Part 10

And there in the cab as we drove to the Park I was still in a daze Talking of May baskets And blindman’s buff, And laughing, for one always laughs When the moment is worst. And so it was I did not really see you. But when we began to walk Things about you began to limn themselves: Your shoulders seemed a little bent. There were streaks of snow on your temples. And you were quiet with the terrible quietness Of understanding of life. And the old wit I knew, And the glad defiance of fate, And the light in your eyes, And the musical laugh All were gone. Perhaps the daily grind of Cap and Bells Had sapped you, dear. But when I looked at your hand on your cane And saw how white and slim it was, And how it trembled, I knew You were not the giant man of old, Though you said you were gaining strength again, And I could lean on your arm.

Well, then I told you all: How my search for love had fooled me again; And how this beast had wronged and robbed me; And how he stood in his paranoiac rages, And compared himself to Christ. But when I began to speak of the child, What a darling girl she was, You sank in a seat and said: “No more-- I didn’t think I was weak as this-- You mustn’t tell me another thing, Not now, not just now.” Then I saw, what Time had done, And I saw that you could not help me. And the next day and the next day, When I did not see you, And weeks passed by and I scarcely saw you, And I scarcely saw you again, Though I had come a thousand miles To lean on your arm, It grew in my mind that you despised me, Or that you were indifferent to my lot, Or at least that I was a wounded thing You could not bear to see. Till at last, though I knew That my way was clear: there was nothing to do But to fly with my child, And leave him forever, And endure great loneliness forever, if need be, And whatever shame there was, For the sake of my soul’s honor, Which only myself could save, And you could save not at all. Though I knew, I say, that my way was clear, And I needed your help not at all, Still in a kind of madness I began to reproach you for not helping me, And for abandoning me to my fate. As a sick child will cry and blame its mother When it is not healed at once.

And that was the mood he found me in When he came with a smile and honey words. Well, I fell in his arms, and here I am Plunged up to the mouth in spiritual muck, And what life is left for me now? How can I go on with life? For he hates me now as a humbled thing, He has broken my pride and he hates me now. And he roars and curses about the house, And yells at our little girl when she cries, And stands with his hands outstretched and says That his fate is worse than Christ’s. And I tremble and rustle around like a fallen leaf, And neither laugh nor cry nor return him a word....

For you know there’s a spring, And you know there’s a fire, To burn dead leaves. And after the ashes There’s a spirit given a chance!

THE FAMILY

We were three larks in the same nest. All spring the wind blew from the west. We chirped beneath the enshadowing wheat, It grew to green, it grew to gold. Our mother’s voice was piercing sweet To see how strong we were and bold-- How palpitant of wing.

We knew our father not, alas! A hunter slew him while the grass Was fresh beneath the April rain. And ere I had the strength to fly Our brother sang a farewell strain And soared into the empty sky. And then our sister knew the fear And hunger of a serpent’s eye. And our sweet mother, lone and drear, Fled far afield and left me here To nurse my heart and sing.

THE SUBWAY

There was the white face of Fear, And the solemn face of Duty, And the face of self looking in the mirror. But there were voices calling from vernal hilltops, And silver spirits by moonlit gardens calling, And voices of no sound from far horizons calling, But even if there be penitence for living And thought and tears for the past And even shame and even hunger; And if there be nothing gained at the last in living, And much to pay for the madness of briefest bliss; And if there be nothing in life, and life be nothing So that to nail one’s self to the cross is nothing lost-- Is Death not even less?

These were the voices whereto we tore our flower Petal by petal apart and scattered it, And paused and paltered.

But lest the whispers grow louder, And the eyebrows arch to a fiercer scorn, You fled away to France and left me With only a poor half uttered farewell, A scrawl put off to the last, then written As with shut eyes, swift nervous hands: As one might wait for the heroic thought To take his poison--wait in vain, and then Cowardly gulp it down and reel to death. I could not hate you for the pain of hate, And could not love you who had hid yourself, Belied yourself behind this scrawl. I could only sit half-numb, And drift in thought.

And afterwards it wasn’t so much to be alone, Nor to dream of the days that were done, Save as it deepened the surge in my heart, Or strengthened the ebb of my soul for thought Of your soul drawn away from me, So needlessly drawn it seemed. And it’s the music that deepens and changes,-- For as your soul adds strings to its strings There are fingers to play--it almost seems There are fingers about us that watch and wait For a soul that’s adding strings to its harp To play them when they’re strung. And so it’s the music that deepens and changes That kills you at last I think.

Well, I had a dream one night That a dead man well could dream: They had buried me in Rosehill. And after twenty years from France they brought you And put you just across the walk from me Where we slept while the crowding city grew To a vast six millions, and they were building A subway to Lake Forest. And we were forgotten of everyone, And almost our family names were lost. And our love you fled from all forgotten, And everything we said, or thought, or felt forgotten With the whispers of boys and girls In a temple’s shadow in Babylon.

Well, to pursue, it’s a day in March When the colors are brilliantly white and blue; And it’s cold except for Poles and Italians Who dig with spades and cut with picks. And some of these fellows are digging us up, We lie in the way of the subway, you know. And they dump our bones in a careless heap, The ribs of me by the ribs of you, My skull lies ignorant by your skull. And behold our poor arms are entwined. For death you know is a mocker of Life. And there we lie like stocks and stones, And where is our love and where is your fear? And a young Pole pushes our bones together With a lusty shove of his heavy shoe, And he says to another: “You saw that girl I was dancing with last night? Well, I don’t think I’m the only one. And besides she bothers me most to death. And as soon as this subway job is over, Which will be in a year, or year and a half, I’m going to beat it back to Poland.” Then the other beginning to shovel muttered: “1976.”

THE RADICAL’S MESSAGE

To the archangels and the fiery seed Of mad Prometheus, fighting gods for men, And heaven for earth, this greeting: I led you once, I taught you, am the sire Of hosts of you, but fellow to you all. And when I fell, was chained upon this bed By adamantine sickness, then I lay And had you in my thought hour after hour, Day after day, and saw you in dreams by night Still fighting, bleeding, caring for the fallen, Or objurgating heaven for the curse It sheds on men, or arming for the fray With steel of resisting thought; and so the sense Of my responsibility has weighed Upon me as my night has deftly dawned To something clearer than the soul you knew, Who led you once, with breath of iron horns, Called to you: Charge! there is the trench of greed! Avenge the poor! bring justice! purge the state Of fraud! And so I lay and thought of you Still guarding the old lines, fighting the old fights, While I was changed, was not your leader now, Cared no more for your battles, save as strife That leads up higher, for upon my wall I woke to see these words: He only wins His freedom and existence who each day Conquers them newly. How can I tell you What has come over me?

You walk through galleries, Devour the pictures in the different rooms, Then gaze about you where you stand at last Amid supernal canvases of light. Try to recall the pictures you have studied, What you have seen has helped you to perceive The final beauties, but is blurred in mind, It has been lived, has lost its vital power, Is not the sovereign moment.

Climb a mountain The whole day through, and at the time of stars Stand on a peak and search infinity! You have forgot the valleys, save perhaps The torment of the flies of which you’re freed In these cool heights.

So age cannot recall The thrill and intimate complexities That made the thought of youth. A sickness comes: One has been metamorphosed, cannot live The old emotions, habits, old delights. And as for that we change each day and all Our yesterdays are chrysalises whence We crawled to what we are. In short, archangels, I have become another soul. Now listen:

I have seen things I cannot tell you of. I have gained understandings past my power To give you clearly; yet upon me rests The teasing call to tell you, here I lie Revolving this new task of leadership. How shall I make you see I have not failed you? Not really played a treasonous soul to you? Not scorned the cause I gave you, kept you in? Or damned you for, or made you suffer for? I railed at heaven, I instructed you To rail as well. How can you understand I now accept the fate? Will you despise me For saying this? Or will you say disease Has weakened me, cooled off the fire of soul And damped my courage? Then go on your way To find a worthier leader?

So to doubt I taught you once, but now my mind believes. And to deny the order of the world I gave you words, now I affirm the plan. To fight against the gods in man’s behalf, I made my leadership. Now I perceive The cause of gods and men made one. You see It is not individual gain that counts In these external benefits of freedom And satisfaction of material wants, That counts so much, I say, as inner chains Struck from the wrists, and inner scales peeled off From inner eyes. I grant the human cause, And say this,--Can I make you understand? To give you proof my heart is with you yet Let me reveal my sacrifice.

Suppose You’ve found a truth that others knew before you, Seen, let us say, the cat, as single taxers Are wont to say? You hunt up some adherent Who’s labored with you, tell him, “I’m convinced, I see the cat at last.” You want to share Your joy with some one, want his dragging hope To hear you have arrived. And so with me I hungered to communicate my vision To some one who had seen it, and who knew Its meaning, what it meant to me.

But then You archangels and hot Promethean seed Each time I thought of making the confession To some delighted spirit, ranged yourselves In thought around my sick bed, with contempt, Or pained compassion written on your brows, And words like these: He has deserted us, He has surrendered, cringed before the gods. And so my sacrifice is this: You’ll be The first to know my second birth, you can In such case never charge it up to fear, Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spirit That lost the human touch through the effects Of some delirium. What mind so clear, Or will so strong to die with this denial For your sakes? For it may be best for you To live the rebel out of you. And if You thought--at least I fear it--if you thought I had gone over to the hosts you hate, As you are now, through weakness, made my peace With heaven, as you’d call it, just to save My wretched self, you’d have a mad regret, A fine disgust to work through, added labor To all you must achieve. That’s why I die, And seal this message. Break it on the day They make me ashes!

BOMBYX

Sealed in a cocoon-cradle of white silk, Locked fast in sleep; Or bound for years as a chrysalid, while the neap Creative tides rise to the spring and slough The torn strands and the golden pupa stuff, You tear wings free for the connubial flight-- Break suddenly the embryo trance, drift off, Whole troops of you in a looped and colorful clutter Wobbling like leaves in a fresh wind’s delight. And over clover meadows in a flutter, Or through sweet scented hollows, You seek the expectant mate, And the mad moment where life turns to death, And both become one essence and one breath, One undivided fate.

Together you fly Drunken with life, yet mad to die, Since soul achievement is death after all, All rivals for the wedding festival. Yet only one of you can win the prize; The rest shall sink exhausted in defeat, While the triumphant bridegroom dies In his own rapture and creative fire-- All perish in the flame of their desire.

For none of you is given strength to live Beyond the quest, or the hymeneal kiss; The disappointed perish One wins his joy, but may not keep or cherish The moment which contains it, sudden doom Falls on the winner of his bliss And on the wings that quiver their frustration.

Bombyx! to have more life than is enough To win the mate, achieve the one success, And on that life to mount and half survey The universe-- Build cities with it, letter precious scrolls, Plan for the race to be and have the vision To labor for of ages half elysian, Is that a benediction or a curse? Is it a good or evil to have strength To soar beyond the sun, or planets even If none of us at length Reach heaven? If none of our infatuate souls Sip the bright fire of God? If it be all a flying in a dream, A lying down at last in deeper night, To enrich the prodigal sod, To breed new wings For the same flight?

THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS

Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered isfinished. May the grace of Diana be with you in strength undiminished.

Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were wrought in with stipples. The Ephesian goddess is nature and these are her bountiful nipples.

So then do I fear for my trade? No, never! It’s past my conceiving. There’ll be work for the artist while gods change to win our believing.

Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry and tell us and show us-- Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never was known in Corinth or Troas.

They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble a story that palters. Well, I whistle and hammer the silver, a maker of statues and altars.

Who says I am wroth lest in Samothrace, Lystra and Delos The craft of the maker of images fail through the speech of these fellows?

And the temple of Artemis perish? Oh, well, however they hate us Can they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch Herostratus?

But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty and wonder-- Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and roaring of thunder!

Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar is older! If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes of her temples’ beholder!

For centuries gone--when these Jews prayed to serpents of bronze and calves that were golden In Ephesus, Arcady, Athens, our reverent love was beholden

To the goddess of prophecy, music, the lyre, of light, inspiration, Who guarded and watches the city and lays the foundation Of nations and laws. What works we have done, yea still we would heed her-- And look at your barbarous ark in your temple of jewels and cedar!

What is our pollution, our idols, our sacrificed things which are strangled? I ask you already divided in turbulent parties who wrangled

Concerning salvation of God to the faith of the uncircumcision In Cyprus and Paphos, where poets of love keep the Hellenic vision.

I am filled with my loathing! Oh keep me a Greek though you make me a whoreson, When the worship of beauty is dead you may pare off my foreskin.

When the symbol is dead which I mould to Diana our goddess I’ll retire to the country of Nod, no matter where Nod is.

It will live when your temples are built, if any are builded, And Jesus in silver is nailed on a cross which is gilded.

And touching this thing is it different to worship a man or abstraction? Or an idol of silver or stone?--go talk to your spirit’s distraction!

Areopagus listened to Paul, I am told, for Athens is spending Her time, as of old, in weighing new things and attending.

They heard him in silence! Let his arguments pass uncorrected-- Why, Plato had told us of Er from the dead resurrected!

Now, mark me! For showing the wisdom, compassion of poets and sages That silence like lightning will aureole Paul to the end of the ages.

Oh Athens, who set up that shrine, do you think it was just superstition Which carved for all passers to see that profoundest inscription:

To the unknown God? Do you think it was cowardice even? Make altars and gods as you will, unknown is the planeted heaven.

And we who are richest in gods--have exhausted all thought in creating Both symbols and shapes for interpreted loving and hating

Still sense the Unknown, though in blindness, in love as in duty Would worship it most--the Unknown is the ultimate beauty.

Yes, Athens who set up the altar and chiseled the worshipful letters To the Unknown God--what ignorance fastened with fetters

Did you loosen, oh wonder of Tarsus, how help their unknowing Who told them he dwelt not in temples, nor needed the flowing

Of prayers from men’s hearts--the Giver of life and of all things, and seeing He is lord of the heavens, in whom we are living and having our being.

So quoting our poet who centuries since with the monarch Gonatas Lived and wrote the Phaenomena, known to the Greeks as Aratus.

And yet Hyacinthus I pity this Paul for profoundest compassion Of Jesus before him. This sky and this earth I can fashion

Through mystical wonder or fear to the Sphinx or the Minotaur dreaded. There’s Persephone dying and rising, and Cerberus the dog many-headed.

We have thought it all through! Yet I say if a virtue Elysian Resides in the doctrine I’ll leave off the goddess Ephesian;

Sell my tools, shut my shop, worship God in a way that is safer, Make the Unknown the known! Have they shown you a magical wafer?

A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS

_Act One_

There was slight rain that afternoon, And tempest in the apple trees; But as the sun went down the moon Sailed swiftly to a western breeze.

Day kindled something in your blood, Your fancies roved with dove and hawk; There was no promise in your mood Nor soft assurance in your talk.

I felt you might mislead my trust And slight a love too surely yours; You were so wild, I felt you must Be kindred to the woods and moors.

But when we passed the orchard through The dusk had crept into the sky; Your eyes betrayed a dream which grew Until I thought I heard you sigh.

You were an ardent star that waited For night to be yourself and show How surely afternoon had fated A love that nothing could forego.

_Act Two_

The sky was full of clouds at rest Like dolphins in a waste of blue. We tramped along a country road Into the village, I and you.

The dogwood bloomed along the fences. We heard the songs of larks and thrushes. The country door-yards teemed with hues Of lilac trees and almond bushes.

The long blaze of the setting sun Shone in your eyes and analyzed Their little rifts of gray and brown, And left your secret undisguised.

And I was silent thinking over The old threads raveled from your heart. I hear you clearer now than then: “How can we part? How can we part?”

_Act Three_

Shadows upon the wall And the ghost of a past on the floor, Here where the hours made carnival In the days that are no more.

And the chamber is cold and bare, And the wax from the taper drips; But I bury my face in your hair, And swoon at the touch of your lips.

We went from the house to the wood, But never a word we spoke; And an eerie wind like our mood Rustled the leaves of the oak.

Dead leaves, tremulous, crisp, That breathed a forgotten tune; A cloud the shape of a wisp Blotted the soaring moon.

Silent we walked the path, And then the wild farewell; I saw your form like a wraith Fade in the forest’s dell.

If joy would never depart, If we could but still the pain-- Dear, I awoke with a pang in my heart And heard the sound of the rain.

_Act Four_

Michigan Avenue streams with people-- Ten years alter the avenue. It’s April again, and there are dolphin Clouds at rest in a waste of blue.

A girl goes by with a spray of lilacs Pinned at her breast, and quick as thought Country fences, dogwood blossoms Over the granite scene are wrought.

You come in my mind! It’s spoiled by the glimpse Of a monster diamond that glints and glows; A black-eyed Gadarene goes past Insolent, heavy, and hooked of nose.

I scan his face that runs with fat, And the fleshly sag of his under lip; Then back to the diamond again, the hand Holds your arm with a master grip!

THEODORE DREISER

Jack o’ Lantern tall shouldered, One eye set higher than the other, Mouth cut like a scallop in a pie, Aslant showing powerful teeth. Swaying above the heads of others. Jubilant with fixed eyes, scarcely sparkling. Moving about rhythmically, exploding in laughter. Touching fingers together back and forth, Or toying with a handkerchief. And the eyes burn like a flame at the end of a funnel. And the ruddy face glows like a pumpkin On Halloween!

Or else a gargoyle of bronze Turning suddenly to life And slipping suddenly down corners of stone To eat you: Full of questions, objections, Distinctions, instances. Contemptuous, ironical, remote, Cloudy, irreverent, ferocious, Fearless, grim, compassionate, yet hateful, Old, yet young, wise but virginal. To whom everything is new and strange: Whence he stares and wonders, Laughs, mocks, curses. Disordered, yet with a passion for order And classification--hence the habitual Folding into squares of a handkerchief.