SCENE VII. (_On the lawn._)

BAKER

(_To Corbett._)

Why did you shoot? You had no orders to? I’ll take you back to Washington in chains! Why did you shoot?

CORBETT

God told me to.

BAKER

It looks it. You hit him just behind the ear. Same place Where Lincoln got the mortal wound.

BOOTH

Tell mother I died for country, liberty, as Brutus Did what he did for Rome. I thought it best To do what I have done. God’s will be done As I have tried to do it.

(_He dies._)

THE BURIAL OF BOSTON CORBETT

(_One warden to another._)

(_Asylum for the insane, Kansas, 1885._)

So this is what we bury? How his face Seems like a smear of yellow wax. This beard Grown fine and curly. Something nasty here, Hermaphroditic, feminine. Like a dog That has run loose with rabies, yelps and snaps, And makes a terror for a day, is slain, And lies where passers-by can foot the corpse, So he lies here: this steadfast paranoic! How vanished from these sealed lids dreams of God! Where are they now? For all this outer world Of lunatics, care-takers, wardens, world Of fields and villages, the state and states Smiles at these lids so neatly sealed, the God That had his altar in the spectral light Of his mad eyes!

This is the man who slew The slayer of the noble Lincoln. First For the common good was Cæsar slain by Brutus, And Booth slew Lincoln in a dream of Brutus, This Corbett slew the slayer in a faith Of God. Catch up the corner of the sheet. He gets a grave where many hundreds lie, Each with his epitaph of “Rest in Peace”; Who had no peace in living, for the dreams Of God, or Duty, Terror, Visions Vain.

Some say he came to Kansas, hither drawn By hope of sympathy, since all are mad In Kansas; otherwise the true God know, And keep His ritual of reform. He found God mocked in Kansas, or he had not tried To shoot the state assembly to a man, When he was keeper of the door. Perhaps ’Twas right enough to slay the actor Booth, Obeying God; we might accept his word God told him to kill Booth. But was it God Commanded him to slay so many honorable Members of the Kansas legislature For legislating, or not legislating As God would have them? Well, I have a doubt. And many doubted his divine appointment For massacre like that. And so we flung The lasso round him, gathered him, and quick We shut him in the pound, dishonored God, As he conceived it, doing so. I’ve heard Brutus at last said, Miserable Virtue, Bawd, Thou wert a world alone, a cheat at last! This Boston Corbett never did recant The faith, or God, the word.

So ends it here. Mad unto death! This Corbett is the corneous And upcurved withered calyx of a flower Rich out of time. His madness is the lisping Of that same stricken calyx in the wind Of Infinite Mysteries.

Are you ready now? Knot fast your corners of the sheet to hold. All ready, to the field. There in corruption We’ll sow him, to be raised--but why at all Should he be raised?

THE NEW APOCRYPHA

BUSINESS REVERSES

(_Mark, Chapter VI._)

Everything! Counter and scales-- I’ll take whatever you give. I’m through, and off to Athens, Where a man like me can live.

And Hipparch, the baker, is going; My chum, who came with me To follow the crowds who follow The prophet of Galilee.

We two were there at Damascus Dealing in figs and wine. Nice little business! Some one Said: “Here, I’ll give you a line!

“Buy fish, and set up a booth, Get a tent and make your bread. There are thousands who come to listen, They are hungry and must be fed.”

And so we went. Believe me, There were crowds, and hungry, too. Five thousand stood in the desert And listened the whole day through.

Famished? Well, yes. The disciples Were saying to send them away To buy their bread in the village, But the prophet went on to say:

“Feed them yourselves, O you Of little faith.” But they said: “We have just five little fishes And two little loaves of bread.”

We heard it, me and Hipparch, And rubbed our hands. You see We were there to make some money In the land of Galilee.

We had stock in plenty. We waited. I wiped the scales, and my chum Re-stacked the loaves. We bellowed, But no one seemed to come.

“Fresh fish!” I bawled my lungs out: “Nice bread!” poor Hipparch cried, But what did they do? Sat down there In fifties, side by side, In ranks, the whole five thousand. Then--well, the prophet spoke, And broke the five little fishes, And the two little loaves he broke.

And fed the whole five thousand. Why, yes! So gorged they slept. And we stood beaten and bankrupt. Poor Hipparch swore and wept.

They gathered up twelve baskets Full from the loaves of bread; Five little fishes--twelve baskets Of fragments after they fed.

And we--what was there to do But dump our stock on the sand? That’s what we got for our labor And thrift, in such a land.

We met a man near Damascus Who had joined the mystagogues. He said: “I was wicked as you men Until I lost my hogs.”

Now Hipparch and I are going To Athens, beautiful, free. No more adventures for us two In the land of Galilee.

THE FIG TREE

(_Matthew, Chapter XXI._)

With all of the rest of my troubles my fig tree’s withered and gone. It stood in the road, you know, I haven’t much of a lawn. I step from my door to a step, and from that right into the street. Just the same I sat under my tree, as a shade from the noonday heat.

Camels came by and asses, caravans, footmen, too; Soldiers of Cæsar saw me and ate of my tree, nor drew Ax nor sword to the branches, nor even a hack on the bole. Now what had I done or my tree? I call it an evil dole

To a tree that must rest as a man rests. Why last year what a crop! Figs all over the branches, from lower limb to top. The tree was resting this year, contenting itself with leaves, If magic comes of believing, beware the man who believes.

If faith can remove a mountain, then faith, I say, beware. Some morn I’ll look toward Olivet and find it no longer there. These fellows can blast our vineyards, level our hills or remove. And what does it prove but faith, what other good does it prove?

Nothing at all! Just magic, like Egypt’s cunning breed. And to do such things with faith the size of a mustard seed! What is there need of more? If you gave them faith as a pear They would set Orion dancing around the paws of the Bear;

Make the heavens fall on our heads, the whole world ruin and wreck; Slay us and our children, slave us, put the yoke on our neck; Smash cities to strengthen the village, have life just as they would. And make that evil which is not, make evil into a good.

Anyway he came, he was hungry, and it was break of dawn. He ran to my tree expectant, saw nothing but leaves thereon. Then raged for the lack of figs, no grace for the years that it bore. And he said may no fruit grow hereon forevermore.

With that my tree curled up like a leaf in a windy blaze. I was standing here on my step half blind in a sudden maze. Then he said: have faith and do what I have done to this tree, Or say to the mountains move and be cast into the sea.

So now I have no shade at noon under leafy boughs, Why the tree was good for resting, cooler than in the house, If it never bore again, if the life is more than meat Why not this tree for my dreams, though he found no figs to eat.

But I swear it had borne next year, it was only taking a rest. There’s too many saints who are straining the world to a dream in the breast. Next year no figs for Cæsar, and none for myself, what’s worse, If this be the work of faith, then faith itself is a curse.

TRIBUTE MONEY

(_Matthew, Chapter XXII: 24-27._)

This is all of the story Capernaum stood in the way, The takers of tribute came: “Does your master tribute pay?”

And Peter ran to Jesus, And Jesus answered him: “Nay! Do the kings of the earth have tribute From their own children, pray?

“Or do they get it of strangers?” And Peter answered him: “Yea.” Then Jesus said: “This is Galilee, Should Galileans pay?

“But yet lest we offend them There’s a fish out there in the bay With a silver coin in his mouth-- Go catch the fish and pay.”

Did Jesus mean to mock The tariff laws of the day: That Peter could catch the fish As likely as he would pay?

Did he mean to resist or yield If Peter was lucky that day? I, Matthew, tell you no more, And Mark and Luke don’t say.

Did we enter the gate, or sit Where the rocks and olives are gray? Right then there was better matter For a follower to portray.

The multitude gathered. He called A child to him from its play, And set the child in our midst; And then he began to say:--

“This is the kingdom of heaven.” And he took its hand and smiled. “The kingdom of heaven,” he said, “Is like the heart of a child.”

And I say, if this be true, The Kingdom is surely defiled By laws, and tariffs and kings Unknown to the heart of a child.

THE GREAT MERGER

(_Exodus, Chapter XX._)

Philo, the worst has come, All we foresaw and feared: Delphos will soon be dumb, Eleusis felled and cleared.

Not only Marduk and Bel Shamash, Nana, and Sin Are doomed to be swallowed. Rebel? It is too late to begin.

They have worked for this merger for years; They have bullied, lied and coerced. They have played with curses and tears. And now at last is the worst:

For Zeus goes into the bowl Of Cyclops, thoroughly blended. The brew is Jehovah, a Soul Envious, sour, commended

And forced to our lips. His son And another, the Holy Ghost, Are mixed with him, there is none Not stirred in the mixture and lost

Of the gods we loved. They say There is only one god, not many. Well, who knows, we of clay, If there be a thousand, or any?

They say there is one--all right! They take over all the rest. And so there is one, we can fight, Argue, pray and protest;

Set up a booth to Apollo, Athene; bawl and persuade. The crowds no longer follow-- Jehovah has got the trade.

For the Jews have used the scheme Of commerce for making a god: A harbor where no trireme But their own can dock or load.

Now who will come to dissolve This theo-monopoly? And the power they took devolve On a mightier deity?

It will come. But as for Zeus, Osiris, Ptah, Zoroaster, They are stewed in the dominant juice Of Jehovah, lord and master.

We accept the fate. We laugh. The earth, the sea and the sky Are at last the cenotaph Of gods, who always die.

AT DECAPOLIS

(_Mark, Chapter V._)

1

THE ACCUSATION

I am a farmer and live Two miles from Decapolis. Where is the magistrate? Tell me Where the magistrate is!

Here I had made provision For children and wife, And now I have lost my all; I am ruined for life.

I, a believer, too, In the synagogues,-- What is the faith to me? I have lost my hogs.

Two thousand hogs as fine As ever you saw, Drowned and choked in the sea-- I want the law!

They were feeding upon a hill When a strolling teacher Came by and scared my hogs-- They say he’s a preacher,

And cures the possessed who haunt The tombs and bogs. All right; but why send devils Into my hogs?

They squealed and grunted and ran And plunged in the sea. And the lunatic laughed who was healed, Of the devils free.

Devils or fright, no matter A fig or a straw. Where is the magistrate, tell me-- I want the law!

2

JESUS BEFORE MAGISTRATE AHAZ

Ahaz, there in the seat of judgment, hear, If you have wit to understand my plea. Swine-devils are too much for swine, that’s clear. Poor man possessed of such is partly free.

Is neither drowned, destroyed at once, his chains May pluck while running, howling through the mire And take a little gladness for his pains, Some fury for unsatisfied desire.

But hogs go mad at once. All this I knew,-- But then this lunatic had rights. You grant Swine-devils had him in their clutch and drew His baffled spirit. How significant,

As they were legion and so named! The point Is, life bewildered, torn in greed and wrath;-- Desire puts a spirit out of joint. Swine-devils are for swine who have no path.

But man with many lusts, what is his way, Save in confusion, through accustomed rooms? He prays for night to come, and for the day Amid the miry places and the tombs.

But hogs run to the sea. And there’s an end. Would I might cast the swinish demons out From man forever. Yet the word attend. The lesson of the thing what soul can doubt?

What is the loss of hogs, if man be saved? What loss of lands and houses, man being free? Clothed in his reason sits the man who raved, Clean and at peace, your honor. Come and see.

Your honor shakes a frowning head. Not loth, Speaking more plainly, deeper truth to draw; Do your judicial duty, yet I clothe Free souls with courage to transgress the law.

By casting demons out from self, or those Like this poor lunatic whom your synagogues Would leave to battle singly with his woes-- What is a man’s soul to a drove of hogs?

Which being lost, men play the hypocrite And make the owner chief in the affair. You banish me for witchcraft. I submit. Work of this kind awaits me everywhere.

And into swine where better they belong, Casting the swinish devils out of men, The devils have their place at last, and then The man is healed who had them--where’s the wrong,

Save to the owner? Well, your synagogues Make the split hoof and chewing of the cud The test of lawful flesh. Not so are hogs. This rule has been the statute since the flood.

Ahaz, your judgment has a fatal flaw. Is it not so with judges first and last-- You break the law to specialize the law?-- This is the devil that from you I cast.

THE SINGLE STANDARD

(_St. John, Chapter VIII._)

It was known through Judea, we knew it:-- That Joseph beguiled By mercy for Mary espoused, And already with child,

Before they had come to each other, Would put her away In secret, before the Sanhedrin Could summon, array,

The witnesses, judge her and make her A noise and a shame-- We knew this, and what would he do If the case were the same

As his father believed was the case With his mother? would he, A prophet, fulfill all the law, Or let her go free?--

This Sarah, you know, that I caught, Was a witness and saw. Now what would he do, shade away, Or judge by the law?

For Moses decreed if a woman Who is married shall lie With a man, whether wedded or not, The woman shall die

With the man in a volley of stones; And Moses decreed If a virgin already betrothed Shall lust in the deed

With a man not the bridegroom, and whether The man shall be wed, The people shall stone them with stones Until they be dead.

Now mark you, how equal the law Of weight and of span: One law for the woman in sin, The same for the man.

If Moses be still the law-giver, By nothing dethroned, And this be the law, then this Sarah Was fit to be stoned.

And if it be true, as he says, That he came to fulfill The law, nor destroy it, why then We thought he would will The death of this woman we took In adultery, yes in the act, So we argued together beforehand The law and the fact.

Now the case was this way: this Josiah Late journeyed from Tyre, Three wives to his household already, Yet alive with desire,

And free by our custom and law To add to his hearth A fourth for the heirs to his house, And for comfort and mirth,

Came back in the cause of a field He had bought; as it chanced Met up with this Sarah, a wife, They feasted and danced,

Her spouse being absent, what’s more In Egypt for good. So Josiah and Sarah were found In the act in the wood.

We brought her before him, accused, And told him the case. He stooped, as it seemed, to conceal A blush on his face, And wrote in the sand, as we stood And pressed him he wrote: “Anise” and “cummin” and “gnat” And “Moses” and “mote.”

We cried all the more, he uplifted Himself, said: “Begin Your throwing of stones, let the first Be him without sin.”

So there I was caught, for he knew-- Like wheat from the scythe We shrank--I was guilty of sin, I had failed in my tithe

Of anise. But why have clean hands To work at our smudges? And how will you ever stop sin If you ask of the judges

To be without sin ere they punish A matter of lust? I call this a ruling where morals Fall down in the dust.

The most of us left then. He asked her: “Does no man condemn? Nor do I.” And so he made one With me and with them.

So here in a sense was the world Spiritual, civil, Prophet and Pharisee, judge Leagued up with the devil.

For what did it matter to say To go and no more Sin as she had, if the sin Would fare as before?

It followed that Sarah went free, And Josiah the man. One standard for both is the rule, And the modern plan.

What’s that? Why to sin if you wish-- For what is a sin If no stones are hurled for the lack Of a man to begin?

And so it all ended. This Sarah Was given a bill. She married Josiah, they say, And lives with him still.

FIRST ENTRANTS

(_St. Matthew, Chapter XXII: 31._)

We know the game of lawyer and priest; We know the cunning of Pharisee, Scribe; We know the malice of soldier, jailer;-- Hearts of those who abstain, imbibe.

And when we saw a God-mad fool Like John the Baptist who cursed and grieved For the hate of the elders, the harlot’s sorrow We listened to him and we believed.

We know we are wronged, he voiced it for us; We know we are mocked, he gave us place With the children of grief, the simple hearted, The broken spirits deserving grace.

He knew men use us and throw us away. He knew we give and the gift is loathed. We are the givers to men who scourge us, Drive us to darkness, cold, unclothed.

And when he said: “Behold he is there Whose latchet I am unworthy to loose,” Jesus took us, the humble hearted, The broken vessels that none will use.

And we believed again, and saw A youth who loved us without desire; Feasting, drinking with us the harlots, Outcasts, sinners, wrecks of the fire.

These were our brothers: John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth. Brothers I say. Brothers and sisters bound in the service Of giving comfort and pity away.

Pity and solace and hope of heaven, Healing and tenderness came of Christ. And we, the harlots, have given pity And given delight to men who enticed

This little gift, so easy to give; This wonder gift to them, as they said. That is the passion that moves a woman Before it becomes a matter of bread.

Before the lashes of scorn and the chains, The dungeons, before the scowls and sneers; Before the wrath of the priest, the temple’s Bolted door for our hunger, tears.

Before the delight we sell is stale As the steps of a dancer, growing old. All is delight, kisses and dancing-- Men can buy, for they have the gold.

And we, he says, shall enter heaven Before the priests and the elders do. Why do we enter? Because as sorrow, Poverty, humbleness, we are true.

Without pretense or pride. We are children Who have shirked the task, but repent the sin. But they, the elders and priests have promised To work for heaven and never begin.

Why do we enter, save spite of our craft To wheedle with lies we all stand forth Known to the world as painted harlots, Taken by no one over our worth?

And it’s good to enter, if we can be With Jesus and John, and given reprieve From priests and elders who run the city And hound the harlots who see and believe.

JOHN IN PRISON

(_St. Luke, Chapter XVI. St. Matthew, Chapter XI._)

John said to the jailer: “Where are my disciples? Befriend My grief and my doubt, and entreat them to come, to the end

That they ask him for me if we look for another, or deem, As I did, that this prophet shall save and fulfill and redeem.”

And the jailer replied: “Since the wrath of King Herod a dish Your head shall contain by to-morrow, I give you your wish.”

So he brought the disciples to John and the two of them led To the cell where he sat, and John to the two of them said:--

“At this end of my life and my hopes, at the door of my doom Go ask him for me and report: is it he that should come,

Or shall we yet look for another?” Amazed were the two And one of them spoke to the Baptist and said: “Is it true

That you preached in the wilderness saying repent and prepare The way of the Lord, whose shoes I am worthless to bear;

Who will fan out the chaff, gather wheat, purge the floor With fire and the Spirit baptize you, bring down and restore

The kingdom of heaven? And are we abused in the word That as he came out of the waters of Jordan you heard

A voice call from heaven which thundered: ‘This son of my love With whom I am pleased you shall hear,’ and a dove

For the Spirit descended upon him--and yet can you ask If he be the one that should come? Yet we take up the task

And go at your bidding.” And John said: “I suffer without You seek him and ask, for this is the cause of my doubt:--

I have heard of his works and rejoice. But why does he feast When I fasted myself? And how have the rumors increased

That he fellows with publicans, sinners and drinkers of wine, A bibber himself, when the springs of the desert were mine?

And how is the ax, as I said, laid close to the root of the tree, And my curses fulfilled of the Pharisees, if this must be?

And if, as they say, he is preaching the word that we make Of the unrighteous mammon a friend for the day when we break

With the lords of the riches of truth, as he put it, for then The unrighteous mammon shall take us, console us again:--

I have wasted the goods of my lord! I am caught and accused! Shall I make good the theft from my lord in a trust I abused?

Why, no! I go out to the debtors, my master to foil, How much do you owe him? Why, so many measures of oil!

Sit down then, I say, make the bill but a half, quickly write:-- I am wiser in this, so he says, than the children of light--

As I make for myself by the trick of a thief, and a theft, The confederates’ home for my own for my honor bereft.

Go! learn if he said this. Return ere the rise of the sun:-- Shall we look for another to save us, or is he the one?”

ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA

Who is that coming? Look! They are bearing a body again. It’s a woman now, I think. And the very same young men

Who brought Ananias’ body we buried a moment ago. Pat down the earth a little, the grass will sooner grow.

Yes, now I see it’s Sapphira. What did she do to win Death at the hands of Peter, or was it her husband’s sin?

To which she agreed, or kept her husband’s secret in faith. They sold a sheep, as I hear it, and suffered sudden death

For hiding part of the price, for a thing commendable: Their boy is sick, and they needed money to get him well.

Just look how things are going: Cæsar the despot rules, The state is his. For the rest, we are run by a pack of fools;

Zealots and mystics who say that the end of the world is near. Tyranny around us, on top, under us dullness and fear.

Songs and the wine-cup banished, freedom throttled blue. It’s the same here being a Greek, Persian, Median, Jew.

Roman sovereignty over us, merciless, cold and bright. Fogs over the land of dust, day no different than night.

Listless we labor or idle, creep into an early bed. Sleep is the best thing now, and the best is the sleep of the dead.

Prepare for the end of the world! Build up the church, the throne, Sell all your goods and give, have nothing to call your own;

Put everything in common. That’s one cry. What remains? Taxes, soldiers, prisons, edicts, laws and chains.

There never was such a time! What man is lord of his soul? Someone entered my barn and took my ass with foal

For the prophet to ride on in triumph. I was there and saw him ride, Crowds crying hallelujah pressing on every side.

They would have all things in common. They kill a man and his wife, And Cæsar rules as always, and yet they call this life!

Wars forever and ever, manned by hovels and huts; And what is it all about? lands, and gold and guts;

And baptists stirring the dreamers, and bankers that thrive thereby. Why kill off Ananias when the whole of life is a lie?

All right, young men, put her down. Go to it now with the spade. We’ll bury the woman Sapphira here where her husband’s laid.

They’re out of it. Neither Cæsar nor Peter can wake their sleep. I lost my ass, and they lost their lives for the price of a sheep.

And Cæsar will rule forever! And Peter if he grows strong Will make a pact with Cæsar, and Israel’s woe and wrong

Will spread all over the earth. It takes no prophet to see That while there is Gold and Fear man will never be free--

Until the world is fed, and hunger steals like a wraith With the ghost of Cæsar’s lust, and the mist of Peter’s faith.

THE TWO MALEFACTORS

Ask Matthew, or ask Mark, and get the truth. I know myself, was there and heard them both-- Both railed at him. No! one did not rebuke The other for his railing; did not ask To be remembered when into his Kingdom Jesus should come. What kingdom? David’s?--pah! That had gone whirling with the desert’s dust. What kingdom? That within you? A fool’s kingdom! “To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise,” He never said that. I was there. I know. And if he did, where is that paradise? Where is he? And where is the man they say He said this to? Ask Matthew, learn the truth: Both railed at him. Both died, nerved to the last By bitter disappointment.

Listen, friend, These malefactors were my brothers! Well, I saw them grow up lusty. I beheld Their course from hope to action, till defeat And prison took them.

For we are the sons, We Jews, of those who went to Babylon; Returned to fall by Alexander’s sword; Were snatched by Syria, then Egypt came, Put heels upon our necks. Rome sailed to us, And took us over. And these bitter years Made poets, prophets of us, spurred us on To inflate the dream Jehovah with our breath Of threats and curses; yet these bitter years Kept at white heat the hope of David’s throne, Restored, triumphant, and our prophecies Were from Jehovah of a king to come Who would free Israel, drive the oppressor off, And let us live as men.

Now it may be A certain Jacob was his grandfather, As Matthew says; or it may be that Heli Was his grandfather, as Luke says, but still Both say he was of David. And Luke says The angel Gabriel came to Mary, his mother, And said he shall be great and shall be called The Son of the Most High, and God shall give him The throne of his father David. He shall reign Over the house of Jacob, and his kingdom Shall have no end. We looked for such a one To free us and with portents such as stars, And Gabriel descending, Bethlehem Become his birth-place, and the prophecies Of old fulfilled, we looked for Israel freed, And for a king of Jewish blood to rule us-- No Cæsar any more. For it was prophesied Of Bethlehem: For out of thee shall come A governor, a shepherd of my people! And look, he’s born in Bethlehem! And why not Our hope re-kindled?

And now look at us; These centuries bruised, imprisoned and made poor, Jerusalem a city of wails and woes, The whole of Israel slaved! And look at him! How does he start his work, whatever it be? By reading from Isaiah at Nazareth:-- “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach good tidings to The poor, hath sent me to proclaim release To captives and to set at liberty Them that are bruised.”

What doctrine may this be, But change, or revolution, and the ferment Of new wine bursting bottles frail and old, This tyranny of Cæsar, this dependence On alien rulership? You know yourself Barabbas was not single in the crime Of insurrection, ask the fellow Mark. He’ll tell you this Barabbas lay in bonds With many who rose up, committed murder. Of these were my two brothers, crucified With Jesus on that day.

Well, so it was He preached, was followed by the poor, the weak, The slaved, despoiled until ’twas noised abroad Through all the hill country and in the cities That he stirred up the people everywhere, Devising revolution, overthrow Of Cæsar’s rule. But there was murmuring too: For some said he was good, and others said He deceived the people. For upon a day When he was asked directly of our tribute, Whether to pay to Cæsar, not to pay, He dodged and said: “Give Cæsar his due and God His due”; but what we wished to know, was what Was Cæsar’s due, and give it him, and if No tribute was his due, but rather casting The yoke of Cæsar, then give Cæsar that. He did not answer what the Pharisees asked, That which _we_ wished to hear him answer, though The Pharisees had asked him. For we poor, Enslaved and disinherited had followed His leadership thus far.

Behold the change: Passing from work unfinished he becomes The Son of God and God himself, becomes A mystery, the Word that lived and wrought Before John who announced him. Tidings preached, I grant you, to the poor, but who remain Poor as before, but worn for broken hope Of words that changed no thing. And no release To captives, and no liberty to those Bruised and in chains. And so I say his work Is left unfinished, nothing done in truth. And quickly, like a sun-rise on the hills, He flashes forth his God-head, and we’re left To Cæsar’s will, and end up with the words:-- His kingdom is of heaven, not of earth; Refines the point: this kingdom is within us. And he will die and rise again from death, Ascend to heaven, and return again Before this generation passes to take up His own to heaven, and will rule forever In heaven, not in Israel. For the world Is to be burnt, with all its disbelievers. And when it’s burnt, sitting at God’s right hand He’ll rule forever with his own! You see What we expected vanished in such words, Such madness, idle dreams.

But, as I said, His lineage was David’s; Matthew, Mark Will tell you so. But David said of Christ, Calling him Lord; sit thou on my right hand Till I make enemies of thine thy foot-stool. “How is Christ son of David, being his Lord?” Asked Jesus of the Pharisees, closed their mouths With asking that. The common people heard Him gladly when he said this--true enough! But I, my brothers, did not hear him gladly. For if he were the son of God, yet equal In being and in time with God, why not The son and lord of David? Both perplex The spirit of man; one mystery is as dark As another mystery, and if one be so, then Another may be also. Pass the point....

They crucified my brothers with him! Both Railed on him for deliverance from the cross. If he were God, he could have plucked the nails And let them down, escape. And listen now: My brothers kept their faith in him to the last, And since they were condemned and had to pay For insurrection on the cross, chose out His day of crucifixion for their own; Believed that he would save them, and so make This choosing of his time of penalty An hour of luck. And so I tell you truth: Though both were railing it was rather pain Than lack of hope that made them rail at him. Nor was it mockery that made them rail. They hoped to stir him by their words, evoke His greatest strength to help them that they railed. They even smiled a little when the nails Were driven through their hands, as if to say: “You cannot harm us when this god is here; Go, do your butcher business, for at last He’ll save himself and us.” And just as men Refuse to think death near, and still believe They will escape it somehow, when no aid, But human hands is near, my brothers thought This god would surely save them. So they talked, Hunched up their legs and shoulders to ease up The strain of hanging on the nails, and waited, Joked with the lookers on, and smiled and begged, And sweated agony and railed at last. But when the voices in the crowd called out: “If you trust God, let God deliver you, If you are God’s son, let Him save you now; Save thou thyself!” my older brother said: “If I were off this cross I’d break your heads, You crooked priests, you whited sepulchers, You carrion Scribes and Pharisees.”

And such noise As they cast lots to get his garments, shouts When they were won and parted! In a silence He asked his Father to forgive them, saying They knew not what they did. My brother bawled: “They know what they are doing, they have killed The prophets in all ages! Don’t say that! Don’t end up soft, you cursed them hitherto, These are the vipers that you cursed before; These are the vultures that you said you’d shut The gates of heaven against; these are the wolves That thirst for blood and lap it, unrepentant Blasphemers against you and the Holy Ghost; Committers of unpardonable sins, the band You drove with knotted cords from out the temple. And what is usury or selling doves To killing you? Why ask your Father this? Why now this softness? Change of mood, why prayers Instead of curses? If you’re dying, sire, Be what you were when you were flush with life, And curse them into hell. Hold to your strength, And curse them into hell.” And so it went With talking back and forth, mixed in with groans, And curses, railings, while my brothers twisted Their bodies, and hunched up their thighs and backs To ease the strain of hanging on the nails, And dribbled at the mouth, and babbled things And laughed like devils in a soul possessed.

But when he thirsted and they took a sponge And gave him vinegar, and he sucked it in, They looked at him with eyes that bulged with fear:-- They saw him drooping, fainting, losing strength, They struggled then and shouted: “Keep on breathing! Breathe deep! Call on your Father! Don’t give up! Fight for your life, your god-head and ourselves! We’re here because you came and preached, and stirred The people! Don’t desert us now! Great Lord, Messiah, Son of God, are we first martyrs To what you failed to do? We cannot die, You must not die. Let David’s throne be lost As lost it is, but not our lives! Great Lord!” Thus as they chattered, chattered, bawled and shouted Jesus threw back his head and cried so loud That all the valleys echoed it: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And then His head dropped on his chest--and he was dead....

They looked at him--my brothers looked at him, And whimpered--they were beaten, but fought on. Tears stained with blood went coursing down their cheeks. And then the soldiers came to break their legs. And one had fainted, but the other one Was fighting still and said: “Have mercy friend, Cæsar would save me, what does Cæsar care For one poor rebel?”

Then they broke their legs, And all were dead. So ended up another Chapter in this poor world’s hopeless hope.

BERENICE

AGRIPPA

How is it with this people?

FESTUS

Much the same. They kick the Roman rule. Like flame in stubble, Which being slapped with sticks, leaps up and spreads, Oppression makes them hotter.

BERENICE

And why not? Seeing their customs, altars, arks and temples The beauty of their faith, as they have dreamed it, And fashioned it with hands from gold and wood Is desecrated.

FESTUS

How to firmly keep The rule of Cæsar, leave their god untouched, That is the problem. Where the state and god Are one, inseparable, can Cæsar rule And not subject their god? There was this Judas Together with a Pharisee named Sadduk Who fought the Roman census of the Jews, Raised revolution in religion’s name, A cunning strategy. You could not crush The revolution, leave their faith unharmed. And now this new sect called the Nazarenes-- The country’s in a tumult.

AGRIPPA

Yes, these Nazarenes, The worst of all.

BERENICE

I have heard the desert Fosters a little burr of poisonous spines Which sometimes as the lion roams the sands, Sticks in the hairy clefts between his claws. It itches, stings, and maddens; with a growl The lion lays him down and with his tongue Licks out the pest. It sticks upon his tongue. He has no second tongue to lick it thence. It sticks and stings. The poison spreads apace And puffs the rebelling member till his throat Narrows for breath. And then he runs and roars, And with his nose plows through the sand, lies down, Digs in the desert, leaps, rolls over, froths, Grows green of eye; chokes to his death at last. Rome is your lion, and the burr these Jews.

AGRIPPA

Sweet sister, be as apt with counsel as Your parable is apt.

BERENICE

You have my word. Let them alone, their internecine strife ’Twixt sect and sect fight out. Madmen they are And zealots--let them choke and strive and wail. Jesus they killed and Stephen. But should Rome Repress religions, doctrines, script or speech? If what they teach be false ’twill die, if true You cannot kill it.

AGRIPPA

You could say as well If thickets bear no apples they will die; If they bear apples you can kill them not. But thickets bear no apples. Apple trees Fall easily to the ax. And so with truth, And false truth. Where you have one man who’s wise You have a million fools, who take the stones Of ignorance and error in their hands And overwhelm the wise. Rome shall not fall, Recede, relent before a mob like this.

FESTUS

They seem to thrive by being mowed, and yet If left uncut they choke us. There is Paul, My heritage from Felix, jailed two years, And brought before me by the Jews, who charged Offenses numerous against him, such As breaches of the Jewish law, attacks Upon their temple, on the emperor, Contemned perhaps, the which they could not prove. Now to report to you, O King, my judgment Divided in the case of Paul. I sought To do the Jews a pleasure. So I asked: Will you go to Jerusalem and be judged? But Paul replied: I stand at Cæsar’s seat, There should my judgment be.

AGRIPPA

O, wicked Rome, Whose laws become a haven to her foes When they are troubled.

FESTUS

Yes, I told these Jews Rome does not give a man to die before He meets his accusers face to face, has time To answer for himself. And so it was I came to Cæsarea, had him brought And heard the case. As I supposed, they charged This Paul with nothing, only matters raised Of their own superstitions, and of Jesus Whom Paul affirmed, affirms to be alive, Though dead long since. But as he had appealed To Cæsar I commanded he be kept Till I might send him. But what shall I say? How shall I send him, after all, to Cæsar Without a writing that shall signify Why and for what I send him? Cæsar’s time Is not for crimeless causes.

AGRIPPA

Nevertheless As he’s appealed to Cæsar he must go. But I would hear him.

FESTUS

I have sent for him That you may hear him. There, he enters now!

(_Paul is brought in._)

He has a speech that he has often made How first he persecuted, for in truth Agrippa He is a catapult that has sprung up As far as he was pulled the other way. And he will tell you how he stoned this Stephen, And hunted Nazarenes: and how he went With writs of persecution from the priests Up to Damascus, on the way saw light From heaven, heard the voice of Jesus cry That he should be a minister to the faith, And preach as he had persecuted. You see The rebound of nature, mind.

BERENICE

How thin, How pale he is, how bright his eyes! Agrippa Confine him to the matter of this god Who died, and from the dead arose. O Death, You are man’s horror, and we brood upon you, Our altars are placations to your wrath. This Paul is mad for thinking of you, mad With faith that he has conquered you. Look there! See how his eyes are staring bright as fire-- I am afraid. And yet if it were true Jesus arose, nay if the world could be Persuaded that he rose, the faith would sweep The world with fire, and crumble every temple And altar of our gods in almighty Rome. Look how he stares!

AGRIPPA

There is a noble madness, A madness which has slaved nobility And energy and eloquence. Say now Who saw this Jesus after he arose? Did Paul? Who saw him?

FESTUS

No one that I know. Not Paul. He says a multitude. Some disciples, Some women, and one Peter.

AGRIPPA

Where are they? Bring one to me. Bring Peter; bring a woman. This is the cause I’d hear. And if this Paul Can bring me witness, though his crime were great As Hannibal’s on Rome, I’ll set him free. Why look at him! Is this new matter to me? Is he the first who for the gods went mad? Or for the mystery of life went mad? Or madness took for what we are and why, And what this life means? For this world has seen A perfect harmony and working thought And inspiration in a thousand minds Of madness on some matter. Fellow, come Close here before me. Look at me. Yes, well, There is the light of rising suns, and stars That burn immortally, in your eyes. Now speak. Did Jesus die?

PAUL

He died.

AGRIPPA

Did he arise?

PAUL

He arose.

AGRIPPA

How long being dead?

PAUL

Three days.

AGRIPPA

Saw you him in life?

PAUL

No.

AGRIPPA

In death?

PAUL

No.

AGRIPPA

After he rose?

PAUL

No! I only heard his voice.

AGRIPPA

Where?

PAUL

On the way to Damascus.

AGRIPPA

What did he say?

PAUL

“It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

AGRIPPA

What else?

PAUL

I asked, “Who art thou Lord?”

AGRIPPA

And then?

PAUL

“I am Jesus,” he said, “whom thou persecutest. To thee have I come to make of thee a witness And a minister.”

AGRIPPA

Since then you have preached, For which the Jews have persecuted you As you stoned Stephen?

PAUL

Yes.

AGRIPPA

And you affirm That Jesus from the dead arose?

PAUL

Thou hast said. But also I affirm that all shall rise From death who in the Christ believe, save those Who live now, and shall die not ere he come.

AGRIPPA

He comes again?

PAUL

Quickly, even before This generation passes.

AGRIPPA

You are mad. Do you appeal to Cæsar?

PAUL

I appeal.

AGRIPPA

Why not be stoned as Stephen was and rise? If you believe in Jesus, you believe They cannot kill you.

PAUL

As you will, O King. I must finish my course, whatever time I die.

AGRIPPA

I could have set you free, if you had taken To Cæsar no appeal. Being as it is I send you up to Rome. Who can find out The workings of a mind? Yet true it is He saves himself out of a cunning thought Of this appeal to Cæsar. Turn him over To the Centurion Julius--on to Rome. We have conferred together. He has done No thing deserving death. Take him to Rome. He’ll find a house and hire it, in Rome Live unmolested, preach, hear Mithra preached Who cheated death, they say, as Jesus did. Now let us rise and to the banquet room. Come Sister, Festus, to the banquet room.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR: _OR_ EATING GRASS

Nebuchadnezzar the King, called Ha-Rashang, Which is to say, the wicked, by the Jews; I, King of Babylon, the beautiful, The mighty who have spread the prospering code Of Hammumrapi, and the obelisk Of diorite whereon the code is stamped, Kept in the Temple of Marduk, myself The lover of progress, beauty, breathe this prayer: Peace to all peoples, nations, languages That dwell in all the earth, and also peace Be multiplied to you; this I record Upon these bricks of Babylon, and as well My glory and my madness.

First attend: What would the gods, the god Jehovah even Have me to do, me gifted with this strength, This wisdom, skill in arms? Sit in a hut Of mud beside the Tigris, be a marsh Of spirit, sleeping, oozing, grown with flags? Or be Euphrates rushing, giving life And drink of life to fields? What should I do? Suffer this Syra to dream and drool? Jerusalem to boast, dispute and trade, And vaunt its favoring heaven, or go forth And smite Jerusalem and Tyre and take them, And lead their peoples back to Babylon, And make them work and serve me, build canals, Great reservoirs, my palace, city walls, The Hanging Gardens, till my Babylon In all this would become a wonder, terror And worthy of my spirit, hope and dream; A city and a kingdom in the world Become the external substance, form and beauty, Administration, order of a soul Lordly and gifted--mine, my Babylon, My dream expressed!

That which I did they tried To do and failed in doing, even themselves Would rule as I have ruled, build as I builded, Win glory as I won it; to that end Did they invoke their gods, and in the mouths Of gods and of Jehovah put the curses And wails of failure. I have triumphed, now My gods are full of song; I have maintained My kingdom and my spirit, driving out The aggressor Necho, who came forth from Egypt, Syria and Palestine to take from me, Him I destroyed at Carchemish--my spirit Have I regained and healed. And now in age, These eighty years of life gone over me, And rulership of forty years, I sit Within the level sun-light of my age, And at this close of day upon my roof And view my Babylon; but without fear Madness will come upon me ever again. The glory of my kingdom has returned, My honor and my brightness have returned; My counselors and lords have come to me; I am established in my age, and excellent Majesty is added unto me.

All this Though here upon this roof, upon this spot, My madness came upon me, when I looked Over the roofs and temples of my city And said: Is not this Babylon, the great, That I have builded for my kingdom’s house By the might of my power and for the honor Of my great majesty? Why was it so?

First genius and the dream, then toil and pain While hands lay stone on stone, and as the stones Rise from the earth, where naked slaves cry out, Wheel, lift and grunt; and mortar, scaffolding, Pillars of cedar strewn confusedly, Your dream is blurred, even while your city rises Out of the dream. I was like to a woman In the pain of travail, who is mad with pain, Scarce knows her friends or what is being done, Nor needs to know, since nature orders all, Delivers her, but lets the mid-wife lift The infant to her breast. Even so with me, I had conceived this Babylon, nourished it In the womb of my genius where it grew, came forth Whole like a child at last from scaffoldings, Confusion, waste of mortar, stone and bronze. And when it was accomplished, then my madness Came on me in a moment of clear seeing That this which was within me, was without me; Was substance and reality before me; Was even myself gone out of me, as the child Goes from the mother--then my madness came Not when I saw it first, for I had seen it Both from this roof and from the Hanging Gardens, And from the temple of Bel, and in the streets; But seen it without knowing, as the mother Exhausted, dulled with agony may know The child is born, without the consciousness, The wonder and the rapture of the child, As the miracle that was of her, but now Is a miracle external and a life, A beauty separate, that walks from her And has its life and way, herself and hers, But different and its own.

And so it was When I beheld my Babylon, saw my dream Spread out before me, clear and definite, A beauty separate, my very soul Torn out of me and fashioned into stone, Having its life and way, myself and mine, Yet being itself, its own. If I had seen Myself divided and become two men, My other self come toward me, stand, extend His hand to me, my terror were not more Than this to see my Babylon. In that moment My madness came upon me.

But before, Some nights and days before this I had lain In troubled dreams upon my couch, had dreamed Of images and trees, for daily cares Of empire and the fears of change and loss Had entered in my dreams. Cyaxeres Dreamed that a vine grew from his daughter’s womb And overshadowed Asia, which denoted Her offspring should be clothed with majesty And rulership of Asia. As for me, My tree was felled, only the stump was left, Bound to the earth with brass and iron--this Foretold what I am now, as Daniel said, Interpreting my dream. These dreams had come Which shook me for the thought of human life-- How frail and fleeting! But again to hear Curses about me for my work and genius Called by these Jews Ha-Rashang; and to feel Though I had chosen Daniel, Hananiah, Michael, Azariah for mine own, And to be taught to help me in the task Of my administration; even though I chose all men for duty, wisest use And in my great humanity and strength Had placed my subjects where they best could serve The beauty and the progress of my city-- Though, as I said, to feel that I had done All things for good and with no thought but good, Yet still to hear these curses and to see The worthlessness of human kind, the crowd, I bowed my head and prayed to Ishtar saying: Make me an animal and let me feed With beasts instead of these: So had I prayed Before my madness in that moment came.

Then as to that, my madness: it was sunset, I walked upon my palace’s level roof, And looked upon my Babylon; then I thought Of all my labors, how I had restored The temples of Borsippa, Uruk, Ur, Sippar and Larsa, Dilbat; made the plains Below the great Euphrates rich in corn; Brought plenty to my people, bread and wine To all my people; laughter, as it may be, Between our fated tears to all my people, And then I looked on Babylon lying there Beneath the evening’s sunlight, safe behind Its sixty miles of walls unscalable, Rising four hundred feet, impregnable For near a hundred feet of width in stone. I saw its hundred gates of durable bronze; My eyes were lifted to the terraces Up, up above the river to the temple Of Bel who blessed my city, and I saw The temples built to Nebo, Sin and Nana, Marduk and Shamash, saw my aqueducts, The houses of my people, in between The palm grooves and the gardens bearing food Enough to feed the city if besieged; Beheld the Hanging Gardens which I built To soothe Amytis, who had memories Of mountainous Media, gazing on The Babylonian plains.

So as I stood And looked upon my city, voices passed Below me muttering Ha-Rashang, and then This Babylon, my Babylon, lay before me As my genius realized, grown out of me, Myself become another, and a being Which once was me, but now no more was me, Was mine and was not mine; and with that thought Rising like Enlil, god of storm and thunder, Over my terrored spirit, I grew mad And fled among the beasts, where for a season I ate grass with the oxen, let the dew Fall on my body, till my hairs were grown Like eagle’s feathers and my nails were grown Like claws of birds. In madness and in hate Of men and life, in loathing of my glory, My genius and my labors did I live; In loathing of these tribes who hate the mother Goddess of our ritual and belief; Tribes who have made religion of the hate Of procreative nature, curse the flame Of beauty, and of love wherewith I built This Babylon of glory, lust of life; Till nature cured me and I came again To rule my Babylon, my excellence Of majesty returned.

What am I now, Bowed with these eighty years? My Babylon, What is it now to me? I am a father Whose son is aging, even has made his place And lived to see it fade, diminish. A son So old his sonship is a memory, Has almost ceased to be--that’s Babylon. And I, the father, know this Babylon As creature of my loins, yet indeed This city scarcely differs from the cities That lie afar, as aging sons are men Among the men of earth, but scarcely more To a father bent with time than other men. For in my riotous genius, like a vine I did put forth this branch, the vine decays, The branch will live a season. Out of genius And lust of life to madness, out of madness To this tranquillity, and this setting sun, This peace with heaven.

HIP LUNG _ON_ YUAN CHANG

You like store? You like Chinese tea? You like me? You like silk, fan, screen, dragon, pearl chair, jade; You like Chinese tobacco, picture, Budda too, Well, as Geesu Klist? All light Lee, You Chinaman, maybe. I like Chicago too. I like you, and Hinky Dink, lots I like. Good city here, much friends. I make some money, Go back to China sometime. Keep store here, Come back to store.

China old country, vely old country, Wise country, much wise men long time ago. Here book Shu Ching, about old time, More’n tree tousand year ago. Here Lun Yu book About Confucius, live long time ago, much time Before live Geesu; taught love one another, Be good to good men; bad men be fair to; speak truth. Where sun and moon shine, all place, love and honor Come to Confucius, brother of God.

More yet: Lao Tzu great man, too, who say be good To bad men; Chinaman read; close book and speak What book says; to be wise, Chinese learn to speak What book say closed, on shelf, burned up, or lost. Chicago good town, Amelika good country, England, Europe good country too, but China good country, Wise long time ago, when no Amelika was, No town in England, and no book in Europe, Two tousand year before Geesu Kliste came. Some say Budda greater than Kliste; Chinee say Confucius greater than Budda. I say all gods; leave alone--what you care? Kill Chinaman if you wish, golden rule is golden rule In Pekin, or Jerusalem.

Geesu Kliste people, Salvation Army come and say: “Hip Lung, Be saved, love Geesu Kliste, be baptized.” I know the Four Books, I say the Four Books And never look; but when I say Confucius Taught Golden Rule and love, they say, not clear Like Geesu Kliste, Confucius heathen man, Not good like Geesu Kliste. All light! All light! I sing about the Dragon Boats, go round The store till they go on. They no read The Four Books, no care. Sometime I ask Why China not hear about Geesu Kliste for years. Why? Eh? We hear of Budda, why No hear of Kliste?

Kliste people say Tree hundred year they know Kliste comin’-- China no hear. China hear ’bout Budda Tree hundred year after Budda die. Ming Ti, great king, sent down India To hear ’bout God Budda. China no hear of Kliste then ... Tousand year after God Budda die, Great man come to China; Fa Hsien, Kliste dead now four hundred year, But China no hear. Why? Fa Hsien go to India to get books about Budda. Go trou Gobi desert--no birds, tigers, But much dragons and devils. Fa Hsien go to Benares, Budda, Gaya, Ceylon Come back with books about light way; See light, hope light, speak light, Do light, live light, try light; light mind, Light happiness. And China hear And love Budda!...

Kliste dead four hundred year-- Alle time much people in China, temples, cities, Much books, many wise men. And Kliste dead now six hundred year, And China no hear. Kliste! Same time god Budda grow in China.

Kliste dead more’n six hundred year, And Arabs come from Medina to Canton, Tell about prophet of God Muhammed--Allah! But no Kliste much.

Next year, Kliste dead now ’bout 630 year. Salvation Army come from Persia, and China hear ’Bout Kliste, too late; god Budda worshipped now By much China people.

Year before Salvation Army from Persia Great man come again: Yuan Chang. He go to India to get books ’Bout god Budda, and see holy place. You no hear ’bout Yuan Chang? No? Greek men, great men, and Cheeser, Napoleon great men and popes, and Roosevelt-- All light! Yuan Chang great man too. Like Fa Hsien he go trou Gobi desert, Fight robbers, dragons, no water, no food; See much broken cities; Go from Samarkand to Nepal; Gone fourteen years; Come back to Singor, Tai-tsung emperor now, And vely glad to see Yuan Chang, Who bring tousands of books by god Budda, Gold, silver, crystal images of god Budda, And bones of god Budda, hair, nails, leaves of Bo tree, All like that. Where is Kliste now? I don’t know. China hear not much....

Tai-tsung great emperor! Know much too! Know about Allah, know about Budda, Know about Kliste, and Salvation Army. But Tai-tsung no give a damn, Only say to Yuan Chang: Write Budda books in China language. And write Lao Tzu in Indian language. Trade gods that way! We no lose. Maybe India see more in Lao Tzu Than China, who knows? All time Kliste dead more’n six hundred year, And no body say much bout Kliste, And China goin’ to hell, as Salvation Army say, Alle time.

Kliste dead six hundred year, Salvation Army come to England, And baptize everybody; but China no hear. Kliste dead eighteen hundred year, England come to China for Kliste and opium-- Make nice dreams--what you care ’Bout Budda, Kliste--Smoke? Eh?

ULYSSES

Settled to evenings before the doorway With Telemachus, who sat at his knee, “Why did you stay so long from Ithaca, Leaving my mother Penelope?”

The eyes of the hero rolled and wandered, Thinking of Scylla and Sicily. “That’s a hard question,” answered Ulysses, “Harder, if answered, for you to see.

“There was the Cyclops, there was Æolus, There were the Sirens, and Hades for me; Apollo’s oxen, Hades’ horrors, Circe, and then Ogygia.

“All these after the war, Telemachus-- Too long a tale, as you will agree. The bards must write it, when you are older Read till the gray hairs give you the key

“Of the wonder and richness that were your father’s Life in the war, the long way home. No man has lived, as I, Telemachus, None ever will live in the days to come “A life that followed the paths and hollows Of Time, the wayward ways of the streams That flow round earth, the winds and waters Of passion, wisdom, thought and dreams.

“There are two things, my boy, and only Two in the world, remember this: One thing is men, the other women, And after the two of them nothing is.

“I have known men as king and warrior, Known them as liegmen, spears of the line. Good enough lamps for workaday darkness-- They are not food, they are not wine;

“They are not heat that stir the secret Core of the seed of a man, be sure. And I, Ulysses, needed the planets, And suns of the spring to live, mature.”

“What do you mean?” asked Telemachus, “And, say is it true you lost eight years Away from Ithaca, me and my mother Because of a certain Calypso’s tears?”

The eyes of the hero rolled and wandered. “There now, my boy, you have the truth. I’ll try to tell you perhaps you’ll get it In spite of your filial love and your youth.

“First, understand there are two things only;-- One is women, the other men. And men I knew before and at Troyland, And searched their hearts again and again.

“What do you get? Secrets of cunning, Cruelty, strength, and much that you use In the battle with them; but what’s a woman? She is the mother, she is the Muse

“That leads and lifts to life--Telemachus How can I tell you?--have a care! Young men seize on the words of wisdom, And find their hands in a silken snare,

“Hearing blindly, seeing literally, What is a sword, a lamp, a shield? Touch and learn, the name is only The shell wherein the thing is concealed.”

“What do you mean?” asked Telemachus. “What do I mean? Attend to me! I’ll try to tell you, telling a story Of the island called Ogygia.

“I know women--how shall I tell you? Women are good, and good is wine. Yet how to tell the wine and women That turn her adorers into swine.

“You must have aid of Hermes, swiftness Of spirit and sense to tell them apart; How to be strong, how to be tender, How to surrender and keep your heart.

“Easy for me to baffle Circe, Easy the Sirens to slip--just wax! I steered for Ithaca, you and your mother, Isle to isle on the ocean’s tracks,

“Until I came and saw Calypso. Son you would be with Calypso yet. It takes a hero suppled in flame To see Calypso, and leave, forget

Face and voice enough to leave her, Spurn her promises, turn from her tears, Come to Ithaca with this doorway, Age that hovers, the little years.”

“What do you mean?” asked Telemachus. “Live and learn,” Ulysses replied. “Calypso promised me youth eternal If I would stay and make her my bride.”

“And why not stay?” asked Telemachus “To have her for wife, if not a youth Eternal given you?” “Boy of me listen Now for the core of the deepest truth:

“We dined in grottoes of blooming ivy; We supped in halls of cedar and gold; We slept on balconies, sapphire tented-- But even I found this growing old.

“I saw her beauty bare by star light, And by the sea in the sun, and stoled In silk as white as snow on Parnassus-- But even I found this growing old.

“Her tresses smelt of the blooms of Hymettus, Her breasts were cymbals sweet to behold; Her voice was a harp of pearl and silver-- But even I found this growing old.

“Her Lips were like the flame of a taper Scented and musical, as she would fold White arms over the brawn of my shoulders-- But even I found this growing old.

“She promised me this and youth forever, So long as the sun and the planets rolled. I knew they were gifts she could not give me, Empty promises too grow old.

“And even if given, why forever Live the things that have grown enough? She loved me, wonderful Calypso. But what is love? It is only love.

“And the salt of a man turns to his doorway, He makes his will for his blood at the end. My boy, that’s why I left Calypso And came to you--do you comprehend?

“To sit unshorn, and clothed as I choose, Talk with the swineherd, potter or shirk, Babble at ease, my boy, with your mother Around the house at rest or at work.

“And you must not forget, Telemachus, In order to have immortality It had to be with Calypso--therefore I came to you and Penelope,

“Who soon will leave me, at best, or else I’ll leave you for the Isles of the Blest. I find this doorway good, Telemachus, As a place to dream and a place to rest.”

“I do not understand, Ulysses, Father of me. At first the call Of the blood, I thought, would hasten you homeward. And now I wonder you came at all

“Here to Ithaca. What, my father, Is here but my mother growing old; Aged Lærtes, Telemachus-- What of Calypso’s hair of gold?

“What of the island, what of the feasting, What of her kisses, were it I I’d spurn eternal youth, as a mortal Live with Calypso until I should die.”

“I have no doubt,” said the many minded Great Ulysses. “It’s plain to see You are a boy yet. When is supper? Go ask your mother Penelope.”

THE PARTY

Our wishes not consulted whether We chose to come, not even the hour, Some would have asked for fairer weather Than on a day of sun and shower. No chance to choose! And some got wet, Were sick and nervous while they stayed; Others came in the sun, the debt Of Fortune to them overpaid. We all came ignorant, willy-nilly, Pell mell, piebald, grave and silly, Resistless to the party drawn, Which had gone on and would go on From dawn to night and night to dawn. Though some, it seemed, had scarcely come Before they left; and some at noon, Or morning bade adieu. The moon Saw others take departure home. All talked about it as you would; Esteemed it dull, over too soon,-- Bad, sad, or wearing, very good!

Over too soon! Yet truth to tell It was a lasting festival. Guests had to leave--and that was all. To each some different thing befell. The party went on just the same. First guests departed, late arrived; Fresh candles burned with brighter flame; New cakes were cut, and laughter thrived Over a wit re-sharpened. Crumbs Of eaten things were brushed away; Dishes were cleared and lovelier bowls Were piled with new picked grapes and plums. The place the while was mad and gay Because of sad and merry souls. There was a room for love’s romancing; A room for talk, a room for dancing; A room for globes and maps and books; A room with sky lights, a room of nooks; A room of pictures, marbles, bronzes; Guns, gauntlets, spears, armor, sconces; A room of racks and torture hooks; A room of ikons, shrines and josses; A room of crosiers, cups and crosses; A room--but everything was here-- That brain can think of, plan or make To shackle spirits, honor brows, To thrill the heart, or start the tear, Or stir a rapture, or an ache-- It was a wonder house!

I noticed this: You enter with Fellow arrivers, ill at ease. The rooms are full, and some of these Know you, but only with their eyes Acknowledge you in mild surprise. Listen! and you will get the pith And meaning of what went before From these. The high ones talk in myth, Who own the rooms--in loose ellipsis Show what their tried out fellowships’ Inner communion is and lore. But kinder souls say: “Some one great Was here before you came.” “This thing Happened this morning.” “Look! that one Just going out, is so and so.” “There comes the waiter with your plate!” “You should have heard that woman sing! She’s going!” “Oh, we’ve had such fun.” “What happened? What’s ahead? Its slow!” Late stayers stare your ignorance: “Why don’t they tell us?” “Oh, no use, You wouldn’t understand. You’ll know Later, perhaps, by happy chance. And if you don’t, it’s too abstruse, We have no words. Feed on and run The rooms around. You’ll see what we Have felt, seen, suffered and enjoyed.”

And so it is to father and son, Mother and maid. Then what should be? The bell rings, some are glad, annoyed: New guests are coming, and for some The Chauffeur rings, the Car has come! And we who were the novices, And wondered, stared, deferred, inquired, Are now in charge, and take amiss Curious questions, have acquired The Party’s manner, secrets, speech. And see, as those before us saw, New and old groups are troubled, each Is deaf and dumb. How can we draw Their wordless wonder to the point? What would you know? How can we reach And vocalize your dumbness? What To ask of us you do not know, And what to tell you we know not-- Groups, therefore, clearly out of joint.

Yes, but they do not know us now. Most here are strange. Where is the throng With whom we came? Where is the brow Sunny of hair, the voice of song? Where is the hand that understood, Without a word? There’s none to hear, And know our meaning as he would ... New wine is opened. No more wine! New cake is cut. I must instead Drink brandy, bitters, heavy beer. I rather like this coarse, black bread. Strange music plays, not high and clear. No matter! For you might inspect The pictures, marbles, once again, Look at the books some more, correct First errors. Surely that were well. And you can do it, having fared So differently. Was that the bell? “Your chauffeur’s here!” “Why speed me so?” “Too bad! Too bad you have to go!”

Yes, but the party’s over! No? Over for me. And I am tired. Desire for what I once desired Is dying or is satisfied. Tell him to wait a moment--yes I wish to see what may betide; Watch the new corners laugh and feast; Watch eyes that glance, and breasts that heave; Watch cunning, aspiration, pride; Watch soldier, statesman, poet, priest; Watch those who doubt and who believe, Untangle, tangle, spin and weave. I’ve helped to make the party, still The party is not to my will. I can re-make it, now I know How to enjoy it better, use Its hour more wisely. “By your leave. Just wait a moment!” “Well, your car Is at the door and must not park; The way you go is rather far, Besides it’s growing dark.” Bowed out! No matter! I am due At a better party, so they say. To-morrow is a better day-- Always to-morrow. “What of you? You’re coning? Well, I hope you may.” “Meantime good night, a safe return, And blessings on your way.”

CELSUS AT HADRIAN’S VILLA

This is the place, my friend Aristo. Here We sit and muse on the state of the world. Alas! What are we coming to?

The tufa walls Inlaid with yellow lichens look like bronze Gold filagreed. And through those rifts and breaks There are the trunks of ilex, gnarled and dark. Look! Nature mocks us. Hadrian is asleep These nearly hundred years. Does cyclamen Crimson about these walls grow less profuse? Or these anemones laugh less to the sun? Or bramble, honeysuckle, bougainvillea Desert the gardens of the emperor? The merle and golden-crested wrens build nests, Sing the hymeneal song! But man, poor man, Forsakes his triumphs, work, his palaces. And barbarous weeds sprout over them and creep, And choke his wisdom and his art.

Let’s sit Here in this colonnade. Philosophers From Rome and Athens, Alexandria, From mystic India, walked this colonnade, And let the mind run free. It is no more, Unless we fight the human weeds that spring Under the rains that darken Rome. Let’s up With hoes and root them.

Here’s cat-brier--chop! Cat-brier, Christian meekness, fair to view-- But how it stinks! And briars: pain and loss For ecstasy and gain beyond--I chop! Chop here, Aristo, get your friends to chop, Lest all the world be given up to weeds, As Hadrian’s Villa is about to be. Rome soon will stretch her templed neck to breathe Above the thorns, the hyssop. Even now The state is crumbling with the heresy That Rome should not be reverenced and saved, But every soul saved. The Imperial City To which each Roman is a servitor Put by for doctrine making every heart Worthy of saving from the wreck of life-- I chop this weed. And for the soul of Rome, The lazar soul, the slave, the fuller, cobbler, The fool, the God-forsaken and the child ... What if Rome fall? The City of God remains Eternal in the Heavens. Yes, but Earth, Where is thy city, if it be not Rome? Destroy your Romans, Hadrians, what is left?-- Itinerant exorcists and prophets, idlers, And sacred beggars, leper lips that curse Rome and her beauty? These the citizens Of the City of God! What will that city be? Themselves externalized, as Rome has flowered From Roman minds; but never a Hadrian Villa In the City of God, never from scowls and sores! No You shall have a world of trade and lies, Of itching and denials, for a world Of freedom and expression, wine and song. These huckstering Jews are planting in our Rome The faith that they persuaded God to kill His Son to save them. And a huckstering Will taint the flesh of all who eat this god. But yet how they will rub their palms and coo And ape a meekness. Here! Aristo, chop!...

But just so long as stories remain in place Of Hadrian’s Villa, eyes will look upon them And sense the mind of Rome, and what it was: That eyes were made for seeing, ears for hearing, Hands made to touch, tongues made to taste, minds made To think, imagine, love given to indulge For rapture. There’s no law of heaven or earth That trims eyes, ears, the senses, Of use; but all were made to leaf and bloom The idea of the eye, the ear, the hand. And only reason with regard for health Of eyes, ears, hands, may guide and say: how far.... See now what Hadrian’s mind created here:-- A tragic theatre, a comic theatre. What for? For eyes’ sake, for exploring life. Katharsis? Yes. But use? No use to him Who thinks life sin, the world’s end near, for Jews Who like the frogs in marshes croaking, say: “For our sakes was the world created, we Alone are chosen of God.” No use for him Who sees enough of suffering in life Without its mimicry; sees not the art Of shooting light between the mystery Of human fate, and waking sympathy Through understanding. Christian weeds I chop, Whose roots begin to sap the tragic roots Of Sophocles.

But I say eyes may see: And if I wish to watch the lions fight What interdicts me, and what reason for it? Now look how Hadrian’s mind puts into flower: A temple for Greek books, and one for Latin; And there’s the stadium, and there’s the baths. These Christians frown the bath. If I make out Jesus may come today, and wherefore wash? Besides the naked bathers cling and kiss Within the tepidarium at times, and hence Out with all bathing!

There’s the palace too Which o’ertops Nero’s Golden House, they say. And what guest chambers here! The laughing soul Of Hadrian glows amid his friends. What’s best In life, Aristo? Why, when the soul is freed, From business, traffic, grasping, thought of self, The aches of the day, and being freed shines forth As star companions star, in smiles and words Of praise, affection. Hadrian loves the faith Of happiness, and lets his guests fare free, Wander eight miles of garden, enter vales Of Tempe, watch a mimic Peneus Flow by; encounter fauns amid the brakes; Surprise Bacchantes sleeping; hear from hills A chorus of Euripides soothe their souls With dreams before Faustina’s sculptured face, Or Antinous, Apollo, Venus; bathe Their glowing bodies in the pools; partake Of food or wine, gifts of the gods. Such life Is passing, soon will pass. Aurelius Lies under thought, which thrived before the day Of Paul for all of that, the folly sees not Of slaving Christians, while himself is teaching The Christian doctrine! Ugliness, denial, Self-laceration, beggary, are older Than Jesus--and I chop!

But let the world Submit to weeds, in time what will you have? Not Hadrian’s Villa, but a villa walled, Walls spiked and guarded, and a house of walls Empty of sculpture, where a miser-man, Guarding his gold, a lone man eating bread And milk, rules realms and countries from the book Of Enoch, Exodus, the Septuagint, And these purported writings of one Paul; And who has made his heart a granary For seed of faith and trade. This weed I chop! For then your world lies flatter than the land Of that campagna, made a marsh for frogs, Dull grass and feculent roots, as it would lie If once invaders smashed the aqueducts And drowned our lovely plain!

You see, my friend Why I fight back the weeds. This is not all, For I know what engenders Christian faith: Man dreams he can be saved, but saved from what? Sin? What is sin? Age? What can save from age, What keep the spring of youth, its rosy flesh, Its spirit never tiring, hope undarkened, Its courage without fears, long dreams and days? Why nothing! All’s illusion that holds forth A medicine for wrinkles, shrunken arms. Therefore what saves from death? Does Jesus save? Does Jesus ease a soul’s pain, cure a loss Save as these devotees may soothe their hearts With prospects of to-morrow, or of heaven? No! good Aristo, all this Roman realm, Washed by this sea, for centuries has been As fertile as the valley of the Nile For seed of this salvation dream, the seed Of Mithra and Osiris, Krishna, Budda, Adonis, Tammuz, Dionysus, Attis, What is this seed of Jesus? Nothing new: The virgin birth? That’s old as human dreams. There’s Dionysus born of Semele, A virgin, and of Zeus; great Dionysus The resurrection of the year, the mad Intoxicating power of nature, wine. There is a myth that Jesus at a feast Turned water into wine, a Bacchic feat. One myth blends in another like mosaics Of microscopic jewels. I go on. Zeus fathers many sons of virgins born, Is not content with one. He takes Danæ And Perseus is the fruit, who slays the Gorgons And saves Andromeda, the human soul. Devaki is a virgin, weds Vishnu, And Krishna comes. A virgin is the mother Of Budda. Horus springs from virgin Isis, Our Lady, Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Mother of God, so called for centuries Before the days of Mary. Neith, the virgin, Was mother of Osiris. Mithra’s born Of a virgin mother.

This is what I mean By fertile soil of Egypt, Persia, Greece, That crops the seed of Jesus. Is this all? All saviours tally fully. All were born In caves or stables, chambers under ground; All labored for the welfare of the race; All were light bringers, healers, mediators Between the gods and men. All fell in death, Descended to the underworld. All rose To strive for men in heaven; all created Communions, churches, rites of water, wine, Last suppers, brought the entheos, spilt their blood; God, Krishna, Dionysus, Hercules. And as for that Tammuz was crucified, Prometheus was nailed and chained.

You know! These from the mysteries of the heart, from life;-- Death of the year, birth of the year, the hope That shines amid the mist of doubts and days; The dream that says if nature leave the grave Of winter, what’s the life of man, to be Shut from the law that wakes the fallen seed? If God renews the wine, I drink the juice Of the grape and live! If God be in the bull, And must be, life is life, and all is life Of one divinity, I drink the blood, I wash therein, cleanse sin, and celebrate A ritual of salvation, endless life!... I trace all Krishnas, Mithras in this god, Hope’s latest dream.

What’s needed but a flame That draws these older flames? What but a man Of inspiration, labor, sacrifice, A poet, hater of the scurvy times, Killed for his blasting eyes, accusing tongue, To have your Christos? Jesus lived. Why not? ’Tis credible; killed by the Jews, why not? And made a sacrifice for many--doctrine World old and wide. From Babylon the Jews Brought Hammurapi, brought Sacaea too, A ritual for prisoners doomed to die, By which they would be decked in kingly robes, Stripped, scourged and hanged even as we have done At Saturnalia. How else “King of the Jews,” Except by ancient custom? Think, Aristo, Would great Tiberius suffer such sedition Except as drama and in mockery? Aristo, if this Jesus were the god As Mithra, Dionysus are, ’twere well With Rome and Hadrian’s Villa. Understand If these infatuate zealots, Jews would keep Their god, belief, but still conform to Rome, Rome’s gods, the empire reverence, who would care? No Roman! No one! But to hear these prophets Cry through our cities, camps: to everlasting Flames commit our cities and our lands, And curse us out of Jewish scriptures, draw The imprecations of the epileptic Paul upon us, this I fight, I chop! I stand with sword against the enervation Of private judgment, that the common man Is heaven’s prize. This demos mania And ruin of the empire I oppose. And when these plagues of Christians grow too loud, And Rome arouses, wants the lions fed, Or crosses painted with a little red, I go to see. These anarch colleges, Illicit schools, called churches, quiet down When in the circus Christian bones are crunched....

Now for my consolation if Rome fall; If lowliness and other worldiness; If meekness, sacrifice; if life’s denial; If all this creed out of inverted thought, Shame for the lust of life, the Orient’s Sick perfume, drugs, if all of this be taken Into the body of Rome, the world; the poison Of Jesus swallowed--this my consolation: Life, being God, is stronger than God’s Son; Life will digest it, and evacuate What cannot be digested, and retain What can be used. Another Rome will rise If our Rome fall. Let’s go up there, a while, And watch the waterfalls, and have some wine.

INVOCATION TO THE GODS

I

Goddess, born of the mother of all things, the sea, Goddess of beauty, goddess of rapture, Goddess whose girdle is life, Come down to us, O Aphrodite. We are sunk in the slough of our shame; We are torn with denials and fears, Who have turned from thy altar, And rejected thy worship And mangled the gift of love For the ritual of Mary the Virgin. Come down to us that we may re-make ourselves In the likeness of thy face-- We have no goddess like thee O Aphrodite!

II

And thou, equal sister, O goddess Whose temple yet stands enthroned rock-bound above The grotto of Mary of Galilee, Eternal symbol! Come down to us: Preserver of the state In peace and war, With the healing of harmonious thought. Stern goddess of an equal law, And ruler of the mind. Guardian of temples and republics. Lover and inspirer of the arts, Come down to us that we may re-make ourselves In the likeness of thy face. We have no goddess like thee Pallas Athena!

III

Thou soul of the Sun And master of fire, Law-giver, ruler, warder, Founder of templed cities, Founder of states invincible and free; Thou voice of prophecy, wisest friend Of commonwealths; Lord of music, lord of words and sounds, And brother of the muses. Come down that we may re-make ourselves In the likeness of thy face. We have no god like thee O great Apollo!

IV

Of old amid the mountains sat the father Of gods and men! Broad souled as nature, being nature. Human and gracious, laughing, wise as time. Ruler of earth and heaven--all but fate; And promising no life that was not fate; No wonder and no change Beyond the rule of fate. Great Zeus whose fruitful loins Peopled Olympus With gods and goddesses, well belovéd. Not father of one son, but many sons; Not father of one daughter, but many daughters, Begotten of thee, immaculately, Being begotten in nature. Great father of redeemers who redeemed Through truth which frees through being known, Not faith in truth which is not known. Beauty and not belief, Mystical waters, curses, flames and death! Come down, O Father Zeus, while we re-make Our faces in the likeness of thy face. We have no god like thee O sovran Zeus!

V

Thou Thunderer, whose mood was wine and love, Miraculous life, creativeness Of color and sound, Out of the lightning, out of the mist, Out of the beat and urge of the sea, Out of mountains, sacred groves and streams. Thou king and father of the virgin daughter Templed in pure, in deathless stone In sacred Athens. Not always striking at the foes of Hellas; Nor sending fury on her enemies; Nor bathing swords in heaven To smite the foes of Hellas; Nor treading grapes in anger; Nor sprinkling blood on garments To make all peoples worship thee, O Zeus! Nor breeding worms that die not, To make all peoples worship thee, O Zeus! Nor stirring envy like a man of war To make all peoples worship thee, O Zeus! Nor preaching words of gladness to the meek; Nor opening prison doors To sound the day of vengeance, To make all peoples worship thee, O Zeus! Nor saying, eat the riches of thy foes, And suck their milk; And make them plowmen; And take dominion over them and power. I am the one, the only god, go forth And make all peoples worship, I am Zeus!

VI

The hunted ghost of Delphos steals From land to land.

Thy lyre has been weighed in the balances Of the money changers, and rejected. The Prince of Peace has brought the sword Even as he prophesied. All peoples are at strife Between his ritual and the will to life. Vengeance, hypocrisy and darkness Are over us, we are vipers Coiled in a cistern. We wait for blood in the moon, For darkness in the Sun, For a voice from clouds of glory: Depart from me, accursed; into fire. I shut the gates of heaven And burn the world with wrath!

Thou in Olympus tombed With all thy sons and daughters, Palace no more, a footstool For Jehovah of Judea, Come back that we may re-make ourselves In the likeness of thy face. O, father Zeus, Wake when Jesus shuts The gates of heaven, And take us to Olympus!

PENTHEUS IN THESE STATES

I

Muse of the meditative hymn, and Muse Of chronicles and the scroll, to us refuse No gift to sing the daimon, the divine God-head of Nature, Freedom and the Vine. Nor less that Orpheus of the Mysteries: Stars and the Soul and Heaven, and the Seas Of tangible streams made light above the dust Of this bewildering earth of Flesh and Lust.

II

First from what Thracian land Did your attendants come In coon-skin caps and jeans, Into this wilderness, spanned By mountains, to this home Of the Corn-mother, clothed in variable greens Of barley, oats and wheat? Hither hurried your adventurous feet From England, and from the hills Above the Rhine, and out of the valleys Of the populous plain Of Lombardy, around the Seine, You came Like flame that follows flame! From Galway, Lyons, Bergen, Budapest, Onward you pressed, With hearts that sang, and brave, Like wave that runs to wave! And from all northlands of new dreams, from ills That stir the Spring awakening and the quest. Thence were these swarming sallies Into New England, and the great Northwest-- Virginia and Kentucky, Tennessee. Thracians you were, attending Dionyse, And seeking realms of Nature to be free. Ciders from orchards would have ease, And wine from vineyards, to be planted, Where the roar of mountain torrents haunted Heights of the pine and slopes of fragrant grasses From plains to granite passes. Rocks sealed with frost and ice which prisoned The secret wine of Life new sensed and newly visioned Flowed when the Spring of a great Age, and its Herakles, Fire of the Sun of Liberty, melted the locks Of ancient and forbidding rocks Binding the torrent: human and divine Strength and adventure: Mænads and Thyiades, Bacchæ, Bassarides: Spirits and evangels of new wine. Mad Ones: armed for war. And Rushing Ones: defying Strife. Inspired Ones: trailing the Star Of larger life.

III

And with this swift descent, To this far occident, Tracking the gleam, the god, the freer fields; Rejoicing, but in rites For the Mystery, the delights Of living and of thought, which moulds and wields, These hunters, fur-capped, like the devotees Out of the Thrace of old, worshipping and defending The wine-grower, and temple-builder, Dionyse, Carved from the fire impregnate Earth the sovereignties Of Maryland, New York, and Tennessee’s Mountainous realm, to the blending Of foothills with the meadows of Illinois. And made initiate in great liberties The farthest West, until the Orient sea’s Soft thunder lustrates California, bending Above green water, clothed in purple and gold. Carved these with hope their children would uphold, And no hand would destroy The altars of States heaped full of grapes and grain: Births of the Sun and earth, to be adored, And gathered in high festival and joy From mountain side and plain; And drunk from golden kantharoi, God entering into man, thereby: restored By the blood and flesh of the god, the lord, To strength and vision to unveil Deep mysteries and raptures, worshippings Of nature, love for man, for deities Quick intimations, quiverings through the wings Of larger life, and sweeter music, cities Of higher fellowships and lovelier ways Of wisdom, where the phantoms of the Pities, And the Hatreds, the Agonies Of Melancholy, Madness, Soul’s Disease From horrors, and from idiot pieties Are softened or dispelled in Freedom’s praise.

IV

Pentheus in the tree-top spies upon The wild white women, the dance, the festival. And Judas spies on Jesus In the epiphany of Orpheus out of Dionysus. But the cup is drunk by the lover, the singer John. Who finding the ecstasy of sorrow, and sounding the deeps Of love and vision, human and mystical In the wine cup, oh, beloved guest, Sinks in a moment of ineffable rest, And rid of the flesh, half sleeps Upon the Master’s breast. Judas alert for treasure and for treason Dips in the sop his bread-- Judas the founder of the sect which fouls The feast of Life, lizards and owls. But where the liknon is borne, the cradle heaped With fruits and flowers at the bridal feast, O, Dionysiac Christ, you passed the cup; And at the supper of parting, O lovely priest, At the time of the fan, and the purging of the floor, You served the blood of the grape, and you did sup With fur-capped fellows, and revealed the lore Of remembrance for the mysteries you had spoken Over the purple hills, and by the yellow shore In wine quaffed and bread broken.

V

Thin lips where cruel smiles betray Envy and frigid spirits, souls of gray Who will descend upon you, rend and slay? Unknowers of the cycle of Man’s day: That nourished flesh grows spirit, and that wine Is the oil of the lamp of the soul, and feeds the flame That lights the world with Art! Who will waylay Your spying and your hatred, limb from limb Tear you, or drive you to a death of shame, Like Judas self-hung? As if in paradigm, Purple but horrible! Cut-throats of the rites Of amity and dreams, the blossoming, The release from the flesh to soul’s delights, Intenser life in soft intoxication-- And from that life, and rapturous elation Who are you who restrain, Making a cult of undelivered pain?-- Through which men love and fashion, sing. You false salvationists and street haranguers, Self-drunk with soul suppression and perversion, Who shout the terror of putrescence, never beauty; You with suspicions of the peasant Persian; You foul-breathed ranters of Duty About these states, you vermin-eaten clangers Of hog-ribs, paper tambourines:-- Degenerate instruments for an imbecile faith, And mockeries of bright silver (touched by queens, The Muses), and the ebony crotola. You scare-crows of the Mænads and the Muses, Breastless or babeless women who would vote For rulership of other homes, not yours. And you who moralize and gloat On the refuse of banquets in the sewers. You preachers of Denial and of Death, And maniacs of repression which refuses The cup of life! And in this bacchanalia, You followers of Orpheus, as reformer, Plain dressed in alpaca and string ties, Who bellow forth your prophecies and curses Not that man lives, but that man dies. You carriers of umbrellas, not the thyrsos, Or rifles of the fur-capped pioneers; Slick spouters who fill fat penurious purses Out of inevitable tears. You Judases to Beauty, the sneak, informer, Blind that all Canas must precede The soul’s Gethsemanes, that there can be Save Cana strengthens, no Gethsemane; And if no living then no heart to bleed Its blood to make us like the god, the Christ. No flower of spirit without root and vine, Nor loveliness for our sakes sacrificed; No beauty without wine-- You who these mysteries see not, or gainsay Who will tear limb from limb of you and slay?

VI

You who behold no spirit in earth and sun, And in their marriage no symbol of increase; And you who plan or plot or brood, but run About the wine press never, and who shun The kinship which makes one of beasts and man, Blossoms and vines and trees. You who see not the mystery of food, The ecstasy of the feast, replenishment Of spirit in the wine-cup, and who ban In fear or loathing, swooning of the blood; You who can take as memory’s sacrament The wafer and the thimble of vapid juice, And yet deny us, seekers of elation, Re-birth through Dionysus, the youthful Christ: Living, rejoicing in Life’s thrilling spring, Not grieving in its autumn and decline, Bridal, not funeral wine In the hour of memory and of parting; You who forbid our ritual and our use Of Nature’s secrets, our illumination, Our sleep, our peace, Our freedom from the Fears, intoxication In which our souls are paradised; Our insight, charities, and our release From the grave of the day’s flesh, our Orphic lips Through which we find creations, sun-lit wings, Love, wanderings of the soul, and fellowships-- You who these wisdoms see not, or gainsay Who will tear limb from limb of you, and slay?

Will the old States never come to us, never again, And the sovereignty of men, In the mountains of our fathers, along the boundless plain? Has the will of the people perished, or passed into the hand Of the oafs and boors and lunk-heads of the land, And the bigot, Puritan, And the martyrs to the martyrdom of Pain, Seeking remembrance not for Life, but Death? Have we given up the sister realms, the freedom of the States Through a tyranny of shame In the South land where the black-man wears the gag? Shall we bear the blight of cities, charged to electorates In the silence of the bearers of the flag? Shall the cowardice of sycophants commissioned to obey Defeat the trust, but call it still our voice? Shall we who give you, as we wish, the choice Of freedom to be solemn or rejoice, Avenge not your injustice, nor gainsay, Nor strew you limb from limb along the way?

COMPARATIVE CRIMINALS

Marion Strode, my friend, a chanting voice For heaven’s kingdom on this earth, a hand Ready to open prisons, heal the bruised, Bring liberty to men, was wrought to fire Over the martyrdom of Ott. He called it A martyrdom, and said: “Come go with me And comfort Ott in prison.” So he went.

And on the train I read what Ott had said, For which he suffered prison. Jail for words Is older than Saint Paul; as old as cities, And fear that dreads the change that words may bring. I also saw a picture of this Ott: Head like a billiard ball, a little cracked, Warped egg-like too. A homeless cat made furtive By missive cans and frightful hoots. A ragged Gabriel shut from heaven’s bliss. A porter Of righteousness compelled to open the gate Of paradise for Mark Hanna, but himself Debarred an entrance. Asking nothing either, Yet facing God to sift him, find him pure As those who enter.

Here’s a man who never To eighty years loses from brightening eyes Flames from the stake reflected, or the shadows Of prison for the sake of conscience. Thinks No one who has soft raiment ever reads “The Ancient Lowly,” or the “Martyrdom Of Labor,” history, science; none are wise But radicals.

And then I read in full What Ott had said for which they prisoned him. They charged him with obstructing the enlistment. But in his speech there isn’t a single word Advising a resistance to the draft, By just so many words concretely. Quite Adroit this speech, quite foxy. Yet it’s true If you knew you could get a man to act On what was in his mind, long brooded on By giving him a shot of alcohol; And if you gave it and he did the deed You would be an inciter, principal And doer of the deed.

Now take this speech Which glorifies the socialistic cause; Lauds divers martyrs tried, already jailed For words against the draft; denounces Prussia, Oh, yes! but in such words as hit the home Of the brave, the free America! Ouch! Quit! Says that the master class has always made The wars in which the subject class was used, Which never had a voice in making war: Affirmative universal! What’s the answer? He means this war, this holy war, the traitor! Denounces capital, exhorts the crowd To strive for something better than to be Fodder for cannon. What? The prize of death In battle called a foddering of the cannon! What better thing to strive for? Throw him out! The price of coal is due to plutocrats; They’re bleeding you, and say it’s for the war. They lie! What’s treason? Not disloyal To those you work for, but disloyalty To truth, your better self.

If you believe this Would you become a soldier, or say no, I will not fight for such a cause or country?... I see, said Voltaire, three times one are one. A man in heat might flout the trinity; But when he studies out some persiflage With which to flout it--well--here’s Ott who has Contempt aforethought for the war and draft, And squirts his venom through closed teeth, the better To shoot it further, make it hit.

I said: “Your Mr. Ott is guilty of the charge. No use to talk of constitutions. No. He loves the Lovejoys, Garrisons and Paines, The Brunos, martyrs, let him stand his ground.” And Marion Strode replied: “Yes, Ott is guilty. But did he speak the truth? Yes? Very well. It must have been the time and place that made The penitentiary for twenty years A fitting penalty. But when’s the time To talk against war’s horror? When there’s war, And words are vivid, or when war is not, And talks against it sound like when you say ‘Look out for bears’ to children?

“War-lords talk In peace and war to be prepared. May I Prepare for peace in war time, when my words Have demonstrations in the events of war? You think not? The majority has spoken! Well, has it? Point me out a plebiscite That asked for war. But take your point at full The majority has spoken: why forbid The back-hall, soap-box rostrum; what will come? The majority will stick and go ahead; Or else the soap box will persuade it back And end the war. Is there another term? The great majority annoyed, obstructed, Delayed, distracted, harried! Well, you know The Tories did that to George Washington. And Lincoln! Why, the people at the polls Returned a critical congress. And if trials Strengthen the character of a man, why not Obstructions for majorities howling war To clarify and strengthen them? God works In ways mysterious, but in every way; Whatever is is true.

“Ott, as I see it, Was jailed for twenty years for speaking truth At the wrong time and place. A heavy fine For wrong a æsthetics, etiquette.

“I go deeper, I pass the law that jailed him, all æsthetics, All etiquette, all wrong of time and place. Let’s enter in a realm of realer things. What does Ott stand for in a war or peace? Is it not freedom, equal rights, the end Of poverty, disease? Has he not held The torch of science up, the torch of thought Interpreting the greatest minds to win Attention to them and adherence to them? If he did this, has not his life been given To making America a brighter light, A sounder realm, her breed a stronger breed? If he be not a light himself, but only A humble trimmer of the wick, let’s say The wick of Socrates, or Franklin, Paine, Or Jesus as the prophet in the work Of freeing for the truth, then what of that? Who gets the judgment in the years to come, A parlor lamp of yellow flame, that smells Of coal oil, or your Ott?

“Let’s take a type: He woos the average man, appeals to him; The average man whose morals, art and books Are just victrola records, microscopic Echoes of small realities of the past. He sees what he can do with this America Of the average man, the common people called. He follows them and gives them vapid stuff Of morals, laws and politics. His aim? Talk which will win the very largest nod Of ignorant assent. Result? Why look, He is a daily of a million sale, He coins the money lecturing, uses too His following to keep America Upon the level of the common man In morals, freedom, thought, virility. He scoffs at science and the noodles giggle. Music? Why, who’s Beethoven? Let me hear ‘Lead Kindly Light.’ The drama? Well, Ben Hur Is moral and historical. Sculpture? Look At those bronze figures by the mantel clock-- That’s Faith and Hope. Freedom of speech and press? Within the limits of the law! And war? I loathe it, I opposed it, but when war Is by the law decreed, I enter too And howl for what I hissed, for what I called An evil and a wrong.

“Now hear me out: Suppose he could persuade America To take his books, and music, sculpture, ethics-- That is his purpose, to persuade us all To take them, as it was the aim of Ott To stay enlistment and so stop the war-- What of our civilization? It would fall. If so who should be jailed, this orator Or Ott?

“Now we’ve arrived, can test these souls. Ott fights the war and sticks, your orator Opposes the war and quotes the Nazarene. But does he stick? Why no! The truth remains. He changes, lifts his nose for noting when The noses of the majority are lifted. Our Mr. Ott winters behind the bars. Our orator retires to Florida; Emerges slick and strong when April comes To lecture, get the money.

“Now suppose Ott by his talk had balked the war, that crime Is nothing by the side of the other crime Of keeping common followers commoner; Corrupting thought. The war is over now. With Ott in prison and the orator out. Let’s test them on the whole, and wholly freed From war tests; Ott’s a trimmer of great wicks; Your orator a parlor lamp that smells Of coal oil. And the larger truth would open The prison doors for Ott, and push the orator Behind the doors and lock them.”

Marion Strode Went on till we arrived. And there was Ott Serene and smiling in his prison clothes.

“We mean To get a pardon for you,” Marion Strode Spoke out at once, “and give this prison cell To a certain orator of the commonplace.” Ott laughed and said, “What for? You’d break his puerile And shifty heart. This is a place for men Who stand their ground. I may not have much brains, But what I have I use as Socrates Devoted his. I want to share the greatness Of the great with what brains I possess. I like This cell because it helps me do this.”

Then We shook the hand of Ott and turned away!

THE GREAT RACE PASSES

They were the fair-haired Achæans, Who won the Trojan war; They were the Vikings who sailed to Iceland And America. They became the bone of England, And the fire of Normandy, And the will of Holland and Germany, And the builders of America.

Their blood flowed into the veins of David, And the veins of Jesus, Homer and Æschylos, Dante and Michael Angelo, Alexander and Cæsar, William of Orange and Washington. They sang the songs, They won the wars.

They were chosen for might in battle; For blue eyes and white flesh, For clean blood, for strength, for class. They went to the wars And left the little breeds To stay with the women, Trading and plowing.

They perished in battle All the way along the stretch of centuries, And left the little breeds to possess the earth-- _The Great Race is passing._

They went forth to free peoples, White and black. They fought for their own freedom, And perished. They founded America, And perished-- _The Great Race is passing._

On State street throngs crowd and push, Wriggle and writhe like maggots. Their noses are flat, Their faces are broad, Their heads are like gourds, Their eyes are dull, Their mouths are open-- _The Great Race is passing._

The meek shall inherit the earth: Crackers and negroes in the South, Methodists and prohibitionists, Mongrels and pigmies Possess the land. A president sits in a wheel chair Sick from the fumes of his own idle dreams-- _The Great Race is passing._

DEMOS THE DESPOT

Not in the circus before your thumbs inverted, Demos, the despot, do we stand; But amid the swarming half-born girted, And amid the idiot millions who command Have we our freedom re-asserted-- Rule us you cannot, though you rule the land.

Frederick and Charles and Philip the misbegotten Destroyed the body with fagots and with fetters, Until the finger magic of movable letters Choked them out of a world that they made rotten With blood and corpses. But, O Demos, you Plague us with dwarfs that trip us, run and hide; Foul us with frogs that froth our ancient wine; Scourge us with locusts, and with snakes that twine, And hiss but do not kill. With lice subdue Our patience, and our time divide In seeking the favored hour. And then you say: Have you not freedom, pray? Do you not think and print? You do not bleed For freedom’s sake! You do not die at once. And if you starve, have you not had your way? We let you print, but do we have to read?

Or suffer what you print to be displayed? What you call liberty affronts Our white-frog breasts, the laws we made. All rightful rights remain. Neglect and want shall be your ball and chain If you trespass our rules-- In other times you would be burned or slain!

Such being the freedom that you grant, O Demos, Our olden task is this: we fire the rushes Of yesteryear, and beat with sticks of truth The little snakes and dwarfs that hide in bushes; Drain the dead water, set exhilarant youth With ploughs upon the musty marsh to turn The scum and green decay, and chase the frogs.

Then after we cut and drain and burn All will be sweet and clean awhile. But soon the weeds and crawlers will defile Our labor. Then the demagogues Will lead the chorus of the frogs: This is the land, this is the field This is the age of freedom, long revealed. This is the age most blest, This is the country freest, best, This is the country that fulfills Ancient hope and prophecy, This is the age, this is the land, The land, the age, the realm most free....

Then in that hour we shall be dancing, And feasting with new gods upon the hills; And graving images of lovelier Beauty; And building altars of a purer Duty; And singing rituals of a deeper Faith. And living life, and facing death As fairer gods would have us. And for you O frogs, the fated sharers Of all we dream and do, We the dreamers, the preparers, Shall then be gathering strength to burn Bushes and plow again The frog marsh and the weedy plain!

A REPUBLIC

Her faith abandoned and her place despised, Her mission lost through ridicule, hooted forth From the forum she erected, by cat calls, And tory sneers and schemes. Her basic law Scoffed out of court, amended at the need Of stomachology by the judges, or A majority of States, as it is said-- Rather by drunks and grafters, for the time The spokesmen of the States, coerced and scared By Methodists with a fund to hire spies, And unearth women scrapes, or other sins With which to say: “Vote dry, or be exposed.” A marsh Atlantic drifting, towed at last By pirates into harbor, made a pasture For alien hatreds, greeds. A shackled press, And voices gagged, creative spirits frozen, Obtunded by disgust or fear. War only, Armies and navies speak the national mind, And make it move as a man; for other things Resistance, thought divided, ostracism, Or jail for their protagonists. At the mast The cross above the crossbones, in between The starry banner. A people hatched like chickens: Of feeble spirit for much intercrossing, Without vision and without will, incapable Of lusty revolution whatever right Is spit upon or taken. A wriggling mass Bemused and babbling, trampling private right As a tyrant tramples it, calling it law Because it speaks the majority of the mob. A land that breeds the reformer, the infuriate Will in the shallow mind, the plague of frogs That hop into our rooms at Pharaoh’s will, And soil our banquet dishes, hour of joy. A giantess growing huger, duller of mind, Her gland pituitary being lost.

THE INN

Low windows in the room That tunnel the darkness with light! The tick of a clock in the fog that hovers From the cave and slide of the darkness Into the tunnels of light. A cannon stove, a dog at my feet; Cheap magazines on a table, Dead flies, an atlas; A register for guests, And stillness! Not a voice, a step-- Only the tick of the clock!

Mists of Fear, Mists of Memory, swirl and writhe, Dive, curl and coil From the mountain tops. A stretch of ochre grass by the river; Bent trees imploring the sun; And by the inn a road that stretches Along the river, full of dead dreams, patience, Weariness long endured!

Second morning of rain. Second morning of separation, death in loneliness! The wind rushes to the corner of the porch And sighs as it hides. Second morning that I see The walker of the road: An opera cloak of blue blows round him, Flaps out a lining of red. And an Alpine hat comes down to his little ears. He is booted, he limps a little. But he’s a figure compacted of iron, He’s master of the landscape; He has cowed it, kicks it about him, As if to say: “A village, a road, A river, mountains, rain, an inn, And a lonely soul in the inn. Well, what of it? To-morrow Benares, To-morrow Bactria--who knows?”

And I know as well as I know dead flies, And the tick of the clock He wants me, passes the inn to draw me. Strides to my view, though he never looks in. The flap of his cloak is a gesture; His eyes fixed straight ahead allure. He is passing again, returns and passes. I can stand no more!

I walk from the room, and haste to his side. A rusty hand out of the blue of his cloak Reaches for mine; silken soft in the palm Like an anthropoid’s, but boned To the strength of bronze in the fingers. Red scar on his cheek--a sabre cut! Or was it an aiguille gashed him When he fell headlong like a meteor, And rolled to a valley, got up, shook out, And dusted himself, set forth to travel From Ctesiphon to Sarajevo?...

But now the blue and red, The Alpine hat, the little ears, Against the ochre of stricken grass Are shrunk to the rust of jowl and jaw, And the scar, like lips grown to; And the smile of Jenghiz Khan.... His voice is the lowest octave Of riotous thought, conscienceless as nature. No talk, much thought. The earth’s a treadmill, And spheres back of us to toes dug in, Until we come to a mountain lake Clear and calm as a sky. Green shadows rich as moss around the shores; Clouds, clear blues at the centre! We are bending over, see each other’s faces In the water. What was it? Red scar on his cheek, Or red feather in the Alpine hat? I thrill! For I see his eyes at last; They are the fires of burning cities, Carthage, Athens. Quick! And we are lying Looking up into the sky. When a whiff of rotting men--I turn But he stays me with his hand. The scent passes--he talks To me--the sky!

“I am a soul fancier and catcher, A catcher and cager of birds, Whether they be kites, condors, cormorants, Crows, cow-birds, vultures, Or martins, mocking-birds, or hawks, Shrikes, orioles, clarindas, thrushes, Songsters, or scavengers, I catch them, And in these mountains, call them of memory Or bitter reflection, I cage them. But to be brief: Your bird of prey I catch By luring him with carrion; And your mocking bird with sounds Sweet as his own soul’s echo, as it were Unreal made real. But whether bird of prey, Or songster, it’s to fool them Always, until my hand cups over so-- Then a cottage, in the mountains of memory!

“I prize the soul called mocking bird Mimetic of all spirits, would be all, Self-fooler, and world fooler! Coos in scourged kingdoms like the dove, Presaging peace; Croaks like the eagle where the serfs implore Omens and leadership. I caught one lately, big as any crow. And cooped him--you shall see! But first as far as Prague, borne over seas, I heard the eagle, yes, was nearly fooled, Me, the expert in songsters, souls! I looked my soul-bird up and found My eagle was a mocking-bird; And when he croaked of counsel and debate, And breathing bracing air of matching minds, He was the mocking bird embowered and hidden In scented leaves of dreams, And sang what he would be, but could not be! A lyrist who sang down seclusion, still Could live nowhere but in concealment. A seeker of sweet notes from rich thesauri, Slaved to the habit of the lexicon. I would not catch him yet! Believe me now There is that in each soul which builds its cage, Achieves its capture, be it thirst or lust, A lexicon or rhetoric, singing notes Which makes the world say: ‘Hear the eagle cry!’ The world is fooled, but not the self is fooled; It sleeps, submits to singing, but arouses When soul is highest charmed with its own song, And at the apex of the life, and treats The man as mocking bird for what he is!... The self as mocking bird betrays and leads, Not eagle-wings, but weak wings to the fray, And there the realest self is seen at last Of self and all. To capture them or slay Is where I come and act.

“Sweet bird of dawning, dreaming of Fourteen, Who carried Christ across a stream, And gained the magic sack, Into the which whatever he wished would come When saying Artchila and Murtchila. But, he, this Fourteen, bird of dawning, mock-bird How could he carry Christ? What magic bag Would gather in, to words like ‘counsel,’ ‘process’? So charmed with voice of self he flew alone To a parley of fowls. And there amid rich crumbs, Silk vestured falconers, birds of paradise, Mock eagle fails, but true to song Utters what self of him destroys him for. Then I, to end, come in!

“Wouldn’t you think he’d know what had been done To him, his counsels, processes? Voice of the eagle sometimes, but the talons And wings, where were they? How was he Christopherus, how Fourteen? I step in here and send him On a great tour of singing, laugh in my sleeve To see him start with his empty magic bag-- Empty? Great wars to come and woes, Hatreds and desolations, blight of unfaith, And distillate of night-shade: Soul’s despair Were in the bag now. But I forget--all could not see these in it, Though most could see an empty bag. Well, now My project was to send him forth to chant The rhetoric of a life-time, tent him to The repetend and echo, the refrain That hides a hollow courage, and a brain Tired of its make-believe, and borrowed moods. My plan went further: Thus to send him forth, And in keen lighting have him see himself As some ten thousand saw him; in one moment Together by him and them! flash picture Photographed on a mountain’s wall, And visible for ages! So it was! I laughed, but being master I could pity.... My hand goes over him cup-like now, shuts eyes From sight of how he pecked me peevishly, Like a stud-sparrow shrilled. Time for the cage For our mock-eagle, logolyrist, truly!-- You shall know them by their words.”

“How’s this so quick, on a peak?” I said, for there we were, and the lake lost. Below us the plum world, pitted with gums: oceans. Streaked with streams: white-wash excrement of sparrows; Pine forests: fuzz on the rind; lice green and brown: men. I bawl in his ear against the breeze Whirl-pooled around us: “No Jesus business, no Budda business, I wouldn’t give a damn for it all.” “You lie,” he said. “You’re like the rest Esophagus, coil of guts, a vent.” “Man is a spirit.” “Man is a smell.” Just then up from the world’s valley a breeze Bearing the stench of ten million corpses-- “Hey! I faint.” I back away, bump into a cottage wall, a door Which opens--and there Is logolyrist caged, in durance, Twittering to himself the habitual notes, Impotent, damned, alone!

“Night comes quickly these days,” says the landlady Lighting the lamp. I stretch out of sleep And pat the head of an honest dog.

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM MARION REEDY

I

Son of the freer Republic, child of a day More joyous and more vital and more blest At the feast of Life; great heart, wise and gay, Forgiving and compassionate, though ever stressed Between the thorns, seeing afar the flower; And living from hour to hour In laughter for your wounds, or with a sigh For the thickening brambles that around you pressed:-- April has come to me again and May Since that July When you sank gladly to a coveted rest, Almost with your words to me upon your lips: That immortality Is not a promise, but a threat; that sleep However eternal, or however deep No more the worn out heart equips For life again; cannot make whole A liver and a dreamer, and a soul That climbed, as you did, earth’s precipitous steep.

II

You who had lived with books and walked the city Of statesman and of priest, Of money changer, theorist, And knew the human heart thereby, Saw with clairvoyant eye Behind my irony and laughter, pity; Behind indifference desire; At the core of me unquenchable fire, Walled with impenetrable ice. This I confess: I strewed adversities to your love With pride, with slow forgiveness Of the world’s ways. Yet for the strength thereof, Born of that mystic brotherhood, which can rise From kindred spirits, none the less Was your love mine, even to the end. You were my brother, O my friend!

III

The wages of Wisdom is Death:-- Shame, Fear, Want, Hate, Lust, Strife and Enmity, All these you lived, and living them through You survived them, but still knew Their quality. At last from them made free You stood in blossom, perfecter of bloom At the touch of the sickle than ever in all your years. Pure flame had conquered the reek and fume Of the gross fuel of your nature, feeding The light that lighted us, but to consume Itself at last. O soul of eyes and ears Open and heeding Signs of all fair and foul in the land, all climes, Riches of dead epochs, ancient times. O, human, worldly Augustine, in your tower Watching the wavering lines of Want or Power, Hailing and warning, Stilites of the rite Of Epicurus (that happiness at the last Is freedom) viewing the misty age Atop a pillar of Zeus, and holding fast, Through change and weariness, to work, in spite Of clear conviction, nothing can assuage The soul’s desire. Though the flesh has food, And water, and is satisfied, Yet the soul must hunger for hope, for explanation Of this insoluble task of life, defied By every test of the human soul, still wooed By flitting lights of faith and intimation. Yet if soul father us could soul not do For souls of us what water for our thirst Accomplishes? Promethean, this you knew: The restless search with which man’s soul is cursed; Yet brooding on it, still you dreamed Of a city for all nations, consecrate To the creative spirit of God in man; Guardian angels were to you revealed In labor with man’s fate, Uplifting the human spirit, like a flame, Consoled, redeemed, Strengthened and purified and healed, To the silent, eternal life from whence it came.

IV

To this you have gone. I saw your artist hands That had so little rest Folded in quietness upon your breast. Whether the dead find peace, or loose the bands Of some intenser rhythm, still with peace Your face was sealed, as of a great surcease: Like sculpture, tideless streams, Or winter woods, or windless skies, Or sleep that has no dreams. Those spheres of flame, your ever wandering eyes, Were turned within to a realm more deep, Where death’s great secret seemingly was known As some clear, mild Simplicity! Or ’twas sleep Of the unborn that stilled them, or the void Of the dead seed never sown.... You were no more to me, whatever death is. I stood alone Empty of hand, save for the heritage Of what you were: A voice, a light, a music of deep tone, Which life made richer, and the age, And something of heaven employed To be for us our best interpreter. You were our star of empire lighting The path of peoples more and more To a freer day! O, voice of you which woke Rapt listeners over the earth. Out of your ashes wings of memory soar To carry the message of your life and word. Death of your body was the clearer birth Of the spirit of you, shining afar Upon our day and days to be: As evening winds blow coldly, yet make free From mist and hovering cloud The Western Star!

GOD AND MY COUNTRY

He had the bluest eyes I ever saw, And a smiling face like a bed of yellow daisies, And a voice around the house like a pet crow. And he went whistling through the yard and rooms, His hands grimed up with grease about machines, Which he could take apart and put together. And he could run a motor boat or a car. Or mend a telephone or a dynamo. And he knew novels, poetry and science. And he could swim, and box and run a race. And on a morning I went in his room And saw his naked body, saw his shoulders As broad as a great wrestler’s, and his arms As big as mine. He started to play bear, And took me in his arms and hugged me so I felt my ribs crack. Then I wondered when He had quit wearing stockings and knee breeches, And when it was he slipped to seventeen, Became a man.

And so the war came on. He tried to be a flyer, for he knew What engines were and all about machines And he knew trigonometry, and chemistry, And wireless telegraphy--but his age Debarred him from the flyers; so he chafed And did not whistle as he used to do, But growled a little like a yearling bear. And then his face grew bright again: he had gone, Enlisted in the army, came to me, His face all glowing: “Everything I am You taught to me,” he said; “to love the truth, To love democracy and America. And now we have a war, the very first When men could fight to bring democracy. Our country turned against the revolution In France, which was a democratic cause, But now we war to bring democracy To peoples everywhere, and I am off. God moves among us, and to serve and die Are blessings, I am happy, and am off.”

He terrified me with his shining face, His blue eyes, beautiful body, slim and strong. St. George was not more beautiful. I was awed, And said to him: “You terrify me, boy. There are plenty of men to go, await the call; Go if they call you, but you have your school, And if you go you’ll never go to school Again, and that will leave you half prepared For life, you’ll feel it all the rest of life.” But he stood up so straight and stern and shining And said: “I owe this service to you, Dad, For what you’ve been and taught me, and I owe it To God and to my country.” So it was He terrified me, and I said: “My boy, I am not wise enough, after all, to say What you should do. Perhaps you have a vision-- You are America come to herself; A vision and a mission and a glory Perhaps, perhaps. I step aside. Go on!”

They took him to a camp, and in a week I went to see him. He was in a pen Like a prize porker, looked a little down. He had been shot with vaccines of all sorts. He didn’t say much. Two weeks after that I saw him and he had a cold he caught From doing picket duty in the rain And sleeping on a mattress soaked with rain. The food was pretty good, not very good. He whispered: “All the pin-heads in the world Have got the jobs of officers. I’m surprised. I know more mathematics than they do, And more of everything. I thought an officer Was educated. Well, I am surprised.” He said the boys were dying right and left Because they had no care. And on a day When he came home to visit for a while He was stricken with the flu. I telephoned The officer, who raved and said no trick Would go with him. He’d send for him. He did, And took him out with a raging temperature, And back to camp. He almost died for that. And, when he got up, wobbled for some weeks. And about the time he stood up fairly strong They shipped him off to Europe; and they went Yelling like tigers smelling blood, and God Seemed farthest from their thoughts.

Well, so it went. And after while we had the armistice, The war was over, but no letter came. Where was he? Dead? We couldn’t learn a thing. Until at last this boy who went to fight For God and for democracy landed up In Russia fighting democracy, as America Fought France in eighteen hundred--for a letter Came to us telling where he was. And there He stayed some months and fought for covenants Arrived at in the open, independence Of little and big peoples, for the sea’s Freedom, or democracy, I’m not sure, For one of these or all, I am not sure. He got through anyway, or they got through With him, perhaps, for he came back at last, One eye out and one leg gone, and he’d lost God, so he said, and didn’t use the word Democracy at all, and, as for war, He said to me: “What is it? Everything Has its own idea, and the idea of war Is killing people? That’s our job, that’s war! And everybody yells atrocities, And everybody does ’em--what the hell Do people think war is, a Sunday School? I want some money, Dad, for I am broke; And I can’t work at much now, and, by God, I think I’ll write my story. So they’ll know They use you, and they fool you, and you die That some one may make money selling stuff, Or grab off lands or commerce. Hell’s delight! When I was sick in Russia, had delusions, I saw a snake so big he wrapped the world And swallowed it with everybody in it. You see, the snake’s the money-men, big business, The schemers, human buzzards, who eat up Young fellows and the kids, and lay on fat With fresh young blood that wants to shed itself For God and truth! I killed a Russian soldier And said: ‘You bastard,’ as I stuck him through, You hate yourself, so you just kill to glut Your hatred of yourself, your cruelty Which lusts, as it can masquerade behind The mask of duty. Give me a dollar, Dad, To get some cigarettes and some shaving blades.”

THE DUNES OF INDIANA

Under a sky as green as a juniper berry The yellow sands of the dunes, in clefts and curves Run up and down, until the horizon swerves At Michigan City, twenty miles from Gary.

Scrawls and grotesqueries of giants who laugh At the storm’s puffed cheeks, the water’s pilfering hands! Like the beat of a heart traced by a cardiograph, Their sky-line lifts and lulls, With the eternal pulse Of air and the sands.

The dunes are a quilt of yellow, green and gray Spread to the Calumet River. Peaked by giant children who play Circus with feet for poles. Fantastic dunes, Protean hills, and migratory tents Of invisible gypsies, changing with the moon’s Replenished and exhausted valleys of light. Forests of pine and oak arise On many a height, And down the steep descents Flourish and vanish from sight, Under the restless feet of the wandering hills. They trace in sand the changes of the skies When the sun of evening smelts Great towers of cloud or battlements, And levels them, or warps Their shapes to broken walls, Or twisted scraps, Or floors of emerald strewn with lion pelts.... Here there are water-falls; Lakes bright as mercury, and pools Green as the mosses, where hepaticas And asters scurry before the gesturing wind; Cool hollows, scented brakes Of bramble, fern and cane; Great marshes where the flags leap like green snakes, Bordered with garish gules Of pye-weed; over whose wastes the crane Flaps the slow rhythm of extended wings. And on whose reeds the blackbird sings A quaver of blue water, March’s fire.

Between the feet of the dunes and the trampling troops Of waves along the shore the sand is pounded Into a broad mosaic firm and smooth, Whereon are strewn old reels, between the groups Of blackened hut and booth. Boats lie here where they grounded, Like skeletons in the desert ribbed and black, Scaled with the water’s scurf.

The shore is the moat between the ruined rampart Of the dunes, whose shifting is stayed By splotches of thickets, trees and turf, And the invading surf. Here phantom mists descend, and the wrack Of autumn clouds fade into the air when storms Harry the water, and the sand is flayed By the whip of the wind. There is forever here the futile fashioning Of hills, and their leveling; The growth of forests and their burial; Pools filled and rivers changed or dried Between the spoiling winds, and the mystical Hands of the tide!

Branches as gnarled as an ancient olive tree Stream cherry blossoms like blown snow Toward the blue of the lake, a hundred feet below. They have been sand, now being blossoms drift With the winds whose spirit cannot be Quieted or given shrift. By night they howl or whine As if they asked for words, or a sign To tell of the sand and seeds and spores Which build and root, bear blossoms, seed, And change the uplands and the shores; Destroy, make over, mend Without use, without end In an endless cycle of sand and seed, Of wind and the washing of waves; They would tell why forests grow and find their graves; And hills glide to their sepulchres, Even as cities sink and pass away: Old Memphis, or old Bactria....

NATURE

Seas, mountains, rivers, hills, forests and plains, Our earth that floats in heaven’s translucent sphere, And keeps us fosterlings, though man attains-- As a spider winds the nerve white gossamer From its own being, and unwinding sails The heights--the secrets of the stars, the sheer Chasms of space, and tears the vaporous veils From Force and Distance. Nature! At the last Our breast of consolation! Man exhales Thereon the spirit which was an him cast From that same breast at birth. But what you are Remains, or on the mind of man is glassed As you, remaining; while the farthest star, The changing moon, the lessening sun, the sands Of buried cities toll our calendar Of dying days. Waters by star light, lands That slip or climb; leaves, blossoms, fruits contain The flesh of wonder perished, and the hands That sought with zeal or laughter, but in pain To know you and themselves. Still nourishing, Destroying, but unriddled, you remain!

Immeasurable Arc! To which our brief existence Is a point, if relative, not understood. With you endowed with motion and persistence, Contained within you, is life evil, good? Is life not of you? Is there aught without By which to judge this restless brotherhood Of will and water, and to quiet doubt That life is good? And may the scheme deny Itself when it is all, and rules throughout, Knows no defeat, except as forces vie Within it, striving? But, O Nature, you Mother of suns and systems, what can lie As God beyond you, making you untrue To larger truth or being? You are all! And man who moves within you may imbrue His hands in war, or famine on him fall Out of your eyeless genius, yet what wrong Is wrought to your creating, magical Renewal, scheme? What arbiter more strong Than you are judges discord for the strife That stirs upon our earth, wherever throng Thoughts, forces, fires. What is evil? Life! Even as life is struggle, whether it smite, Or lift, as waves to waves in will are rife With enmity. Whatever is, is right. Like insects on a drift weed water tossed The sea of nature moves in man’s despite, While generations flourish and are lost.

Ether of the ethereal energy Which whirls the atoms: Will in man. And soul Which is to light as light to flame: the free Soaring of man’s thought. This is the dole And tragedy of man: He has outgrown His kinship with the beasts that kept him whole, Through thought, which is not instinct, but would own The unerring realm of instinct. Like a sun He flares his thought in storms of fire, has flown His symmetry and sphere, has wandered, won No orbit for the beast’s, which he has marred, Departed from; must finish what’s begun, Until he be in spirit moved and starred, Instinct regained to thought, his sun created As far as flames have leaped; or leave the scarred Black cavities of his hopes to beings fated To grow therefrom to what he failed to reach. Something within him drew the gods, and mated His spirit to celestial powers. The breach Between him and the beast is fixed. He sinks In tangled madness, anger, railing speech, Below the ape, or else he rises, links His being to a life to which he climbs, A realm of thought harmonious, while he thinks. This is the tragedy of man, and Time’s Colossal task laid on him: Roll he must The stone up to the peak against the slimes, And fasten it, or let it make him dust, Escaped his hand and crushing, still confess That you, O Mighty Mother, still are just Who fling him down to failure, nothingness. This is the tragedy of man: to learn Your secret wishes, having learned to press The heights of life, or ignorant still to burn With questioning; and on this stage of earth Live as they lived of old in a return, Endless of useless labor, madder mirth.

Labor or Mirth! No matter--but to man, And for an hour! And after that the sleep. Waking or sleeping man fulfills the plan Of you, O Mother. Other thought may creep On man’s defeated spirit, make him say That you should weep, O Mother, if he weep. But we are but ephemera in a play Of tangled sun light, and the universe Of ages counts the minutes of our day, And makes them of the ages. And the curse That man deems his is not upon the far And infinite existence. It could nurse No evil in great spaces, sun and star As great as man’s to man, and not lie down To death as man does. Hence if you unbar To us, O Nature, nothing better, crown Our hour with folly still, you give us rest Among the mountains, meadows, and unclown Our idiot brows, and on your infinite breast Rock us eternally under the infinite sky.

THE END