Chapter 2

The best of life, until we see beyond The shadows of ourselves (and they are less Than even the blindest of indignant eyes Would have them) is in what we do not know. Make, then, for all your fears a place to sleep With all your faded sins; nor think yourselves Egregious and alone for your defects Of youth and yesterday. I was young once; And there's a question if you played the fool With a more fervid and inherent zeal Than I have in my story to remember, Or gave your necks to folly's conquering foot, Or flung yourselves with an unstudied aim, Less frequently than I. Never mind that. Man's little house of days will hold enough, Sometimes, to make him wish it were not his, But it will not hold all. Things that are dead Are best without it, and they own their death By virtue of their dying. Let them go, -- But think you not the world is ashes yet, And you have all the fire. The world is here Today, and it may not be gone tomorrow; For there are millions, and there may be more, To make in turn a various estimation Of its old ills and ashes, and the traps Of its apparent wrath. Many with ears That hear not yet, shall have ears given to them, And then they shall hear strangely. Many with eyes That are incredulous of the Mystery Shall yet be driven to feel, and then to read Where language has an end and is a veil, Not woven of our words. Many that hate Their kind are soon to know that without love Their faith is but the perjured name of nothing. I that have done some hating in my time See now no time for hate; I that have left, Fading behind me like familiar lights That are to shine no more for my returning, Home, friends, and honors, -- I that have lost all else For wisdom, and the wealth of it, say now To you that out of wisdom has come love, That measures and is of itself the measure Of works and hope and faith. Your longest hours Are not so long that you may torture them And harass not yourselves; and the last days Are on the way that you prepare for them, And was prepared for you, here in a world Where you have sinned and suffered, striven and seen. If you be not so hot for counting them Before they come that you consume yourselves, Peace may attend you all in these last days -- And me, as well as you. Yes, even in Rome. Well, I have talked and rested, though I fear My rest has not been yours; in which event, Forgive one who is only seven leagues From Caesar. When I told you I should come, I did not see myself the criminal You contemplate, for seeing beyond the Law That which the Law saw not. But this, indeed, Was good of you, and I shall not forget; No, I shall not forget you came so far To meet a man so dangerous. Well, farewell. They come to tell me I am going now -- With them. I hope that we shall meet again, But none may say what he shall find in Rome.

Demos I

All you that are enamored of my name And least intent on what most I require, Beware; for my design and your desire, Deplorably, are not as yet the same. Beware, I say, the failure and the shame Of losing that for which you now aspire So blindly, and of hazarding entire The gift that I was bringing when I came.

Give as I will, I cannot give you sight Whereby to see that with you there are some To lead you, and be led. But they are dumb Before the wrangling and the shrill delight Of your deliverance that has not come, And shall not, if I fail you -- as I might.

Demos II

So little have you seen of what awaits Your fevered glimpse of a democracy Confused and foiled with an equality Not equal to the envy it creates, That you see not how near you are the gates Of an old king who listens fearfully To you that are outside and are to be The noisy lords of imminent estates.

Rather be then your prayer that you shall have Your kingdom undishonored. Having all, See not the great among you for the small, But hear their silence; for the few shall save The many, or the many are to fall -- Still to be wrangling in a noisy grave.

The Flying Dutchman

Unyielding in the pride of his defiance, Afloat with none to serve or to command, Lord of himself at last, and all by Science, He seeks the Vanished Land.

Alone, by the one light of his one thought, He steers to find the shore from which we came, -- Fearless of in what coil he may be caught On seas that have no name.

Into the night he sails; and after night There is a dawning, though there be no sun; Wherefore, with nothing but himself in sight, Unsighted, he sails on.

At last there is a lifting of the cloud Between the flood before him and the sky; And then -- though he may curse the Power aloud That has no power to die --

He steers himself away from what is haunted By the old ghost of what has been before, -- Abandoning, as always, and undaunted, One fog-walled island more.

Tact

Observant of the way she told So much of what was true, No vanity could long withhold Regard that was her due: She spared him the familiar guile, So easily achieved, That only made a man to smile And left him undeceived.

Aware that all imagining Of more than what she meant Would urge an end of everything, He stayed; and when he went, They parted with a merry word That was to him as light As any that was ever heard Upon a starry night.

She smiled a little, knowing well That he would not remark The ruins of a day that fell Around her in the dark: He saw no ruins anywhere, Nor fancied there were scars On anyone who lingered there, Alone below the stars.

On the Way

(Philadelphia, 1794)

Note. -- The following imaginary dialogue between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which is not based upon any specific incident in American history, may be supposed to have occurred a few months previous to Hamilton's retirement from Washington's Cabinet in 1795 and a few years before the political ingenuities of Burr -- who has been characterized, without much exaggeration, as the inventor of American politics -- began to be conspicuously formidable to the Federalists. These activities on the part of Burr resulted, as the reader will remember, in the Burr-Jefferson tie for the Presidency in 1800, and finally in the Burr-Hamilton duel at Weehawken in 1804.

BURR

Hamilton, if he rides you down, remember That I was here to speak, and so to save Your fabric from catastrophe. That's good; For I perceive that you observe him also. A President, a-riding of his horse, May dust a General and be forgiven; But why be dusted -- when we're all alike, All equal, and all happy. Here he comes -- And there he goes. And we, by your new patent, Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside, With our two hats off to his Excellency. Why not his Majesty, and done with it? Forgive me if I shook your meditation, But you that weld our credit should have eyes To see what's coming. Bury me first if -I- do.

HAMILTON

There's always in some pocket of your brain A care for me; wherefore my gratitude For your attention is commensurate With your concern. Yes, Burr, we are two kings; We are as royal as two ditch-diggers; But owe me not your sceptre. These are the days When first a few seem all; but if we live, We may again be seen to be the few That we have always been. These are the days When men forget the stars, and are forgotten.

BURR

But why forget them? They're the same that winked Upon the world when Alcibiades Cut off his dog's tail to induce distinction. There are dogs yet, and Alcibiades Is not forgotten.

HAMILTON

Yes, there are dogs enough, God knows; and I can hear them in my dreams.

BURR

Never a doubt. But what you hear the most Is your new music, something out of tune With your intention. How in the name of Cain, I seem to hear you ask, are men to dance, When all men are musicians. Tell me that, I hear you saying, and I'll tell you the name Of Samson's mother. But why shroud yourself Before the coffin comes? For all you know, The tree that is to fall for your last house Is now a sapling. You may have to wait So long as to be sorry; though I doubt it, For you are not at home in your new Eden Where chilly whispers of a likely frost Accumulate already in the air. I think a touch of ermine, Hamilton, Would be for you in your autumnal mood A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders.

HAMILTON

If so it is you think, you may as well Give over thinking. We are done with ermine. What I fear most is not the multitude, But those who are to loop it with a string That has one end in France and one end here. I'm not so fortified with observation That I could swear that more than half a score Among us who see lightning see that ruin Is not the work of thunder. Since the world Was ordered, there was never a long pause For caution between doing and undoing.

BURR

Go on, sir; my attention is a trap Set for the catching of all compliments To Monticello, and all else abroad That has a name or an identity.

HAMILTON

I leave to you the names -- there are too many; Yet one there is to sift and hold apart, As now I see. There comes at last a glimmer That is not always clouded, or too late. But I was near and young, and had the reins To play with while he manned a team so raw That only God knows where the end had been Of all that riding without Washington. There was a nation in the man who passed us, If there was not a world. I may have driven Since then some restive horses, and alone, And through a splashing of abundant mud; But he who made the dust that sets you on To coughing, made the road. Now it seems dry, And in a measure safe.

BURR

Here's a new tune From Hamilton. Has your caution all at once, And over night, grown till it wrecks the cradle? I have forgotten what my father said When I was born, but there's a rustling of it Among my memories, and it makes a noise About as loud as all that I have held And fondled heretofore of your same caution. But that's affairs, not feelings. If our friends Guessed half we say of them, our enemies Would itch in our friends' jackets. Howsoever, The world is of a sudden on its head, And all are spilled -- unless you cling alone With Washington. Ask Adams about that.

HAMILTON

We'll not ask Adams about anything. We fish for lizards when we choose to ask For what we know already is not coming, And we must eat the answer. Where's the use Of asking when this man says everything, With all his tongues of silence?

BURR

I dare say. I dare say, but I won't. One of those tongues I'll borrow for the nonce. He'll never miss it. We mean his Western Majesty, King George.

HAMILTON

I mean the man who rode by on his horse. I'll beg of you the meed of your indulgence If I should say this planet may have done A deal of weary whirling when at last, If ever, Time shall aggregate again A majesty like his that has no name.

BURR

Then you concede his Majesty? That's good, And what of yours? Here are two majesties. Favor the Left a little, Hamilton, Or you'll be floundering in the ditch that waits For riders who forget where they are riding. If we and France, as you anticipate, Must eat each other, what Caesar, if not yourself, Do you see for the master of the feast? There may be a place waiting on your head For laurel thick as Nero's. You don't know. I have not crossed your glory, though I might If I saw thrones at auction.

HAMILTON

Yes, you might. If war is on the way, I shall be -- here; And I've no vision of your distant heels.

BURR

I see that I shall take an inference To bed with me to-night to keep me warm. I thank you, Hamilton, and I approve Your fealty to the aggregated greatness Of him you lean on while he leans on you.

HAMILTON

This easy phrasing is a game of yours That you may win to lose. I beg your pardon, But you that have the sight will not employ The will to see with it. If you did so, There might be fewer ditches dug for others In your perspective; and there might be fewer Contemporary motes of prejudice Between you and the man who made the dust. Call him a genius or a gentleman, A prophet or a builder, or what not, But hold your disposition off the balance, And weigh him in the light. Once (I believe I tell you nothing new to your surmise, Or to the tongues of towns and villages) I nourished with an adolescent fancy -- Surely forgivable to you, my friend -- An innocent and amiable conviction That I was, by the grace of honest fortune, A savior at his elbow through the war, Where I might have observed, more than I did, Patience and wholesome passion. I was there, And for such honor I gave nothing worse Than some advice at which he may have smiled. I must have given a modicum besides, Or the rough interval between those days And these would never have made for me my friends, Or enemies. I should be something somewhere -- I say not what -- but I should not be here If he had not been there. Possibly, too, You might not -- or that Quaker with his cane.

BURR

Possibly, too, I should. When the Almighty Rides a white horse, I fancy we shall know it.

HAMILTON

It was a man, Burr, that was in my mind; No god, or ghost, or demon -- only a man: A man whose occupation is the need Of those who would not feel it if it bit them; And one who shapes an age while he endures The pin pricks of inferiorities; A cautious man, because he is but one; A lonely man, because he is a thousand. No marvel you are slow to find in him The genius that is one spark or is nothing: His genius is a flame that he must hold So far above the common heads of men That they may view him only through the mist Of their defect, and wonder what he is. It seems to me the mystery that is in him That makes him only more to me a man Than any other I have ever known.

BURR

I grant you that his worship is a man. I'm not so much at home with mysteries, May be, as you -- so leave him with his fire: God knows that I shall never put it out. He has not made a cripple of himself In his pursuit of me, though I have heard His condescension honors me with parts. Parts make a whole, if we've enough of them; And once I figured a sufficiency To be at least an atom in the annals Of your republic. But I must have erred.

HAMILTON

You smile as if your spirit lived at ease With error. I should not have named it so, Failing assent from you; nor, if I did, Should I be so complacent in my skill To comb the tangled language of the people As to be sure of anything in these days. Put that much in account with modesty.

BURR

What in the name of Ahab, Hamilton, Have you, in the last region of your dreaming, To do with "people"? You may be the devil In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals Are waiting on the progress of our ship Unless you steer it, but you'll find it irksome Alone there in the stern; and some warm day There'll be an inland music in the rigging, And afterwards on deck. I'm not affined Or favored overmuch at Monticello, But there's a mighty swarming of new bees About the premises, and all have wings. If you hear something buzzing before long, Be thoughtful how you strike, remembering also There was a fellow Naboth had a vineyard, And Ahab cut his hair off and went softly.

HAMILTON

I don't remember that he cut his hair off.

BURR

Somehow I rather fancy that he did. If so, it's in the Book; and if not so, He did the rest, and did it handsomely.

HAMILTON

Commend yourself to Ahab and his ways If they inveigle you to emulation; But where, if I may ask it, are you tending With your invidious wielding of the Scriptures? You call to mind an eminent archangel Who fell to make him famous. Would you fall So far as he, to be so far remembered?

BURR

Before I fall or rise, or am an angel, I shall acquaint myself a little further With our new land's new language, which is not -- Peace to your dreams -- an idiom to your liking. I'm wondering if a man may always know How old a man may be at thirty-seven; I wonder likewise if a prettier time Could be decreed for a good man to vanish Than about now for you, before you fade, And even your friends are seeing that you have had Your cup too full for longer mortal triumph. Well, you have had enough, and had it young; And the old wine is nearer to the lees Than you are to the work that you are doing.

HAMILTON

When does this philological excursion Into new lands and languages begin?

BURR

Anon -- that is, already. Only Fortune Gave me this afternoon the benefaction Of your blue back, which I for love pursued, And in pursuing may have saved your life -- Also the world a pounding piece of news: Hamilton bites the dust of Washington, Or rather of his horse. For you alone, Or for your fame, I'd wish it might have been so.

HAMILTON

Not every man among us has a friend So jealous for the other's fame. How long Are you to diagnose the doubtful case Of Demos -- and what for? Have you a sword For some new Damocles? If it's for me, I have lost all official appetite, And shall have faded, after January, Into the law. I'm going to New York.

BURR

No matter where you are, one of these days I shall come back to you and tell you something. This Demos, I have heard, has in his wrist A pulse that no two doctors have as yet Counted and found the same, and in his mouth A tongue that has the like alacrity For saying or not for saying what most it is That pullulates in his ignoble mind. One of these days I shall appear again, To tell you more of him and his opinions; I shall not be so long out of your sight, Or take myself so far, that I may not, Like Alcibiades, come back again. He went away to Phrygia, and fared ill.

HAMILTON

There's an example in Themistocles: He went away to Persia, and fared well.

BURR

So? Must I go so far? And if so, why so? I had not planned it so. Is this the road I take? If so, farewell.

HAMILTON

Quite so. Farewell.

John Brown

Though for your sake I would not have you now So near to me tonight as now you are, God knows how much a stranger to my heart Was any cold word that I may have written; And you, poor woman that I made my wife, You have had more of loneliness, I fear, Than I -- though I have been the most alone, Even when the most attended. So it was God set the mark of his inscrutable Necessity on one that was to grope, And serve, and suffer, and withal be glad For what was his, and is, and is to be, When his old bones, that are a burden now, Are saying what the man who carried them Had not the power to say. Bones in a grave, Cover them as they will with choking earth, May shout the truth to men who put them there, More than all orators. And so, my dear, Since you have cheated wisdom for the sake Of sorrow, let your sorrow be for you, This last of nights before the last of days, The lying ghost of what there is of me That is the most alive. There is no death For me in what they do. Their death it is They should heed most when the sun comes again To make them solemn. There are some I know Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation, For tears in them -- and all for one old man; For some of them will pity this old man, Who took upon himself the work of God Because he pitied millions. That will be For them, I fancy, their compassionate Best way of saying what is best in them To say; for they can say no more than that, And they can do no more than what the dawn Of one more day shall give them light enough To do. But there are many days to be, And there are many men to give their blood, As I gave mine for them. May they come soon!

May they come soon, I say. And when they come, May all that I have said unheard be heard, Proving at last, or maybe not -- no matter -- What sort of madness was the part of me That made me strike, whether I found the mark Or missed it. Meanwhile, I've a strange content, A patience, and a vast indifference To what men say of me and what men fear To say. There was a work to be begun, And when the Voice, that I have heard so long, Announced as in a thousand silences An end of preparation, I began The coming work of death which is to be, That life may be. There is no other way Than the old way of war for a new land That will not know itself and is tonight A stranger to itself, and to the world A more prodigious upstart among states Than I was among men, and so shall be Till they are told and told, and told again; For men are children, waiting to be told, And most of them are children all their lives. The good God in his wisdom had them so, That now and then a madman or a seer May shake them out of their complacency And shame them into deeds. The major file See only what their fathers may have seen, Or may have said they saw when they saw nothing. I do not say it matters what they saw. Now and again to some lone soul or other God speaks, and there is hanging to be done, -- As once there was a burning of our bodies Alive, albeit our souls were sorry fuel. But now the fires are few, and we are poised Accordingly, for the state's benefit, A few still minutes between heaven and earth. The purpose is, when they have seen enough Of what it is that they are not to see, To pluck me as an unripe fruit of treason, And then to fling me back to the same earth Of which they are, as I suppose, the flower -- Not given to know the riper fruit that waits For a more comprehensive harvesting.