up with these words, And found the covers off and I was cold. And then no sooner did I fall asleep Than this old uncle re-appeared and said: “A race of heroes shall descend from you, Here shall a city stand greater than Rome.” With that he seemed to alter to a witch, A woman’s form, the voice of him changed too, And said: “I’m Mother Shipton, Captain Whistler. “Men through the mountains then shall ride, “Nor horse nor ass be by their side”-- Think, gentlemen, what it would be to ride In carriages propelled by steam! And then This dream became a wonder in a wonder Of populous streets, of flying things, of spires Of driven mist that looked like fiddle strings From tree to tree. Of smoke-stacks over-topping The tallest pine; of bridges built of levers, And such a haze of smoke, and cloud like shapes Passing along like etchings one by one: Cathedrals, masts as thick as hazel thickets, And buildings great as hills, and miles of lights. Till by some miracle the sun had moved, And rose not in the east but in the south. And shone along the shore line of the Lake, As he shines o’er the Lake when he arises, And makes an avenue of gold, no less This yellow sand took glory of his light. And where he shone it seemed an avenue, And over it, where now the dunes stretch south, Along the level shore of sand, there stood These giant masses, etchings as it were! And Mother Shipton said: “This is your city. “A race of heroes shall descend from you; “Your son George Washington shall do great deeds. “And if he had a son what would you name him?” Well, as I went to sleep with thoughts of Sarah And praises for James Abbott, it was natural That I should say “I’d name him after James.” “Well done” said Mother Shipton and then vanished.... I woke to find the sun-light in my room, And from my barracks window saw the Lake Stirred up to waves slate-colored by the wind; Some Indians loitering about the fort. They knew this was James Abbott’s wedding day, And Sarah’s day of leaving.
Soldiers! Comrades! What is most real, our waking hours, our dreams? Where was I in this sleep? What are our dreams But lands which lie below our hour’s horizon, Yet still are seen in a reflecting sky, And which through earth and heaven draw us on? Look at me now! Consider of yourselves: Housed, fed, yet lonely, in this futile task By this great water, in this waste of grass, Close to this patch of forest, on this river Where wolves howl, and the Indian waits his chance-- Consider of your misery, your sense Of worthless living, living to no end: I tell you no man lives but to some end. He may live only to increase the mass Wherewith Fate is borne-down, or just to swell The needed multitude when the hero passes, To give the hero heart! But every man Walks, though in blindness, to some destiny Of human growth, who only helps to fill, And helps that way alone, the empty Fate That waits for lives to give it Life.
And look Here are we housed and fed, here is a fire And here a bed. A hundred years ago Marquette, La Salle, scarce housed and poorly fed Gave health and life itself to find the way Through icy marshes, treacherous swamps and forests For this Fort Dearborn, where to-night we sit Warming ourselves against a roaring hearth. And what’s our part? It is not less than theirs. And what’s the part of those to come? Not less Than ours has been! And what’s the life of man? To live up to the God in him, to obey The Voice which says: You shall not live and rest. Nor sleep, nor mad delight nor senses fed, Nor memory dulled, nor tortured hearing stopped To drown my Voice shall leave you to forget Life’s impulse at the heart of Life, to strive For men to be, for cities, nobler states Moving foreshadowed in your dreams at night, And realized some hundred years to come. When this Fort Dearborn, you and all of you, And I who sit with pipe and son on knee, Regretting a dear daughter, who this hour Is somewhere in the darkness (like our souls Which move in darkness, listening to the beat Of our mysterious hearts, or with closed eyes Sensing a central Purpose) shall be dust-- Our triumphs, sorrows, even our names forgotten. And all we knew lost in the wreck and waste And change of things. And even what we did For cities, nobler states, and greater men Forgotten too. It matters not. We work For cities, nobler states and greater men, Or else we die in Life which is the death Which soldiers must not die!
III
EMILY BROSSEAU: IN CHURCH
_Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni, et de profundo lacu._
Leave me now and I will watch here through the night, And I’ll put in new candles, if these fail. I’ll sit here as I am, where I can see His brow, his nose’s tip and thin white hair, And just beyond his brow, above the altar, The red gash in the side of Jesus like A candle’s flame when burning to the socket. Go all of you, and leave me. I don’t care How cold the church grows. Michael Angelo Went to a garret, which was cold, and stripped His feet, and painted till the chill of death Took hold of him, a man just eighty-seven, And I am ninety, what’s the odds?--go now ...
Now Jean we are alone! Your very stillness Is like intenser life, as in your brow Your soul was crystallized and made more strong, And nearer to me. You are here, I feel you. I close my eyes and feel you, you are here. Therefore a little talk before the dawn, Which will come soon. Dawn always comes too soon In times like this. It waits too long in times Of absence, and you will be absent soon....
I want to talk about my happiness, My happy life, the part you played in it. There never was a day you did not kiss me Through nearly seventy years of married life. I had two hours of heaven in my life. The first one was the dance where first we met. The other when last fall they brought me roses, Those ninety roses for my birth-day, when They had me tell them of the first Chicago I saw when just a child, about the Fort; The cabins where the traders lived, who worked, And made the fortune of John Jacob Astor. Poor Jean! It’s scarce a week since you were struck. You sat down in your chair, ’twas after dinner, Then suddenly I saw your head fall forward. You could not speak when I went over to you. But afterwards when you were on the bed I leaned above you and you took the ribbon, That hung down from my cap and pressed it trembling Against your lips. What triumph in your death! Your death was like a mass, mysterious, rich Like Latin which the priests sing and the choir-- May angels take you and with Lazarus, Once poor, receive you to eternal rest.... Two hours of heaven in my life that’s true! And years between that made life more than good. My first sight of Chicago stands for all My life became for you and all I’ve lived. The year is 1829, you know of course. I’ve told you of the trip in Prairie schooners From Ft. Detroit round the lake, we camped Along the way, the last time near the place Where Gary and the steel mills are to-day. And the next morning what a sky! as blue As a jay’s wing, with little rifts of snow Along the hollows of the yellow dunes, And some ice in the lake, which lapped a little, And purplish colors far off in the north. So round these more than twenty miles we drove That April day. And when we came as far As thirty-ninth or thirty-first perhaps-- Just sand hills then--I never can forget it-- What should I see? Fort Dearborn dazzling bright, All newly white-washed right against that sky, And the log cabins round it, far away The rims of forests, and between a prairie With wild flowers in the grasses red and blue-- Such wild flowers and such grasses, such a sky, Such oceans of sweet air, in which were rising Straight up from Indian wigwams spires of smoke, About where now the Public Library stands On Randolph Street. And as we neared the place There was the flag, a streaming red and white Upon a pole within the Fort’s inclosure. I cried for happiness though just a child, And cry now thinking....
I must set this candle To see your pale brow better! What’s the hour? The night is passing, and I have so much To say to you before the dawn....