THE OPEN SEA

By

EDGAR LEE MASTERS

Starved Rock Mitch Miller Domesday Book Toward the Gulf Songs and Satires The Great Valley Spoon River Anthology

THE OPEN SEA

By
EDGAR LEE MASTERS

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921

All rights reserved


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Copyright, 1921, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1921.

Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

PART I   PAGE Brutus 3       Brutus and Antony 3       At the Mermaid Tavern 17       Charlotte Corday 31       A Man Child is Born 49       Richard Booth to His Son, Junius Booth 52       A Man Child is Born 57       Squire Bowling Green 58       Lincoln Speaking in Congress 63       John Wilkes Booth at the Farm 64       Junius Brutus Booth 66       A Certain Poet on the Debates 71 PART II The Decision 81 PART III       Lincoln Makes a Memorandum 117       Winter Garden Theatre 118       The Sparrow Hawk in the Rain 120       Adelaide and John Wilkes Booth 134       Brutus Lives Again in Booth 140       Booth’s Philippi 151       The Burial of Boston Corbett{vi} 160 The New Apocrypha 163       Business Reverses 163       The Fig Tree 166       Tribute Money 169       The Great Merger 171       At Decapolis 174       The Single Standard 178       First Entrants 183       John in Prison 186       Ananias and Sapphira 190       The Two Malefactors 193       Berenice 202 Nebuchadnezzar or Eating Grass 212 Hip Lung on Yuan Chang 220 Ulysses 225 The Party 232 Celsus at Hadrian’s Villa 238 Invoation to the Gods 248 Pentheus in These States 253 Comparative Criminals 262 The Great Race Passes 270 Demos the Despot 272 A Republic 275 The Inn 277 Monody on the Death of William Marion Reedy 285 God and My Country 290 The Dunes of Indiana 295 Nature 299

THE OPEN SEA

PART ONE

THE OPEN SEA

BRUTUS

BRUTUS AND ANTONY
(Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in
Rome.)

B. C. 20

THE OPEN SEA

BRUTUS

BRUTUS AND ANTONY

Part I

(Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in Rome)

B.C. 20

How shall I write this out? I do not write. Talk to you? Yes, and tell of Antony, And how I knew him. There at Philippi I let myself be captured, so to give Time to escape to Brutus—made pretense That I was Brutus, and so Brutus flies And I am captured. Antony forgives me, And to his death I was his faithful friend. Well, after Actium, in Africa, He roamed with no companions but us two, Our friend Aristocrates, here, myself, And fed upon his bitter heart. Our guest Nods truth to what I say, he knows it all. And after certain days in solitude He seeks his Cleopatra. As for her, She was the sovereign queen of many nations; Yet that she might be with her Antony, Live with him and enjoy him, did not shun The name of mistress, and let Fulvia keep Her wifehood without envy. As for him, A lover’s soul lives in the loved one’s body, And where bode Cleopatra, there his soul Lived only, though his feet of flesh pursued The Parthian, or Cæsar’s hateful heir.... And if this Antony would wreathe his spear With ivy like a thyrsus; from the chamber Of his beloved rush to battle, helmet Smelling of unguents and of Egypt; leave Great action and great enterprise to play Along the seashore of Canopus with her; And fly the combat, not as Paris did, Already beaten, with lift sail, desert The victory that was his, yet true it is His rank, his eloquence, his liberal blood, His interest in all grades and breeds of men, His pity and his kindness to the sick, His generous sympathies, stamped Antony A giant in this dusty, roaring place Which we call earth. Who ruined Antony? Why, Brutus! For he gave to Antony The truth of which the Queen of Egypt stood As proof in the flesh:—Beauty and Life. His heart Was apt to see her for mad days in Rome, And soul created sateless for the cup Of ecstasy in living. On a day Myself and Aristocrates and Antony, We two companioning him in Africa, Wandering in solitary places, Antony Brooding on Actium, and the love that kept His soul with Cleopatra, up he speaks, And asks us if we knew what Brutus said, While nearing death, to Cassius. “No,” we said. And Antony began to tell of Brutus:— How all his life was spent in study, how He starved his body, slept but briefly, cut His hours of sleep by practice; fixed his thought On virtue and on glory; made himself A zealot of one purpose: liberty; A spirit as of a beast that knows one thing: Its food and how to get it; over its spirit No heaven keeps of changing light; no stars Of wandering thought; no moons that charm Still groves by singing waters, and no suns Of large illumination, showing life As multiform and fathomless, filled with wings Of various truth, each true as other truth. This was that Brutus, made an asp by thought And nature, to be used by envious hands And placed to Cæsar’s breast. So Antony Discoursed upon our walk, and capped it off With Brutus’ words when dying. They were these: “O virtue, miserable virtue, bawd and cheat; Thou wert a bare word and I followed thee As if thou hadst been real. But even as evil, Lust, ignorance, thou wert the plaything too Of fortune and of chance.” So Antony Consoled himself with Brutus, sighed and lapsed To silence; thinking, as we deemed, of life And what it yet could be, and how ’twould end; And how to join his Cleopatra, what The days would hold amid the toppling walls Of Rome in demolition, now the hand Of Cæsar rotted, and no longer stayed The picks and catapults of an idiot world! So, as it seemed, he would excuse himself For Actium and his way in life. For soon He speaks again, of Theophrastus now, Who lived a hundred years, spent all his life In study and in writing, brought to death By labor; dying lay encompassed by Two thousand followers, disciples, preachers Of what he taught; and dying was penitent For glory, even as Brutus was penitent For virtue later. And so Antony Spoke Theophrastus’ dying words, and told How Theophrastus by a follower Asked for a last commandment, spoke these words: “There is none. But ’tis folly to cast away Pleasure for glory! And no love is worse Than love of glory. Look upon my life:— Its toil and hard denial! To what end? Therefore live happy; study, if you must, For fame and happiness. Life’s vanity Exceeds its usefulness.” So speaking thus Wise Theophrastus died. Now I have said That Brutus ruined Antony. So he did, If Antony were ruined—that’s the question. For Antony hearing Brutus say, “O virtue, Miserable virtue, bawd and cheat,” and seeing The eyes of Brutus stare in death, threw over him A scarlet mantle, and took to his heart The dying words of Brutus.

It is true That Cicero said Antony as a youth Was odious for drinking-bouts, amours, For bacchanals, luxurious life, and true When as triumvir, after Cæsar’s death, He kept the house of Pompey, where he lived, Filled up with jugglers, drunkards, flatterers. All this before the death of Brutus, or His love for Cleopatra. But it’s true He was great Cæsar’s colleague. Cæsar dead, This Antony is chief ruler of all Rome, And wars in Greece, and Asia. So it’s true He was not wholly given to the cup, But knew fatigue and battle, hunger too, Living on roots in Parthia. Yet, you see, With Cæsar slaughtered in the capitol, His friend, almost his god; and Brutus gasping “O miserable virtue”; and the feet of men From Syria to Hispania, slipping off The world that broke in pieces, like an island Falling apart beneath a heaving tide— Whence from its flocculent fragment wretches leap— You see it was no wonder for this Antony, Made what he was by nature and by life, In such a time and fate of the drifting world, To turn to Cleopatra, and leave war And rulership to languish. Thus it was: Cæsar is slaughtered, Antony must avenge The death of Cæsar. Brutus is brought to death, And dying scoffs at virtue which took off In Brutus’ hand the sovran life of Cæsar. And soon our Antony must fight against The recreant hordes of Asia, finding here His Cleopatra for coadjutor.... He’s forty-two and ripe. She’s twenty-eight, Fruit fresh and blushing, most mature and rich; Her voice an instrument of many strings That yielded laughter, wisdom, folly, song, And tales of many lands, in Arabic, And Hebrew, Syriac and Parthiac. She spoke the language of the troglodytes, The Medes and others. And when Antony Sent for her in Cilicia, she took time, Ignored his orders, leisurely at last Sailed up the Cydnus in a barge whose stern Was gilded, and with purple sails. Returned His dining invitation with her own, And bent his will to hers. He went to her, And found a banquet richer than his largess Could give her. For while feasting, branches sunk Around them, budding lights in squares and circles, And lighted up their heaven, as with stars. She found him broad and gross, but joined her taste To him in this. And then their love began. And while his Fulvia kept his quarrels alive With force of arms in Rome on Octavianus, And while the Parthian threatened Syria, He lets the Queen of Egypt take him off To Alexandria, where he joins with her The Inimitable Livers; and in holiday Plays like a boy and riots, while great Brutus Is rotting in the earth for Virtue’s sake; And Theophrastus for three hundred years Has changed from dust to grass, and grass to dust! And Cleopatra’s kitchen groans with food. Eight boars are roasted whole—though only twelve Of these Inimitable Livers, with the Queen And Antony are to eat—that every dish May be served up just roasted to a turn. And who knows when Marc Antony may sup? Perhaps this hour, perhaps another hour, Perhaps this minute he may call for wine, Or start to talk with Cleopatra; fish— For fish they did together. On a day They fished together, and his luck was ill, And so he ordered fishermen to dive And put upon his hook fish caught before. And Cleopatra feigned to be deceived, And shouted out his luck. Next day invited The Inimitable Livers down to see him fish, Whereat she had a diver fix his hook With a salted fish from Pontus. Antony Drew up amid their laughter. Then she said: “Sweet Antony, leave us poor sovereigns here, Of Pharos and Canopus, to the rod; Your game is cities, provinces and kingdoms.” Were Antony serious, or disposed to mirth? She had some new delight. She diced with him, Drank with him, hunted with him. When he went To exercise in arms, she sat to see. At night she rambled with him in the streets, Dressed like a servant-woman, making mischief At people’s doors. And Antony disguised Got scurvy answers, beatings from the folk, Tormented in their houses. So it went Till Actium. She loved him, let him be By day nor night alone, at every turn Was with him and upon him.

Well, this life Was neither virtue, glory, fame, nor study, But it was life, and life that did not slay A Cæsar for a word like Liberty. And it was life, its essence nor changed nor lost By Actium, where his soul shot forth to her As from a catapult a stone is cast, Seeing her lift her sixty sails and fly. His soul lived in her body as ’twere born A part of her, and whithersoever she went There followed he. And all their life together Was what it was, a rapture, justified By its essential honey of realest blossoms, In spite of anguished shame. When hauled aboard The ship of Cleopatra, he sat down And with his two hands covered up his face! Brutus had penitence at Philippi For virtue which befooled him. Antony Remorse and terror there at Actium Deserting with his queen, for love that made His body not his own, as Brutus’ will Was subject to the magic of a word.... For what is Virtue, what is Love? At least We know their dire effects, that both befool, Betray, destroy.

The Queen and Antony Had joined the Inimitable Livers, now they joined The Diers Together. They had kept how oft The Festival of Flagons, now to keep The Ritual of Passing Life was theirs. But first they suffered anger with each other While on her ship, till touching Tenarus When they were brought to speak by women friends, At last to eat and sleep together. Yet Poison had fallen on their leaves, which stripped Their greenness to the stalk, as you shall see.... Here to make clear what flight of Antony meant, For cause how base or natural, let me say That Actium’s battle had not been a loss To Antony and his honor, if Canidius, Commanding under Antony, had not flown In imitation of his chief; the soldiers Fought desperately in hope that Antony Would come again and lead them.

So it was He touched, with Cleopatra, Africa, And sent her into Egypt; and with us, Myself and Aristocrates, walked and brooded In solitary places, as I said. But when he came to Alexandria He finds his Cleopatra dragging her fleet Over the land space which divides the sea Near Egypt from the Red Sea, so to float Her fleet in the Arabian Gulf, and there, Somewhere upon earth’s other side, to find A home secure from war and slavery. She failed in this; but Antony leaves the city, And leaves his queen, plays Timon, builds a house Near Pharos on a little mole; lives here Until he hears all princes and all kings Desert him in the realm of Rome; which news Brings gladness to him, for hope put away, And cares slipped off. Then leaving Timoneum,— For such he named his dwelling there near Pharos— He goes to Cleopatra, is received, And sets the city feasting once again. The order of Inimitable Livers breaks, And forms the Diers Together in its place. And all who banquet with them, take the oath To die with Antony and Cleopatra, Observing her preoccupation with Drugs poisonous and creatures venomous. And thus their feast of flagons and of love In many courses riotously consumed Awaits the radiate liquor dazzling through Their unimagined terror, like the rays Shot from the bright eyes of the cockatrice, Crackling for poison in the crystal served By fleshless hands! A skeleton steward soon Will pass the liquer to them; they will drink, And leave no message, no commandment either— As Theophrastus was reluctant to— Denied disciples; for Inimitable Livers Raise up no followers, create no faith, No cult or sect. Joy has his special wisdom, Which dies with him who learned it, does not fire Mad bosoms like your Virtue.

I must note The proffered favors, honors of young Cæsar To Cleopatra, if she’d put to death Her Antony; and Antony’s jealousy, Aroused by Thyrsus, messenger of Cæsar, Whom Cleopatra gave long audiences, And special courtesies; seized, whipped at last By Antony, sent back to Cæsar. Yet The queen was faithful. When her birth-day came She kept it suitable to her fallen state, But all the while paying her Antony love, And honor, kept his birth-day with such richness That guests who came in want departed rich ...

Wine, weariness, much living, early age Made fall for Antony. October’s clouds In man’s life, like October, have no sun To lift the mists of doubt, distortion, fear. Faces, events, and wills around us show Malformed, or ugly, changed from what they were. And when his troops desert him in the city To Cæsar, Antony cries out, the queen, His Cleopatra, has betrayed him. She In terror seeks her monument, sends word That she is dead. And Antony believes And says delay no longer, stabs himself, Is hauled up dying to the arms of her, Where midst her frantic wailings he expires! Kings and commanders begged of Cæsar grace To give this Antony his funeral rites. But Cæsar left the body with the queen Who buried it with royal pomp and splendor. Thus died at fifty-six Marc Antony, And Cleopatra followed him with poison, The asp or hollow bodkin, having lived To thirty-nine, and reigned with Antony As partner in the empire fourteen years ...

Who in a time to come will gorge and drink, Filch treasure that it may be spent for wine, Kill as Marc Antony did, war as he did, Because Marc Antony did so, taking him As warrant and exemplar? Why, never a soul! These things are done by souls who do not think, But act from feeling. But those mad for stars Glimpsed in wild waters or through mountain mists Seen ruddy and portentous will take Brutus As inspiration, since for Virtue’s sake And for the good of Rome he killed his friend; And in the act made Liberty as far From things of self, as murder is apart From friendship and its ways. Yes, Brutus lives To fire the mad-men of the centuries As Cæsar lives to guide new tyrants. Yet Tyrannicide but snips the serpent’s head. The body of a rotten state still writhes And wriggles though the head is gone, or worse, Festers and stinks against the setting sun....

Marc Antony lived happier than Brutus And left the old world happier for his life Than Brutus left it.

AT THE MERMAID TAVERN

(April 10th, 1613)

(Lionard Digges is speaking)

Yes, so I said: ’twas labored “Cataline” Insufferable for learning, tedious. And so I said: the audience was kept There at the Globe twelve years ago to hear: “It is no matter; let no images Be hung with Cæsar’s trophies.”

And to-day They played his Julius Cæsar at the Court. I saw it at the Globe twelve years ago, A gala day! The flag over the Theatre Fluttered the April breeze and I was thrilled. And look what wherries crossed the Thames with freight Of hearts expectant for the theatre. For all the town was posted with the news Of Shakespeare’s “Julius Cæsar.” So we paid Our six-pence, entered, all the house was full. And dignitaries, favored ones had seats Behind the curtain on the stage. At last The trumpet blares, the curtains part, Marullus And Flavius enter, scold the idiot mob And we sat ravished, listening to the close.

We knew he pondered manuscripts, forever Was busy with his work, no rest, no pause. Often I saw him leave the theatre And cross the Thames where in a little room He opened up his Plutarch. What was that? A fertilizing sun, a morning light Of bursting April! What was he? The earth That under such a sun put forth and grew, Showed all his valleys, mountain peaks and fields, Brought forth the forests of his cosmic soul, The coppice, jungle, blossoms good and bad. A world of growth, creation! This the work, Precedent force of Thomas North, his work In causal link the Bishop of Auxerre, And so it goes.

But others tried their hand At Julius Cæsar, witness “Cæsar’s Fall” Which Drayton, Webster, others wrote. And look At Jonson’s “Cataline,” that labored thing, Dug out of Plutarch, Cicero. Go read, Then read this play of Shakespeare’s.

I recall What came to me to see this, scene by scene, Unroll beneath my eyes. ’Twas like a scroll Lettered in gold and purple where one theme In firmest sequence, precious artistry Is charactered, and all the sound and sense, And every clause and strophe ministers To one perfection. So it was we sat Until the scroll lay open at our feet: “According to his virtue, let us use him With all respect and rites of burial,” Then gasped for breath! The play’s a miracle! This world has had one Cæsar and one Shakespeare, And with their birth is shrunk, can only bear Less vital spirits.

For what did he do There in that room with Plutarch? First his mind Was ready with the very moulds of nature. And then his spirit blazing like the sun Smelted the gold from Plutarch, till it flowed Molten and dazzling in these moulds of his. And lo! he sets up figures for our view That blind the understanding till you close Eyes to reflect, and by their closing see What has been done. O, well I could go on And show how Jonson makes homonculus, And Shakespeare gets with child, conceives and bears Beauty of flesh and blood. Or I could say Jonson lays scholar’s hands upon a trait, Ambition, let us say, as if a man Were peak and nothing else thrust to the sky By blasting fires of earth, just peak alone, No slopes, no valleys, pines, or sunny brooks, No rivers winding at the base, no fields, No songsters, foxes, nothing but the peak. But Shakespeare shows the field-mice and the cricket, The louse upon the leaf, all things that live In every mountain which his soaring light Takes cognizance; by which I mean to say Shows not ambition only, that’s the peak, But mice-moods, cricket passions in the man; How he can sing, or whine, or growl, or hiss, Be bird, fox, wolf, be eagle or be snake. And so this “Julius Cæsar” paints the mob That stinks and howls, a woman in complaint Most feminine shut from her husband’s secrets; Paints envy, paints the demagogue, in brief, Paints Cæsar till we lose respect for Cæsar. For there he stands in verity, it seems, A tyrant, coward, braggart, aging man, A stale voluptuary shoved about And stabbed most righteously by patriots To avenge the fall of Rome!

Now I have said Enough to give me warrant to say this: This play of Shakespeare fails, is an abuse Upon the memory of the greatest man That ever trod this earth. And Shakespeare failed By just so much as he might have achieved Surpassing triumph had he made the play Cæsar instead of Brutus, had he shown A sovereign will and genius struck to earth With loss irreparable to Time and ruin To Cæsar’s dreams; struck evilly to death By a mad enthusiast, a brutal stoic, In whom all gratitude was tricked aside By just a word, the word of Liberty. Or might I also say the man had envy Of Cæsar’s greatness, or might it be true Brutus took edge for hatred with the thought That Brutus’ sister flamed with love for Cæsar? But who was Brutus, by the largest word That comes to us that he should be exalted, Forefronted in this play, and warrant given To madmen down the ages to repeat This act of Brutus’, con the golden words Of Shakespeare as he puts them in his mouth: “Not that I loved him less, but loved Rome more. He was ambitious so I slew him. Tears For his love, joy for his fortune, honor for valor, Death for ambition. Would you die all slaves That Cæsar might still live, or live free men With Cæsar dead?”

And so it is the echo Of Cæsar’s fall is cried to by this voice Of Shakespeare’s and increased, to travel forth, To fool the ages and to madden men With thunder in the hills of time to deeds As horrible as this.

Did Shakespeare know The worth of Cæsar, that we may impute Fault for this cartoon—caricature? Why look, Did he not write the “mightiest Julius,” write “The foremost man of all the world,” “the conqueror Whom death could conquer not,” make Cleopatra, The pearl of all the east, say she was glad That Cæsar wore her on his hand? He knew What Cæsar’s greatness was! Yet what have we? A Cæsar with the falling sickness, deaf, Who faints upon the offering of the crown; Who envies Cassius stronger arms in swimming, When it is known that Cæsar swam the Tiber, Being more than fifty; pompous, superstitious, Boasting his will, but flagging in the act; Greedy of praise, incautious, unalert To dangers seen of all; a lust incarnate Of power and rulership; a Cæsar smashing A great republic like a criminal, A republic which had lived except for him.

So what was Rome when Cæsar took control? All wealth and power concentered in the few; A coterie of the rich who lived in splendor; A working class that lived on doles of corn And hordes of slaves from Asia, Africa, Who plotted murders in the dark purlieus; The provinces were drained to feed the rich; The city ruled by bribery, and corruption; Armed gladiators sold their services. And battled in the Forum; magistrates Were freely scoffed at, consuls were attacked; And orators spat in each other’s faces When reason failed them speaking in the Forum; No man of prominence went on the streets Without his hired gladiators, slaves. The streets were unpoliced, no fire brigade, Safe-guarded property. Domestic life Was rotten at the heart, and vice was taught. Divorce was rife and even holy Cato Put by his wife.

And this was the republic That Cæsar took; and not the lovely state Ordered and prospered, which ambitious Cæsar, As Shakespeare paints him, over-whelmed. For Cæsar Could execute the vision that the people Deserve not what they want, but otherwise What they should want, and in that mind was king And emperor.

And what was here for Shakespeare To love and manifest by art, who hated The Puritan, the mob? Colossus Cæsar, Whose harmony of mind took deep offense At ugliness, disharmony! See the man: Of body perfect and of rugged health, Of graceful carriage, fashion, bold of eye, A swordsman, horseman, and a general Not less than Alexander; orator Who rivalled Cicero, a man of charm, Of wit and humor, versed in books as well; Who at one time could dictate, read and write, Composing grammars as he rode to war, Amid distractions, dangers, battles, writing Great commentaries. Yes, he is the man In whom was mixed the elements that Nature Might say:—this was a man—and not this Brutus.

Look at his camp, wherever pitched in Gaul, Thronged by young poets, thinkers, scholars, wits, And headed by this Cæsar, who when arms Are resting from the battle, makes reports Of all that’s said and done to Cicero. Here is a man large minded and sincere, Active, a lover, conscious of his place, Knowing his power, no reverence for the past, Save what the past deserved, who made the task What could be done and did it—seized the power Of rulership and did not put it by As Shakespeare clothes him with pretence of doing. For what was kingship to him? empty name! He who had mastered Asia, Africa, Egypt, Hispania, after twenty years Of cyclic dreams and labor—king indeed! A name! when sovereign power was nothing new. He’s fifty-six, and knows the human breed, Sees man as body hiding a canal For passing food along, a little brain That watches, loves, attends the said canal. He’s been imperator at least two years— King in good sooth! He knows he is not valued, That he’s misprized and hated, is compelled To use whom he distrusts, despises too. Why, what was life to him with such contempt Of all this dirty world, this eagle set Amid a flock of vultures, cow-birds, bats? His ladder was not lowliness, but genius. Read of his capture in Bithynia, When he was just a stripling by Cilician Pirates whom he treated like his slaves, And told them to their face when he was ransomed He’d have them crucified. He did it, too. His ransom came at last, he was released, And set to work at once to keep his word; Fitted some ships out, captured every one And crucified them all at Pergamos. Not lowliness his ladder, but the strength That steps on shoulders, fit for steps alone. So on this top-most rung he did not scan The base degrees by which he did ascend, But sickened rather at a world whose heights Are not worth reaching. So it was he went Unarmed and unprotected to the Senate, Knowing that death is noble, being nature, And scorning fear. Why, he had lived enough. The night before he dined with Lepidus, To whom he said the death that is not seen, Is not expected, is the best. But look, Here in this play he’s shown a weak old man, Propped up with stays and royal robes, to amble, Trembling and babbling to his coronation; And to the going, driven by the fear That he would be thought coward if he failed. Who was to think so? Cassius, whom he cowed, And whipped against strong odds, this Brutus, too, There at Pharsalus! Faith, I’d like to know What Francis Bacon thinks of this.

My friend, Seeing the Rome that Cæsar took, we turn To what he did with what he took. This Rome At Cæsar’s birth was governed by the people In name alone, in fact the Senate ruled, And money ruled the Senate. Rank and file Was made of peasants, tradesmen, manumitted Slaves and soldiers—these the populares, Who made our Cæsar’s uncle Marius Chief magistrate six times. This was the party That Cæsar joined and wrought for to the last. He fought the aristocracy all his life. His heart was democratic and his head Patrician—was ambitious from the first, As Shakespeare is ambitious, gifted by The Muses, must work out his vision or Rot down with gifts neglected; so this Cæsar Gifted to rule must rule—but what’s the dream? To use his power for democratic weal, Bring order, justice in a rotten state, And carry on the work of Marius, His democratic uncle. Now behold, He’s fifty when he reaches sovereign power; Few years are left in which he may achieve His democratic ideas, for he sought No gain in power, but chance to do his work, Fulfill his genius. Well, he takes the Senate And breaks its aristocracy, then frees The groaning debtors; reduces the congestion Of stifled Italy, founds colonies, Helps agriculture, executes the laws. Crime skulks before him, luxury he checks. The franchise is enlarged, he codifies The Roman laws, and founds a money system; Collects a library, and takes a census; Reforms the calendar, and thus bestrode The world with work accomplished. Round his legs All other men must peer; and envy, hatred Were serpents at his heels, whose poison reached His heart at last. He was the tower of Pharos, That lighted all the world.

Now who was Brutus? Cæsar forgave this Brutus seven times seven, Forgave him for Pharsalia, all his acts Of constant opposition. Who was Brutus? A simple, honest soul? A heart of hate, Bred by his uncle Cato! Was he gentle? Look what he did to Salamis! Besieged Its senate house and starved the senators To force compliance with a loan to them At 48 per cent! This is the man Whom Shakespeare makes to say he’d rather be A villager than to report himself A son of Rome under these hard conditions, Which Cæsar wrought! Who thought or called them hard? Brutus or Shakespeare? Is it Plutarch, maybe, Whom Shakespeare follows, all against the grain Of truth so long revealed? Do you not see Matter in plenty for our Shakespeare’s hand, To show a sovereign genius and its work Pursued by mad-dogs, bitten to its death, Its plans thrown into chaos? Is there clay Wherewith to mould the face of Cæsar; take What clay remains to mould the face of Brutus? Do you not see a straining of the stuff, Making that big and salient which should be Little and hidden in a group of figures? And why, I ask? Here is the irony: Shakespeare has minted Plutarch, stamped the coin With the face of Brutus. It’s his inner genius, The very flavor of his genius’ flesh To do this thing. Here is a world that’s mad, A Cæsar mad with power, a Brutus madder, Being a dreamer, student, patriot Who can’t see things as clearly as the madman Cæsar sees them, Brutus sees through books. A mad-man butchered by a man more mad. His father mad before him. Why, it’s true That every one is mad, because the world Cannot be solved. Why are we here and why This agony of being? Why these tasks Imposed upon us never done, which drive Our souls to desperation. So to print The tragedy of life, our Shakespeare takes, And by the taking shows he deems the theme Greater than Cæsar’s greatness: human will, A dream, a hope, a love, and makes them big. Strains all the clay to that around a form Too weak to hold the moulded stuff in place. Thus from his genius fashioning the tales Of human life he passes judgment on The mystery of life. Which could he do By making Cæsar great, and would it be So bitter and so hopeless if he did, So adequate to curse this life of ours? Why make a man as great as Nature can The gods will raise a manakin to kill him, And over-turn the order that he founds. A grape seed strangles Sophocles, a turtle Falls from an eagle’s claws on Aeschylos, And cracks his shiny pate.

So at the last The question is, is history the truth, Or is the Shakespeare genius, which arranges History to speak the Shakespeare mood, Reaction to our life, the truth?

And here I leave you to reflect. Let’s one more ale And then I go.

CHARLOTTE CORDAY

(The Revolutionary Tribunal; July 17th, 1793)

Montané, Presiding judge. Fouquer-Tinville, Prosecutor. Chaveau-lagarde, Defending counsel. Danton,} Leaders of the Jacobins. Robespierre,} Madam Evard, Marat’s friend. Charlotte Corday.

Montané

Where is your home?

Charlotte Caen.

Montané

Why did you come to Paris?

Charlotte

To kill Marat.

Montané

Why?

Charlotte

His crimes.

Montané

What crimes?

Charlotte

The woes of France! His readiness to fire All France with civil war.

Montané

You meant to kill When you struck?

Charlotte

Yes! I meant to kill.

Montané

How old are you?

Charlotte

Twenty-four.

Montané

A woman Young as you are could not have done this murder Unless abetted.

Charlotte

No! You little know The human heart. The hatred of one’s heart Impels the hand better than other’s hate.

Montané

You hated Marat?

Charlotte

Hated! I did not kill A man, I killed a wild beast eating up The people and the nation.

Fouquer-Tinville

She’s familiar With crime, no doubt.

Charlotte

You monster! Do you take me For just a common murderer?

Fouquer-Tinville

Yes! Why not? Here is your knife!

Charlotte

Oh! Yes, I recognize it. I bought it at the cutler’s shop.

Montané

What for?

Charlotte

To kill Marat with; cost me forty sous. After I came to Paris—

Fouquer-Tinville

When?

Charlotte

Four days ago.

Fouquer-Tinville

That was the day you wrote Marat?

Charlotte

Same day.

Fouquer-Tinville

Saying you knew of news in Caen, knew Means by the which Marat could render service To the Republic!

Charlotte

By his death!

Fouquer-Tinville

But yet You gave him credit in this note for love Of France, our France. You tricked him.

Charlotte

Like a viper. He was a mad-dog, dog-leech, alley rat, With bits of carrion festering ’twixt his teeth, Hair glued with ordure, urine. Why not trick By best means, so to catch a beast with fangs As venomous as his? He was a fire That crawled and licked its way; why not put out The fire by water, snuffing, stamping, why Be precious of the means?

Madam Evard

You know me, woman?

Charlotte

You struck me when I stabbed him. You’re his whore!

Madam Evard

Oh! Oh!

Robespierre

(To Danton) This is enough! When fury claws at fury. I hear the tumbril for her. Come!

Danton The slut!

(Danton and Robespierre leave the room together.)

Charlotte

Was that not Robespierre who left the room?

Fouquer-Tinville

Why do you ask?

Charlotte

I wanted him for counsel.

Fouquer-Tinville

For what? The guillotine?

Charlotte

(Shrinking) You monster! You!

Montané

Have you a lawyer?

Charlotte

No! I wrote Doulcet. He shirks the honor, doubtless; have not heard. I thought of Chabot and of Robespierre.

Montané

Chaveau-Lagarde shall counsel you. Proceed!

Fouquer-Tinville

Is this your letter?

Charlotte

Yes.

Fouquer-Tinville

This letter here Is written to a man named Barbarous, Her lover—

Charlotte

No! You monster!

Fouquer-Tinville

Very well! Is this yours: “To the French, friends of the laws, And friends of peace.”

Charlotte

Yes! I admit what’s true.

Fouquer-Tinville

And is this yours: “To the Committee of Public Safety”?

Charlotte

I wrote it, yes.

Fouquer-Tinville

Let’s see now what’s her mind. This letter to the friends of peace and laws:— “O France, thy peace depends upon the laws.” Laws! And she hastens to the cutler’s shop, And buys a knife with which to slay Marat. Now look! This friend of France’s peace and laws Must dodge self-contradiction. How? That’s plain: “I do not break the law, killing Marat.” Why? What’s Marat? A man? Of course, a man. But then an “out-law,” as she writes. How’s that? Outlawed by whom? Charlotte Corday of Caen! What else? A man! But then condemned. By whom? “The universe.” Voila! The universe Is swallowed by her swollen vanity. She speaks for God, for solar systems, stars; Adjudges laws, interprets, executes; Is greater than the Revolution, France. She’s a descendant of the great Corneille; A stage imagination, actress, acts, And quotes here in this letter from Voltaire’s “Mort de César.” Now listen what her hate Has used for whetrock, in the words of Brutus: “Whether the world astonished loads my name “And deed with horror, admiration, censure, “I do not care, nor care to live in Time. “I act indifferent to reproach or glory, “A free, untrameled patriot am I. “Duty accomplished I shall rest content. “Think only, friends, how you may break your chains.” So Brutus lives in her! And like disease Loosed from the crumbling cerements and dust Of broken tombs, the madness which slew Cæsar Infects, makes mad this woman; and she slays The great Marat! She does not care for the world’s Censure or admiration! Does not care To live in time! She lies! Why, in this room A man, Huer, is sketching her. Behold He’s drawing now her face for Time to see. And in this letter written to the Committee She says: “Since I have little time to live, “I trust you will permit me to have painted “My portrait.” Why? If careless if she live In memory or time? The secret’s out, And written in her hand: “I want to leave “A picture for remembrance to my friends.” What friends? Her father? Barbarous? Caen, Paris, the whole of France, the world, if Time Writes down the people’s friend as beast, would see The face, in such case, which destroyed Marat, Condemned first by the “universe” and at last By France, the world! What next? She doubts her God, Her Brutus warrant, “universe” approval, And writes here as a reason, in addition: “That as men cherish memory of good men, “So curiosity”—see her spirit flop And smile with idiot guilt upon itself— “So curiosity sometimes seeks out “Memorials of criminals.” That’s her word: “Criminals,” and by that word she stands Self-dedicated to the guillotine.

Charlotte

Well, am I not a criminal in the eyes Of such a beast as you? Will nature spawn No other beasts like you?

Fouquer-Tinville

Yes, in my eyes, You are a criminal. But you mistake. I have no curiosity about you. When you are dead I’d have your name erased, Your face erased, lest it corrupt the face Of Brutus, and lead hands in years to come To speak the “universe,” interpret “laws,” And slay whom they would slay.

This is not all About her picture, a memorial For admiration by posterity. She writes this Barbarous, lover or what, It matters nothing, writes him pages here In detail of herself, and intimate Portrayal of her feelings: how she planned, And killed Marat. To Barbarous she writes About her letter to the Committee, asking To have her portrait painted. Now, for whom? Her friends? Not now! For the department now Of Calvados. There! hanging on a wall, A prize of history, is the deathless face Of Charlotte Corday, destroyer of Marat, Saviour of France, as Brutus struck for Rome! Yes, I invite your thought to what she writes To Barbarous: description of her act In sneaking to Marat with hidden knife; And as he sat there helpless in the tub, And unsuspecting of her hatred, quick She rips him like a butcher. Then, “A moi!” He cries, “A moi!” And she’s elate, her eyes Bright as the lightning that has struck. Look now! How she writhes here, how passing cross her face Are lights of ghastly fields of fire and clouds When hurricanes descend.

Charlotte

You beast! You beast!

Fouquer-Tinville

I am a beast, eh? You are what? I’ll tell. From Caen, as ’tis known. She’s being sketched, I’ll sketch her too. You see, she’s strongly built, Large eyes of blue, large features, handsome though; Nose shapely, and good teeth; equipped to play In dramas of Corneille, her ancestor. She needs a man. A husband would have drawn Innocuously the electric passion, which Collected in a bolt to loose and lurch Against Marat. All women should be farmed. She has her schooling in a convent, reads; Lives with her thoughts and dreams. I’ll sketch her soul: Has not enough of living to consume The forces of her dreams. She reads Rousseau, And Plutarch’s heroes, Brutus most of all. Thrills at the words “Republic,” “Liberty.” Thinks the Girondists only can set up A real republic. Ideas are the stuff Of history. Kill ideas or be killed By ideas is the fate of man. Republic, Liberty, Brutus are ideas. Ideas Are dangerous, being truths, more so as lies. And lies destroyed Marat.

Who was Marat? A man of study, learning. Physicist, Admired of Franklin, Göethe for his works On heat and light; a doctor, having won An honorary title at St. Andrew’s In England. Linguist, speaking Spanish, German, Italian, English. Versed in Governments:— You know his work on England’s constitution Whereby he sought to clear the mind of France— This Charlotte Corday’s with the rest—that England Is free, her systems free; stop the Girondists From that re-iterated lie; stop France From taking on the English system.

So True ideas of Marat, evolved from life, Living and study must combat, destroy False ideas of Girondists, will succeed; But cannot bar the door to the idea That enters at his bathroom with a knife. How was it that no valet and no guard Preserved him? Why? Lovers of liberty Starve in her service!

But there was a time When he knew elegance and privacy. But Liberty and Wisdom would be served. He went to rags, was hunted, had to hide In sewers for the cause of Liberty; And there took loathsome trouble, eased at times By steam, hot tubs. And thus our people’s friend Is found accessible to this female lie, Girondist lie, possessing her, and stabbed. Or at the best ideas of Liberty Conduct her to his bath-room, where Marat Is tubbed in sequence and in punishment Of his idea of Liberty. Gods can laugh, But men must weep. O worthless, rotten world! It is most pitiful, most tragic, lifts Man’s heart to spit at heaven, that these friends Of peoples must be slain, starved, hunted first, Then butchered for their service and their love. Saved not by truth; destroyed by lies, a lie That he was evil, by the maniac lie Of her mad vision that she knew what Freedom, Liberty, Republic mean. Slain by the lie Of this Girondist dream, this milk and water, Emasculated, luke-warm craft of states: Girondists: patches on the robes of kings; Girondists: autogamists; mating sisters, The past, and in the mating without child Of truth or progress. Neither hot nor cold, Spewed, therefore, from the mouth of Time. Betrayers, Waylayers of the brave, the clear of eye; Girondists: ’twixt republicans and kings, And holding hands of each to make them friends. Workers and owners of the new foaled mule Bred of the royal stallion and an ass. Girondists! loving wealth and ease, the church Which loves them too. Girondists picking steps Of moderate reform. Girondists hating The Revolution, which must kill the foes Of Liberty, as criminals are killed For robbery, yet rejoice to see the blood Of dead Marat. They’re lofty! They are pure! They love the laws, love peace! Yes, as this woman Loves law and peace.

What is it like? A play Where all is mimicked. Do we talk of facts? Are these not fautocinni? Where’s the hand That plays this coarse and bloody joke to eyes Of men that crave reality? I mean this: A woman with lovers who suggest, abet; A woman with no man, who dreams and reads, Lives in the stench of these Girondist lies; Ghosts float on fogs of her miasmic soul. She hears Marat’s a monster, dabbling blood, A rabid ignoramus running foul Of liberty and order, nihilist, And sanguinary madman, dragon slimed In back-wash of all hatred, envy, lust Of the dispossessed, malformed, misborn; and then She dreams of Brutus, who struck down—there now I nail a lie that will be always truth To Charlotte Cordays. Cæsar? Tyrant? No. No man is tyrant who sees truth and rules For truth’s sake. For the ruled must share the truth Where Cæsars rule.

So much for her. She stands Watchful and envious in the wings, and sees Marat, not as we see him; not as Time Will see Marat. L’Ami du Peuple to her Is enemy of France, of Liberty. This man most rare, most pure of soul, most clear Of vision that the contest lies between The rich and poor, has always lain between The rich and poor, and not between the people And kings; that poverty’s the thing, is seen By Charlotte Corday from the wings, as nothing But hatred, murder.

Well, my girl, you’ll get Your picture in the galleries of history. You’ll get it; and to choke you with your words: “So curiosity would have memorials Of criminals, which serve to keep alive Horror for their crimes.”

Your picture’s up Already. Horror stares! You killed Marat. That is your place in Time: you killed Marat! You sneaked upon a great man, true man, weak From torture of disease, contracted serving Democracy, and slew him like a beast. Charlotte Corday, assassin! That’s your place, And character in history.

Charlotte

Let it be. Assassin. Well, assassins kill assassins: The words repel, destroy each other, sir. If any grieve for me I beg of them To think of me in the Elysian Fields With Brutus and the heroes.

Chaveau-Lagarde

Gentlemen! The deed’s admitted. What to say, but ask Your clemency? The girl’s fanatical. The prosecutor argues well for me In saying that a lie corrupted her, And maddened her to act; which is to say If that lie were a truth, she had the right To slay Marat. With this regard Voltaire, Great minds before him, painted Brutus great Because he slew a tyrant. But if Cæsar Was not a tyrant, how does Brutus stand But mad-man who believed, was honest, slew In honesty of heart? Then what’s the case? To punish for ill-judging of the facts, Or mercy show for human frailty Of judgment and of vision? Great Marat Has done his work, and left his legacy. We cannot help him, meting death for death. And would his noble spirit ask her death? Think of it! You will answer no, I think. He would say: kill the ideas of Caen, The world which fires these Charlottes with a lie. Smallpox is deadly as a butcher knife, He had to die. The syllabus is death In this our human logic: what’s the odds What premises produce conclusions? Knives, Consumptions, fevers, wars? We may be gods Withholding death where we have power to kill; Withhold it saying: She mistook, believed A lie, was faultless for believing it, And slew believing. Were it truth and all Believed we would applaud, as nations war, Bound in a common vision of one truth. The Revolution, France, will lose not, rather Gain by this clemency; ’twill lift a light, First in the world, of reason, justice purged Of hatred’s refuse: vengeance, fear, all passions Of bitterness of soul. We worship Reason, And this is Reason.

Charlotte

You have done your part And served me well. I thank you.

The Jury

Let her join Brutus in the Elysian Fields. We say: The guillotine!

The Mob

(Outside) To the guillotine! To the guillotine!

Charlotte

I am content.

A MAN CHILD IS BORN

(February 12th, 1809. Log Hut near Hodgenville, Ky.)

(A neighbor woman is talking)

The wind blows through the chinks—it’s snowing too, Tom piles the logs on, but that door is loose. An earthen floor is always cold. You’re warm. I’m glad I brought a kiverlid along, An extra one comes handy at this time. You are all right—you had an easy time, Considering this baby, big and long. He’s very long, will be a tall man, too, A hunter and a chopper, Indian fighter, Lord, who knows what, a big man in the country, A preacher, congressman or senator, A president—who knows? God blesses you To give you such a son. He nurses well. Don’t let him have too much at first. You see That single window gives too little light To show you what he’s like. He looks a little Like Nancy Shipley Hanks, your mother, perhaps A little like your aunt, old Mary Lincoln. Since you and Tom are cousins, it may be This boy will be a mixture, but if folks Resemble animals, the traits of you Will be made stronger in this child, because You two are cousins.

You will be up to see What he looks like, in just a week or so. Perhaps when next the flames mount in the fire-place The light will show you. Have you named him yet— Tom likes the name of Abraham—well, that’s good— You’ve chosen that!

I thought I heard a step— Who do you think is coming? Dennis Hanks! He’s come to see his cousin Abraham.

Good mornin’, Dennis! come into the fire— I’ll you see your cousin Abraham— A big, long baby—quick! and shut the door, The room is none too warm, the wind is blowing— Tom’s gone for logs again! Here, I’ll raise up The kiverlid and let you see—look here! You think he’s homely! Pretty is, you know, As pretty does—but see how big and long! In fifteen years he’ll make you up and come To beat him wrestling, I will bet a coon’s skin. Now you may kiss him; in a little bit I’ll let you hold him by the fire. The pot Is on for dinner, we are having squirrel And hominy for dinner—you can stay. Now clear out, Dennis—I must do some things— Open the door for Tom, he’s coming there With logs to mend the fire!

RICHARD BOOTH TO HIS SON JUNIUS BRUTUS

(London, December 13th, 1813.)

So you’re to play Campillo, all in spite Of my commands, at Deptford? Here’s the bill Found in your pocket. You are seventeen, Too young for this adventure in the world. What will you be, a strolling vagabond, Smelling of grease, impoverished, set apart From stable folk by this, your wandering art? And just to think I named you Junius Brutus, After the great republican who slew The Roman tyrant Cæsar—I myself A worshipper of Liberty all my life, And choosing such a patronym for you To dedicate you to the faith in me. Now you would leave this dignity to speak Mimetic words, and act. I beg of you, Listen, my boy, before it is too late, And let me tell my story to you now, That you may profit by the things I’ve lived....

You see that face of Washington, hung up There on the wall where every entering eye Must mark it? You remember that I ask, Enforce respect to Washington and make The passer bow his head—well, listen now:

It’s seventeen seventy-seven, I’m fourteen. Burgoyne’s surrender fires my tender heart. We hear Lord George Germain forgets to take A letter from a pigeon hole containing Instructions to Burgoyne that touches on The campaign on the Hudson. Anyway, Burgoyne gets tangled in the wilderness Around Champlain. He faces broken bridges, And trees felled in his way. His horses fail, Provisions are exhausted. Then he sends A thousand men to Bennington to get More horses and provisions. There he’s stumped: A veteran of Bunker Hill is there, A Colonel Stark, whose wife is Mollie Stark, Who says we beat the British here to-day, Or Mollie Stark’s a widow. August 16th They whipped the British soundly—and Burgoyne Was driven to defeat.

That made us flame! I was a hot republican. Slipped away To Paris with a cousin to set sail For America and help the Americans, And wrote from there a letter to John Wilkes, And asked his help to get me in the army Of Washington. As Englishmen, I wrote, It may be said we are not justified In taking arms against the English cause. That argument with you could have no weight, You, who have fought for Liberty so long. And England, what is she? All human rights Are lost in England under tyrant rule. It is the duty of an English heart To help those whom this lawless tyranny Oppresses in America. So I wrote, And sent to London. What do you suppose? John Wilkes went to my father with this letter. They caught me, brought me home, and here I am, A lawyer to this day. You think it strange! Who was John Wilkes, that he should thus betray?— I wonder, even now.

For he had been A rebel spirit from his boyhood up, Born here in London seventeen twenty-seven; Was sent to Parliament when he was thirty. Attacked the king in writing, was arrested; Refused to answer questions, then they chucked Our rebel in the Tower; he got out, Saying he had a privilege as a member Of Parliament. They passed a special law To warrant prosecution, ousted him From Parliament, and then he went to France, Was outlawed, but returned, again was sent To Parliament, before he took his seat. Was sent to prison on the sentences Passed on the old conviction, and expelled From Parliament again for libeling The minister of war. Three times again They elected him to Parliament, but they kept Our rebel out. He now became the people’s Idol for his sufferings and his courage. They let him out of prison, made him mayor Of London, and in seventeen seventy-four He goes from Middlesex to Parliament And takes his seat at last, and there he was When I wrote to him, seventeen seventy-seven. Why did he tell my father, send my father The letter which I wrote?

I know, I think: He knew the dangers, agonies ahead, For a boy who sets his feet along the path Of Liberty and working for the world To free the world—and did not know my stuff; Whether I had the will to fight and die With no regrets. He knew what he had suffered, And had a tenderness for the youth who flames And beats his wings for freedom, would release From tyranny and wrong.

And so they caught me, And brought me home and set me to the law. And here I am, who never lost the dream And named you Junius Brutus. Oh, my son, Leave off this actor calling, stay with me, I who was nipped would see you grow to flower, Fulfill my vision. What, you promise me, If I will let you act this time, to come And let me mould you, teach you what I know, Fill full your spirit with the hope I had, That you may do what I have failed to do? You promise that? Well, Junius Brutus, go And may you fail at acting and return.

A MAN CHILD IS BORN

(July 14th, 1839. The Farm.)

(Mrs. Booth is speaking.)

After such pain this child against my breast! Oh what a cunning head and little face! What coal black hair! You have begun to feed! Look, doctor, how he feeds—why look at him, He is a little man! Is not God good To give me such a baby? Well, I think You will be something noble in this world, And something great, you precious little man! His daddy wants to name him John Wilkes. I Would name him Junius Brutus to hand down His father’s glory and perhaps his art. Look, doctor, is it not a miracle That God performs, this little life from mine, This beauty out of love! I pray to God To bless you, little John, if that’s your name. A colored mammy read the coffee grounds, And says he will be famous, rich and great— He may be so. I know he will be good. Look at that darling face—it must be so!

SQUIRE BOWLING GREEN

(Rutledge’s Tavern, New Salem, July 14th, 1839.)

You missed it—case all over! Lincoln’s gone. He’s just had time about to reach the mill. He couldn’t wait until the stage arrived. Had business in the courts of Springfield—well, You can believe he has become a lawyer. He borrowed Mentor Graham’s horse to ride. John Yoakum is in Springfield and to-morrow Will bring it back.

Who won the case? Why, Abe. He won it by his horse-sense and his wit. You must have met the jury down the road. What were they laughing at? About the case. We started yesterday on the evidence And finished up this morning. An appeal? The verdict satisfies both parties, and My judgment stands.

Abe is a natural lawyer, Knows things that can’t be found in books, although He knows the books. And why not? You recall When he was boarding with me how he studied? It’s just four years ago or so, that he Came home one night with Blackstone. Well, I’ve noticed A man attracts what’s his, just like a magnet Draws bits of steel. You can’t make me believe That Blackstone came to him unless ’twas meant That he should be a lawyer. Don’t you know? He read this Blackstone in his store all day And half the night as well. He said to me Not Volney’s “Ruins,” Shakespeare, Burns, had taken His interest like this Blackstone. Yes, he took it When he went fishing with Jack Kelso, read, And let jack row the boat and bait the hooks....

I think he knows this Blackstone all by heart. But anyway, he knows the human heart. Well, now here is the case: Here is a colt. George Cameron says the colt is his—John Spears Says no, the colt is mine, and Cameron sues, And Spears defends, and sixty witnesses Come here to testify, on my word it’s true, On my judicial oath it is the fact. The thirty swear the colt is Cameron’s; And thirty swear the colt belongs to Spears; And not a man impeached, these witnesses Are everyone good men, and most of them I know as I know you. Well, what’s to do? The scales are balanced. And besides all this, Here’s Cameron who swears the colt is his, And Spears who swears the opposite, and both Are credible, I know them both. So I Sit like a fellow trying to decide What happens when a thing impenetrable Is struck by something irresistible— I’m stumped, that’s all.

You see the facts were these: Each of these fellows owns a mare, the mares Look pretty much alike, each had a colt In April. But the other day one colt— Which colt, that is the question—strayed away And can’t be found. George Cameron has a colt— These men are neighbors—but John Spears comes over And sees the colt at Cameron’s in the field; And says, “That is my colt.” “Not on your life,” George Cameron replies, “The colt is mine— Your colt has strayed, not mine.” They come to law. John Spears gets Lincoln, and they come to court With sixty witnesses; and here this noon With all the evidence put in, I sit And eye the jury, know the jury’s stumped, As I am stumped.

Then Lincoln says: “Your honor, Let’s have a trial on view.” I’d heard of that, But never sat on such a trial before. “Let’s bring the colt, the two mares over here, And let the jury see which mare the colt Resembles, let the jury use their eyes As witnesses use theirs.”

That seemed fair. And so we sent one fellow for the mares, Another for the colt. For Lincoln said: “Your honor, bring them separate, so the jury Can have the sudden flash of seeing them Separate, to study them.”

For an hour Abe sat here in the shade and told us stories. And pretty soon we heard the horses whinney, And heard the colt. And Lincoln said, “Your honor, Let’s have the mares led past the jury, trotting, Let’s see their pace.” And so they trotted them. “Now trot the colt,” said Lincoln—we did that. The jury watched to see the look of legs, And movement, if you please, to catch a likeness. But nothing came of this. Then Lincoln said: “Now turn the colt loose”—and they turned it loose. It galloped to the mare of Spears and sucked! Well, now it’s true a colt’s a silly thing, And may mistake its mother, but a mare Will never let a colt that’s not her own Put under flanks its nose. Of course the jury, And all of us know that—and so did Abe. The jury yelled and all the witnesses Began to whoop. And when I rapped for order And got things quiet—Lincoln rose and said, “I rest, your honor.”

So I entered judgment For Spears. They went to Berry’s for the drinks— There! hear them laughing.

Lincoln took his fee, Ten dollars, I believe, and went to Springfield.

LINCOLN SPEAKING IN CONGRESS

(January 12th, 1848.)

“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a sacred right. A right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and may make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones.”

JOHN WILKES BOOTH AT THE FARM

(January 12th, 1848.)

Mother, I’m breathless! I have seen a man, The strangest man I ever saw. I’m scared! I went down to the hollow, was at play, Was marching with my broomstick gun—and then While I stood there and said “attention,” playing Soldier, you know, reciting to my soldiers, I heard a voice—looked round and saw this man. He was enormous with a frightful face, Black eyes, black hair, a voice that sounded like Low thunder, though it could be soft and sweet. And he said to me, “What’s your name, my boy?” I told him. Then he said, “Where is your father?” I said, “My father’s gone.” “Where is your mother?” “Up at the house,” I answered. Then he asked, “What are you doing here?” “Why, playing soldier.” “Are you a patriot?” And I said yes. “Oh, no,” he said, “your father was an actor; I saw him play the part of Brutus often, And you will be an actor, you’ve the look.” How did he know these things, do you suppose? And then he said, “Recite for me.” “I can’t,” I said to him. “O yes, you can,” he said. “You must recite for me.” And I was scared, Began to cry, and he said, “Hush, my boy, I will not hurt you, but you must recite, I want to see what you have memorized.” So I was choking, but I tried to do it: “The tyrannous and bloody deed is done, The most arch act of piteous massacre That ever yet this land was guilty of.” ...

“No Richard III,” he said. “Here look at me! Why do you dodge? Why not recite some words From Brutus, for you know them, why, my boy? You’ve heard your father speak the words of Brutus. Why do you hide your knowledge? Look at me!” He terrified me so that I began: “It must be by his death: and for my part I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general. He would be crowned: How that might change his nature, there’s the question. It is the bright day that brings forth the adder.” I got so far and saw him looking down, As if he saw—I don’t know what—and then I stopped and looked—and there I saw an adder Coiled close to me. I jumped and screamed. He laughed— I ran away, and left him standing there. Mother, I am afraid. Who was this man? My head hurts. I’m afraid. Keep close to me— I am so frightened.

JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH

(On a steamboat bound for Cincinnati from New Orleans, November 30th, 1852.)

You are a doctor? Ill? I’m very ill. My soul is worn, it is a ghastly life, This acting, traveling, living through the passions Of Brutus, and Orestes, Richard III. My father tried to make a lawyer of me, But fate is fate. My age is fifty-six, But counting by the moments I have lived A thousand years were nearer truth. Oh, well, What if this talking tire me, I am tired With such fatigue that nothing adds to it. And if I die, why what will be, will be. I’d like to see “The Farm” in Maryland Just once again, see Mary, that’s my wife, John Wilkes, my boy, and Junius Brutus, too— Edwin I left in California, Shall never see him more I fear—but then What comes to us must come.

That brandy helps, I’m better now.

Oh, yes, it’s true my father Would make a lawyer of me, couldn’t do it— I am a better lawyer than he was For acting parts and living other lives, Thus finding laws of life—but what’s the good? You can’t find happiness, all is vanity. If you’re a strolling player, vanity; Vexation too and jealousy and strife. If all the house goes mad to see you rage As life-like as the Moor did, do they know What realest envy stalks behind the scenes, What you have done to keep your golden voice, Your strength to paint the frenzy of Othello?

After one greatest triumph I sat alone, Was playing solitaire, who should come in? Chief Justice Marshall, friend of mine? Oh, yes. He said, “I think you’d be the happiest Of men, why not enjoy what you’ve achieved?” “Judge,” I replied, “you see me here alone, There is no ecstasy, no drop of joy For me save in that moment when I see, Both through my genius glowing and the cries And plaudits from the house, that I have struck. The fateful note that thrills—all other hours Are spent in saving power and making ready For just that moment. What’s an actor, poet? A medium round whom the spirits swarm Like bats in Tartarus and shrill Me! Me! Take now and write, speak for me—make it clear, You are our hope of truth, of being known For what we are. And so you’re never done. The spirits dash about you with their cries; Men note your eyes turned inward—move away. And you must keep in vigor. Hoarseness rasps The voice of Brutus, you must catch no cold. You drink sometimes to deafen ears against The spirits’ crying, but you pay for it, Must climb back into strength, but while you’re weak The spirits are a-crying, there you are, Ambitious but enfeebled, can’t respond, And tortured for it. There is no escape. And so you play at solitaire.” The Judge Replied: “A judge is lonely, for his reasons Must keep himself aloof.” Yes, I knew Kean. He played Othello to my great Iago, And I say great, for I was twenty-one, And made the London English shout and howl: “Great Booth forever,” though they shouted, too, “No Booth” and “down with Booth,” the partisans Of Kean, the envious. And on a time It’s Drury Lane, and what an audience! Hazlitt is there and Godwin, Shelley’s friend, John Howard Payne, who wrote “The Fall of Tarquin.” He saw that Kean was envious, would not be Excelled by me and wrote as much.

My friend, Another drink of brandy!

Well, at last I make America my home. ’Twere well If I am spared to write my memories, They throng so at this moment. God be praised, I knew Old Hickory and supped with him, A man from top to toe! And I have lived, Fought, suffered, triumphed, lived through self and lived Through Brutus, Lear, and Richard.

Look at me, Am I a man you’d ever take for mad? Mad-men have struck at me, a lunatic Struck at me with an ax, I cowed his hate And fixed him with my eye. But as for me, Here have I been for life a lover of home, A husband blest with happiness in a wife, And yet reputed mad. For little things Like this reputed mad: I’m playing Shylock, The call boy searches me, my time has come, Where was I? In a closet. Was it queer? A symptom? No! I hid to shut the light Of other things external from the mind Of Shylock’s mood. Why, is it strange at all For a soul that incarnates itself with souls Like Brutus’ and Lear’s to lose itself, Seem sometimes naked, trembling, swaying too With such exhaustion, such tremendous change? These common minds see not the genius mind For what it is, forget the strength and wisdom That makes the genius, in my case, forget My books and scholarship, my toil, who learned Greek, Latin, German, French and Arabic, Hebrew and Spanish; the philosophies, I’ve mastered in my life.

I tremble too For thinking of my little son, John Wilkes, So beautiful and gifted, has the touch; Is full of dreams, goes charging on his horse, Spouting heroic speeches, lance in hand There on “The Farm,” a patriot and a lover Of liberty even now. What will he be, A statesman or an actor, warrior, what? God knows alone, and what his fate God knows. I named him after John Wilkes, patriot And English libertarian—but no matter, He’ll do what he will do. They named me Brutus And I became an actor, not a statesman, Warrior, no tyrannicide.

Hold there! What is this? Take my hand! Sharp pain again— Pray! pray! pray!

(He dies.)

A CERTAIN POET ON THE DEBATES

(At Alton, Illinois, October 15th, 1858.)

(Arguing with a group at the hotel.)

Why do I speak with such authority? I know this matter through from A to Z; I know it just as well as Lincoln knows it. There’s not a document I have not studied From Elliott’s Debates to this Le Compton Kansas constitution that has escaped My mind’s analysis. And you will see Lincoln is beaten now. You are absurd To think he’ll win the presidency for losing The senatorship—clean crazy all of you!

Who am I? Well, it makes no difference. I am a mind, a mere intelligence Going about this year of fifty-eight An observer and a listener. Gabriel Could be no more impersonal than I. I’ve followed up these fellows like the boy That trails the circus, clear from Ottawa To Freeport, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, Alton; And made my way at first with sawing wood, Later by selling razors, soap and strops; And just to hear the speaking, see the crowds— These crowds that leave the shop and farms, these crowds Solemn and noisy, rapt, tumultuous, Sober and drunk, who carry whips and spit Tobacco juice around and drink and eat. The babies squall, wagons and democrats Befog the air with dust, and oh, the heat! Yet though these crowds will settle like the dust In graves all over Illinois, nothing leave Of what, or who they were, no less these crowds Have reason at the centre like the sun; Dimmed to the eyes this side; the sun is there! But yet the sun knows it is there—the dust Rises and shows the sun—there you have thought Which is now, will be handed down of this— These days. Oh, yes, the dust will rise at last When evening—that’s reflection, settles down; And then you’ll see a star—first magnitude, The name is Lincoln!

I have read. I know. Never in Rome or Greece were such debates, Never in all this world. Look at the theme: Slavery in a republic! As for men, Where is their equal? Is it Pericles, Demosthenes or Cicero, here with us, Great Webster? And the setting, think of that! Here in this western prairie state they pass From town to town, stand up before the mass, And battle with their wits—set falcons loose Of swift and ravenous logic to devour The other’s flights. The crowds perceive the trend, Gather enough to guide them and persuade, But much of it is over them. You heard Lincoln to-day, when he had subtilized The point to deadly ether, say to them: “An audience like this will scarcely see The force of what I say, but minds well trained Will follow me and see.” That is the point. Out of this popular oratory rises A durable spire of truth. This Lincoln leaves Great thought and beauty to the race. And yet Douglas will be our senator, and Seward Our President two years from now. As Webster Could never win the prize, this Lincoln too Will fail to win it.

Why, you silly fools! Lincoln has sprained his arms and back for good— But he has laid the South out flat and cold, And broken the slavocracy in two. He did it with one question; asking that He made the Little Giant cough and stammer, And blush his guilt before America. Oh, yes, he answered well enough to win This contest here in Illinois; but look, The Southern press is after him already, They scent the carcass moved, withdrawn a little; They croak like buzzards—and there will be war Between the eagles and the buzzards now, Perhaps when Seward is elected; truly If Lincoln should be chosen, as he won’t. It isn’t that this Douglas isn’t a master. It is that he is caught between the mill-stones. The upper is this Kansas and Nebraska, The lower is Dred Scott—and I am glad! Why did he father Kansas and Nebraska? Why did he flout the ancient ordinance Of 1787, which kept out This curse of slavery, out of Illinois, But brought us liberty of press and speech, The bill of rights? Did Congress have the power To pass this ordinance of ’87? Or did it lack the power, because the states That came into the union with their slaves Might keep their slaves, reclaim as fugitive Their slaves on freedom’s soil? Well, if it be That Congress had the power to plaster down The ordinance of 1787 Upon this Illinois, this great Northwest, It had the power to say the western land Of Kansas and Nebraska should be free As territories ruled from Washington And no imperialism! So, I say again It serves this Douglas right to be destroyed, And ground to powder for this act of his, This Kansas and Nebraska.

Well, all right. It sounds all right, it makes the idiots whoop To hear the Little Giant say he favors The people’s rule in Kansas and Nebraska. Their right to say they’ll have this slavery Or have it not—yes, popular sovereignty!— But why not let the people vote on God, Or choose a king, or take me, all the whites, And make us slaves? It may be so, if truth Is just a mockery and there’s nothing real In human thought at all—one thing is true As anything, and everything is false.

Thus ruin smites the temple of our life, And all of us lie down as beasts and grunt Around its broken arches and its columns!

All right! He gets his Kansas and Nebraska. That makes him president! Not on your life! Momus is watching, growls a horrid laugh And whispers something to Slavocracy, Which whispers it to Taney—and behold The prophets and the guardians of the ark Of the covenant declare a slave’s a slave, And can be taken to a territory, And kept there in the face of national law That makes the territory free. Or else, Were this not so, the Congress is supreme, Has slipped the chain of the organic law, Which recognizes slavery. What is this But just imperialism?

God Almighty! They’re all for freedom, a republic too. Kansas, Nebraska—let the people rule. Dred Scott:—the Congress is a Parliament Like England has, unless it pins and tucks The constitution round its pocky body. That may be true, but then the question is: Is slavery charactered upon the robe, And must the figure of the slave be seen Wherever Congress walks?

I’ll come to that. The point is now that Douglas has been caught Between his Kansas and Nebraska act, And Dred Scott never his. And being lawful, Obedient to the law and to the courts— You heard him hammer Lincoln as a man Who flouted courts—while he, the Little Giant, Obeyed the laws—oh, yes!—So, being lawful, As I began, must hold in level hands Dred Scott in one, and in the other hand This Kansas and Nebraska.

Very good. Lincoln has got him now, and out of all This rhetoric, these sorties half successful, These scrimmages with Lincoln, half perplexed, You find your Little Giant on his back With Lincoln over him and pinning shoulders Down to the floor.

Here is the wrestling trick: Can any territory keep this slavery Out lawfully, that is, against the wish Of any citizen? What is the answer? If you say yes, where is Dred Scott? If no, How do the people rule?

What is his answer? Why, yes, he says, a territory can Keep slavery out. Dred Scott still sends it there, But then the people rule, and if the people There in Nebraska make it hot for slavery By local law and custom, frowns and blows, It will not thrive. That satisfied the crowd; Enough at least, elects him Senator, But loses him the South, the golden prize, Splits up the country, gives us war in time, When argument is silenced cannon boom— And when your Seward comes to Washington The South secedes.

Now, listen for a moment! What is Abe Lincoln’s genealogy In faith political? Sired by the Federalists, And mothered by the Whigs. A tariff man; Believes too in the Bank—tariffs and banks Filched from the plenary stores of privilege By hands that break the shackles of the law. He’s born a Whig, has turned Republican, What is his blood? Why, liberal construction, Twisting the constitution out of shape, And tearing holes in it to let the Congress Escape and wander—where? Why, anywhere! And though it be that touching slavery There’s nothing which forbids the Congress acting In freedom’s way—and that’s the very point— And granting that the Constitution’s over The territories, still the Congress can Bring freedom there—this theory is akin To loose construction, scarcely can be told From loose construction. For you see, if freedom, Since Congress is not hampered, can be brought, Why not then slavery, if it be not hampered? And why not colonies, dependencies, Ruled just as Congress wills, if never a word Lies in our charter to forbid or grant The power to do it.

Well, there’ll be a war, And hell thereafter. So you like my talk! What is my name? Why, Satan is my name— And I go wandering on the earth to see, Walk to and fro and laugh and drop a tear In spite of all my laughter. Tears and laughter For ideas in the heads of men that seethe, Pop, crackle, ferment, blow up bottles, kegs, Spill and destroy bacteria on the floor Of epochs, ruin wisdoms, cultures, faiths. Time scrubs the floor of all such verses—Time Matures fresh grapes, new ferments, and repeats The old catastrophes; and hence I laugh, And drop a tear on all the sorry waste.

PART II

THE DECISION

(April 14th, 1861.)

Lincoln is sitting absorbed in thought in an office of the executive mansion, where he has been in consultation with his cabinet. A telegraph instrument has ceased to click, but the wires are droning. Lincoln suddenly falls into a sleep, at once profound and trance-like. In the vision members of his cabinet and secretaries move in and out of the room.

Lincoln

So there are five?

A Voice

Yes, five to two.

Seward’s Voice

A month Has gone by and no policy. You should Take hold yourself, or on a cabinet member Devolve the task.

Lincoln

Whatever’s to be done Is mine to do.

Seward’s Voice

Fort Sumpter leave alone! If we employ armed force we have begun A civil war—without armed force we fail. We cannot take the fort and keep the fort, Unless we subjugate the States as well. No, let us not first draw the sword.

Lincoln

To say—

A Voice

Yes, five to two.

Seward’s Voice

Your cabinet opposes The Fort’s provisioning.

Lincoln

The property And military posts, the forts which were In our possession when the government Came to my hands, I shall defend and hold. I shall collect the duties, but beyond Such things make no invasion.

A Voice

And the mails?

Another Voice

Fort Sumpter has been shelled!

Seward’s Voice

So I forewarned you.

Another Voice

That was an error.

Another Voice

May I ask a question? Will you invade the country to collect The duties, or relieve a fort alone Where duties are in question?

Lincoln

My inaugural—

Another Voice

To hell with forts and duties—free the slaves!

Seward’s Voice

Drop slavery! Before the people raise The question: Is it Union or Disunion!

Another Voice

I say to let the erring Sisters go.

Another Voice

I care more for the principles—

Another Voice

Be still! I’m sick of principles—

The Same Voice

The principles Of local democratic government are worth Twice over all the niggers.

Another Voice

Senator, You are most eloquent when full of drink.

Another Voice

Would you unite the North? Maneuver them To fire upon the Fort.

Another Voice

The time has come To open up the question with the sword: Is this a league, is this a nation, which?

Another Voice

What do you want, a tariff or a bank? Take off your nigger mask, you centralist!

Another Voice

A contract broken by a signatory Absolves the other signatory.

Another Voice

Yes The Yankee cotton spinner—

Another Voice

Singing psalms!

Another Voice

The radicals have brought us to this pass, This agitation, hatred sectional.

Douglas’ Voice

All seem to overlook this vital matter: The President can use the military Where only States request it.

Another Voice

You forget The act of ’75.

Douglas’ Voice

I don’t forget. The act of ’75 does not apply, Except to laws resisted, where a marshall Is overpowered.

Another Voice

And there is no marshall, There is no judge in the seceded States.

Another Voice

You will appoint one, so you promised.

Lincoln

Yes.

Douglas’ Voice

Then, sir, what cause is there for apprehension? Who dares to say your President will pursue A policy of war, unless he call On Congress for the means and for the power?

Another Voice

I ask about Fort Sumpter—are there ships With cargoes of provisions on their way?—

Another Voice

Yes, they have sailed.

Other Voices

No! No!

Another Voice

Oh, yes, the seven governors from the North Have changed his policy. He now intends To overthrow the federative law. O great conspiracy—O seven-headed Apocalyptic Beast!

The vision grows confused. Lincoln seems to himself to attempt to arise from the chair but is unable to do so. The scene whirls about like drifting mist, struck by a sudden current of air, in which there are lights and faces. Voices are mingled together indistinguishably and then fade away. There is a silence. Out of the confusion two figures emerge, one bright, the other shadowy. Both are images of Lincoln. They become seated in a boat which is moving with great rapidity. The only sound is the droning of the telegraph.

First Phantom

Twice have I seen this fateful scene before.

Second Phantom

The depths are moving, but no waters roar. A mountain silence clasps the air and sea. Look through the glassy fathoms far below: Beneath us glides the ocean’s dizzy floor Which we skim over with a swallow’s speed.

First Phantom

I see a shadowy shore and precipices. Yes, this portends my spirit’s earthly woe.

Second Phantom

You shall not shrink! What though your heart shall bleed Its last drop out walking the abysses, You must go forth—the hour has struck for you! The little freedoms of your life are past, As youth may choose its work or happiness; Now you must steer the boat through fog and blast. This rock encircled water is no less Than your soul captured in the trap of Fate. Far over stands ’twixt earth and heaven a gate Where souls depart and enter into Time, You must set foot upon this shore and climb And blindly your election make, renew Your will and spirit.

First Phantom

Tell me what to do?

Second Phantom

Heal, if you can, the nation’s growing scars, Let harmony come out of harsh discord.

First Phantom

Suppose the seven States first draw the sword? Have they not drawn it now?

Second Phantom

All bloody wars Furnish great argument to place the blame For the first blow. But even if it’s blood That blots the bond of human brotherhood, Behold the pangs that flow from human pride When slaughter by such blood is justified.

First Phantom

What shall I do with giants who rebel?

Second Phantom

You do but traffic in a word, a name, A word it is with which you may inflame To mob-like fury a judicious nation— So you may enter on an usurpation.

First Phantom

What do you say? Am I a tyrant then?

Second Phantom

Already have you thought of arming men Without the sovereign sanction of the law.

First Phantom

But if I don’t mad Treason will have gained Such progress that it will have quite attained Its purpose to bind down and overawe Conciliation or resistance even.

Second Phantom

You arrogate the very will of heaven, As tyrants do, and in your purpose find A small reflection of the eternal mind. What do you know of this? But if you rest On human will and thought you must concede A contradiction in your dream, who break The law a rebel spirit to arrest. This is a way of sowing nettle seed. Once you were faithful to a better creed, That men may found new nations when the old No longer have the people’s fair consent. Rights are not hostile. If this be a right How may you overthrow it with your might?

First Phantom

Have you not heard this story of me told: At New Orleans I saw the children cry When from the auction block their sire was sold. I then resolved to strike this curse a blow If ever Heaven gave My arm the strength. It is my deepest hate.

Second Phantom

This is the thought then lying further back In your fanatic spirit, child of woe, Reached through a devious and hidden track! For this you will prepare your country’s grave. You will free some, but only to enslave A wider realm of being.

First Phantom

I would know What may be best.

Second Phantom

The country is at peace. You do not dare to ask your Congress for Troops on the Southern people to make war.

First Phantom

I do not need to ask. I have enrolled An oath with God the Nation to uphold.

Second Phantom

But if you call the troops will you not ask Congress to validate your powers’ increase And sharpening of the sword for such a task? You do not answer. Well, if this may be Do you not contemplate a tyranny?

First Phantom

What is this rupture but a mere defection, What might be called rebellion, insurrection Against the laws, which I must overthrow, As others did before me from the first? No word writ in the charter of the nation Has made provision for its termination.

Second Phantom

But not to argue this—you have reversed Your mind upon the right of revolution.

First Phantom

Not for a righteous or a holy cause.

Second Phantom

You test it in your own soul’s resolution. But tell me when there are no writs or laws For you to execute in the Southern land How are you acting?

First Phantom

But I still command The property and forts, and other places Belonging to the Nation.

Second Phantom

Understand Their territory all such forts embraces And sovereignty thereover is resumed. You cannot have a war on that account, When they would pay you for the places lost.

First Phantom

First the rebellious spirit must surmount The barriers that keep them home with us. They cannot leave us, cannot take and hold What is not theirs, or what if they had sold They could not grant.

Second Phantom

That is but bloody gold. And what you say if acted on will bring A million deaths.

First Phantom

They are responsible For all the consequences if they cling To this rebellious purpose.

Second Phantom

To compel This fortress’s provisioning Will be a blow first struck. It is the law: The first blow of a war is struck by him Who makes the first blow needful to be struck.

First Phantom

You put the woven substance in a ruck. I leave the issue of a war with them. They shall not be assailed, nor may they have Conflict with me unless they first aggress The government.

Second Phantom

Oh, then they must withdraw Resistance to your plan.

First Phantom

Well, I confess No open plan, as yet. But now attend: I have an oath in heaven registered The Union to preserve, protect, defend; They have no oath the Union to destroy.

Second Phantom

What is the Union but a verbal toy Like Justice, Beauty, Liberty or Truth? And as for them they need not take an oath, They need but act.

First Phantom

The Union is unbroken, is a pact Which cannot be erased or torn apart By less than half of those who gave it breath.

Second Phantom

How does a State sink partly into death By joining other States? Can it accede And thereby lose its virtue to secede?

First Phantom

The Union is much older than accession.

Second Phantom

Some Union, not the Union which you rule. The states which formed the old Confederacy Withdrew to form the Union. Liberty Is older than all States. Her handmaiden has always been secession.

First Phantom

These arguments are used but to befool The minds who loathe the wrong they would conceal. No justice will be lost by him who waits.

Second Phantom

They ask a council for the general weal Of all the States these matters to arrange Without the flow of blood.

First Phantom

I shall not change What I have said: If God who rules above, Almighty Ruler of all nations, deems Eternal truth with them, or with our side, That truth eternal ever must abide.

Second Phantom

But after all the truth is that which seems The truth to you. And if mankind you love, Why draw the sword to justify such truth? Has any warrior of the world said more?

First Phantom

The people may be trusted to restore All broken rights, to them I leave all things.

Second Phantom

What do you say? These dubious wanderings Travel along a pathway scarcely smooth. You vowed to let no forces intermit The Nation’s laws in no place, save the means Which should be requisite, Were by the people from your arms withheld. You do not let them choose when you’ve compelled Their action by your act, which intervenes Their virgin will and what you do before You learn its voice. Yes, so arise all wars! What people ever had a chance to voice Free and deliberate their honest choice ’Twixt war and peace? Kings leave them to deplore The initial step while fighting to retrieve Or mitigate its ills. Your counselors Have spoken, and your counselors believe The pending step unwise. So at the last Out of all dialectics stand two men Each judging, each appealing to the shrine Of God, Eternal Justice, all unknown, Save as they see reflections of them cast In their refracted speculations—then What is it but the clash of sovereignties Grown firmer from offense and wounded pride? Yet cunning to manipulate decrees With forethought in successive acts to hide Provocative offenses, put in fault The other sovereign for the first assault.

First Phantom

One man may risk his life, or suffer wrong, He has no other but himself at stake. A ruler has been chosen to be strong, And save his people for his people’s sake. The clearest vision, most commanding power, Interprets and must rule the hour, Must call its purest sense of duty God. Must stake its being now, in worlds to come Before what thrones of judgment chance to be. One phase alone of life’s immensity May one o’ermaster, though it bring him doom For things unseen, the path he never trod Strewn with his errors. Yet he may be free By acting through that genesis and win Approval for the warp. No soul has room For growth in love, but may it also thrive To needed power in thought. If heaven require Excess in either, while the other shrinks In heaven’s ends, should heaven then requite The sacrifice with penitential fire? It is enough that whosoever drinks Of such success finds bitterness within, The cup on earth. Can anyone begrudge The work before me, sword that I possess? Nor do I of another’s motives judge. If rights conflict not, yet one master right Attuned to highest law must still prevail And lesser laws must fail. The winds of destiny may bear me far, Which out of deepest heaven are arising. I have one compass and one guiding star, One altar for my spirit’s sacrificing: The Union is my soul’s profoundest love.

Second Phantom

If you knew heaven’s wish you might fulfill it, Seen heaven’s law revealed, then you might will it, What man can say he knows the word thereof? Oh, not alone you dedicate your life To this adventure in uncertain strife! You give the Nation’s blood and spirit too. If you could know the Nation would renew Its strength in years or cycles from your thought, And through your godlike daring might be wrought To finer triumphs in the time to come, You would have warrant to pronounce the doom Of blood and tears to fertilize the soil, Where at the start revenge and hate will grow. But what unending sorrow may recoil Upon your purposes, who do not know?

First Phantom

What are these cliffs of purple which we near? Gray castes of stagnant mists above them lie. The boat glides downward as if in a sphere Of liquid crystal mowing, dizzily The forked rocks point upward to the sky— Have I then died?

Second Phantom

There is a place of moss Whereon the prow must strike lest it be crushed.

First Phantom

This is the world’s end. How the air is hushed!

Second Phantom

Come now! You have been ferried well across. There! We have landed. Hear the whispering keel.

First Phantom

I’m growing faint.

Second Phantom

Much still must I reveal. We two must stand on yonder highest rock.

First Phantom

It cannot be!

Second Phantom

I will the door unlock. They may not be away. First let me knock.

(He knocks on the cliff. The vision grows cloudy.)

First Phantom

What heights are these where midway to the sea The gulls like flakes of snow eddy around!

Second Phantom

The purple wastes lie under a shorn sun. They do not bleed, no golden ooze is seen, No arrows pierce them.

First Phantom

And how could it be? A barrier of mud, a sunken realm With shores where wrecks are rotting are before you. They sleep upon the tideless water.

Second Phantom

Yes, This is a quiet sea of perished dreams!

First Phantom

Greater than Asia was this kingdom once, But in a war it sank.

Second Phantom

What is the tale?

First Phantom

There was a city set upon a hill Which heaven governed as a pilot guides The vessel from the stern, by force of thought. Till spirits here were given air and light To prove their natures, for it was the wish Of that first pair which built its earliest hearth. There since the husband worked with iron and fire, Where twenty bellows blew, and all the day The anvil sounded in a shop, which seemed A palace thick with stars, and giants bore Great burdens, wielded sledges, and obeyed The master workman, so the city heaped Great store of armament and priceless works. Meanwhile the woman in whose eyes and brow The final reason, compress of all light Made of all lights absorbed, resolved, and tamed Lay like a high serenity of power, Or balanced wisdom, bore great sons to rule The state and to preserve it in the wars When wars should come. In peace to keep the courts, And laws like to their mother’s face, a face Which awed the dullest slave, out of whose brain The idea like a statue carved in rock By hammers broken, rolled, beholding it. She taught her sons that some are born to rule, And some to serve, and some to carry torches, And some to blow the bellows for the fire Where torches may be lit; and how a state Where high and low remain as high and low So long as nature wills, move in a sphere Of democratic laws, where all may have The bread they earn, and where no strength may seize Another’s happiness, another’s bread. Hence was it that she fired her sons to drive A giant troubler from the city’s gates, And shut him up in Sicily.

But the land Over whose hills and vales the waters lie There where we look had other life. I speak: It was a land of many lakes and rivers, And plains and meadows, mountains full of ore, Both gold and silver, copper, precious stones. And valued wood, most fruitful of all things, Herbage or roots, or corn, whatever gives Delight or sustenance. And the ruler’s strength Brought riches from all ports. But to relate Its founder’s part, the country was divided Among ten rulers who had sworn to obey Injunctions carven on a shaft of gold, Erected in the middle of the realm. And here the people of the several States Gathered for conference on the general weal, And to inquire if any of the states Had trespassed on the other, or transgressed The writing on the shaft of gold, and pass Appropriate judgment; for upon the shaft Curses were graven on the recreant. And it was written none should take up arms Against the other; and if one should raise His hand against the central strength (for where The shaft of gold stood, there a palace stood Where lived a ruler speaking for them all), Then should the others rescue it and fling The rebels back.

Such was this empire lost And so did it remain so long as men Obeyed the laws and heaven loved. At first They practiced wisdom, they despised all things Save virtue only, lightly thought of gold, Were sober, hated luxury, knew control Of passions and of self. And knew that wealth Grows with such virtues, and by unity With one another, but by zeal for wealth All friendship dies. And so they waxed in store Of gold and spirit. But at last the soul, Which was divine and moved in them, fell off And weakened, grew diluted with too much Of human nature, and became unjust, Cruel and base, voracious, drunken, lost To wisdom, discipline; and the seeing eye Saw all good things forgotten, but to those Who had no eye to see true happiness They still appeared most blest and glorious, Filled as they were with avarice and lust. So then arose one state, and then another Against the central ruler, none was free Of disobedience to the graven words Upon the shaft of gold, until at last The city on the hill watching the strife Embarked with troops.

Second Phantom

Have you not prophesied Your country’s fate if you assault the South? It is the zeal for wealth that cries for war. From such a war our spirit shall be lost, Our justice fouled, our friendship turned to hate, Our laughter rendered drunken. We shall be The city on the hill, the island lost— Have both not perished?

First Phantom

Stay! It is enough To live amid the misery of today, Without this contemplation of the past. What is this sky, this earth to which we come? This nothingness, this substance, air and rock Which to our life is hard reality And to our thought a dream? All nature sings, Creates, rejoices, man alone has life In pain as life, unfolding life as pain, As if a child could live but never be Delivered from the womb. And for myself What am I but a creature, heart and head, Hands reaching up to catch at rock or bough? Hands, heart and head of flesh, immortal fire, With feet unshapen, still a part of earth Where from that undistinguished mass of clay Hands, heart and head would pluck them? I could faint, Fly from the task before me but for this: The will which when confronted bares its face And says go on, or lie down with the beasts In silence and corruption. Let me look No more upon this sea!

Second Phantom

Where shall we go?

First Phantom

To some place less disquieting, more secure.

(They leave the heights and descend, approaching a mysterious place where heaven and earth are connected by gates.)

First Phantom

I can no further walk or fly.

Second Phantom

You enter at these gates near by.

First Phantom

I fall through space. Your hand, my friend.

Second Phantom

Quietly like a star descend.

(They pass through the gates into a meadow.)

First Phantom

What is this meadow which I see?

Second Phantom

Here come the souls of men to be. Can you remember what you said Among the living and the dead: I would know heaven’s deepest law And flood the world of men with light, I would bring justice and be just.

First Phantom

Out of each soul’s prenatal night Something of what you say returns. The soul descending into dust Loses its memory as it burns Less brightly when the spirit wanes.

Second Phantom

Behold that pillar of splendor shining And bound to earth and heaven by chains! You see the distaff to it fixed And in the distaff whorls of iron, Each rising to a higher rim, And on each whirling rim a siren Chants, as you hear, her solemn hymn.

First Phantom

I hear it with the singing mixed Of one upon whose giant knee The distaff turns to hands that reach From thrones which stand at equal spaces.

Second Phantom

The giant is Necessity, The Fates are reaching from the thrones.

First Phantom

Such garlands for such darkened faces! What are these solemn monotones, Which are not music, are not speech?

Second Phantom

They labor through Eternity. The Universe of visible things Turns with the distaff here again. The dead come back with questionings Of earthly failure, loss or pain, And would choose better than before. Some say that Agamemnon chose The loneliness of eagle wings In hatred of his mortal woes.

First Phantom

From dreams like these I must be free! I know, Dread phantom, you are nothing but myself. You stand before me lately, mocking elf, Too much, and follow me where’er I go. What this portends I know not, death I fear. But what seems just to do I shall perform. A nation’s destiny is mine to steer, A people’s hope is on me in the storm. Behind these voices when they sing or laugh I hear the droning of the telegraph: Come! I would study now the last dispatches.

Second Phantom

No meaning it is clear your soul attaches To thrones, or sirens, or the giant knees. You have not fixed upon a policy.

First Phantom

I shall be guided—

Second Phantom

By necessity—

First Phantom

Well, yes, but by the will of God as well.

Second Phantom

How can you tell it from the will of hell?

(Voices from the thrones.)

First Throne

Here I sit spinning From what beginning Did I begin?

Second Throne

Give me the thread! I will assign him Grief to refine him, Thorns for his head. Toil never ending Up from his birth This shall be leaven To lift him from earth Up into heaven.

(Many souls are crowded into the meadow. A figure takes from the lap of Lachesis lots and scatters them.)

Second Phantom

Who honors heaven, heaven wins. Not here your fate on earth begins. I only show you where you stood Amid the fates and now your work Of justice and of brotherhood. You’re weary, yet you cannot shrink The task assumed—how it increases! A giant hand thrust in releases The numbered lots of mortal life, There from the apron of Lachesis, And throws them to the multitude Awaiting mortal strife.

Second Throne

One fluttered to his hand. He ran Between the thrones, the distaff under Which swayed and rolled upon her knees. The chains that bound it clanked and creaked. The far-off depths the lightening streaked Uprolled the deep symphonic thunder Which rumbled like a chariot, till Its echoes died and all was still, Save for the tinkling pipe and purl As faster sped the seventh whorl. We nodded, laughing at the game, And said: He’s dreaming Pericles Who gave his soul to ancient Greece. What will he do with such a name?

Second Phantom

Do you remember?

First Phantom

I remember A dream I had in early youth: My birth was humble, still I dreamed To consecrate my life to Truth And for the truth to be esteemed. I love the Republic, I would see Its soil and all its people free!

(The Furies enter.)

The Thrones

Heaven and God are under us. Reveal We never may what end the law achieves. He shall be free who with increasing zeal Still labors and believes.

The Furies

You may deceive this fellow with such stuff; We have seen history woven long enough To know the good men plan at least by half Results in evil.

The Thrones

Be the epitaph Of him who moulds his being by this thought: “He doubted, failure marked the work he wrought.”

The Furies

What is the law, then, that he must obey?

The Thrones

The law that has most universal sway.

The Furies

What may that be? Is it to choose the good?

The Thrones

You know his dream of human brotherhood.

The Furies

He must seize power such dreams to realize. In usurpation great corruption lies.

First Phantom

What is this shape I deal with? It is whole, Inseparable forever, with a soul. It is a life of undivided breath. To break its body is to give it death.

The Furies

There might be two souls where before was one.

First Phantom

From heaven’s battlements a clarion Shivers the mystic chords of memory, Stretched forth from every grave and battle-field, My life may pay the forfeit—let it be. Destroy me if you will, I shall not yield To anarch forces.

The Furies

Then by tyranny You’ll break the giants if they dare rebel. Men through the giants only may be free. Destroy them or enchain them and you quell The Titan powers by whom there came Freedom’s Promethean flame.

The Thrones

Whence is the Voice, Which sings the eternal theme Of giants whirled Beneath the thunderbolts of Strength supreme; Of angels who have made the fateful choice, From heaven headlong hurled? Of Odin, in Valhalla, keeping guard Against the malice of the giant world, Slaying the mighty Ymir? And what was their reward Who warred upon the Thunderer For sovereignty for pity of mankind?— Go bear in pain the burden of the earth, Or under mountains blind Breathe hateful fire, Or moan your agony and fallen wrath Chained to the rocks, So shall thought rule, not force, or their desire Which is the law of music not of bread Or lower ordinance. Do you now tread, Mortal, the path of service to the race? Do you bring fire, or quell disharmony, Destroy the Titans? In all time and space Freedom is only for the wise and free!

The Thrones

A hand like lightning from a thunder cloud Reaches from heaven to the apron’s folds, And takes the inscrutable lots, And scatters them among the spectral crowd. On them are written labors, wars and plots. Thus are they thrown, like snow they fall where’er They may be driven by the unseen air, Which moves so thinly here no eye beholds Its coming and its going. They shall fall Where chance may govern. Look! These two shall find Their fate and incarnation, work above This meadow under earth. Not wholly blind Shall they select the soul they would be like— That they may will in part—the rest shall be Ruled by the working of a destiny Of our appointing when the hour shall strike Commissioned under seal to say “Arise The hour has struck.”

First Phantom

My other self, your hand.

Second Phantom

We must be one, not two.

First Phantom

We must not stand In strength, intentions, visions separate.

(The two phantoms become one.)

The Thrones

O soul, now one which just before was two, What is your deepest love?

The Phantom

It is the True. I love the Right, the Good, confederate And in this order, ruling, not apart: If this may be, mind, conscience, heart In harmony and balanced equipoise, I would possess, and I would have a voice To sway with truth.

The Thrones

Choose then O soul your fate!

The Phantom

Down bending I obey. What have I done?

First Throne

Come Destiny and over-watch your son.

The Destiny

Behold I loved and kept the public good Forever in my eye. At my command Were many armies, cities, islands, realms Which I ruled over with a master hand. And where I could not lead by gentle word I forced compliance, so my power withstood Internal quarrels and the foreign sword. But when I left the life of earth they came Around my bed, a worthy group, and spoke My trophies and authority and fame. Not one took notice of my greatest deeds: No father’s heart for my fault ever broke, Nor wailing woman tore her widow’s weeds. Law, Freedom, Progress, Virtue, Beauty, Truth, Humility, Religion, Knowledge lay Along the pathway of my city’s youth. Ill fortune forced imperial temptation And these divided even by heaven sundered Leaving to Empire and to Riches sway O’er Beauty, Knowledge, Progress, till the day Of hatred, envy, bitter disputation, All good was sunk. Its walls and temples thundered, My city on the hill was crushed and fell Through lust of riches, from its elevation. Study my problem and my spirit well. Yours are not greatly different—beware Great riches for your country lest they come With weakness and debasement for a snare. And to this end curb studied greed and those Spirits luxurious, and adventuresome, And those unjust, their hatred, guile oppose. Right is a thing ’twixt equals, and the strong Do what they can, the weak must suffer wrong. Therefore the balance hold for all, assuage The fury and revenge which yet may rage Around your fallen brothers, when you ride Triumphant.

Second Throne

Now conduct him to our side Beneath the distaff in my hand. Thus is his fate forever ratified.

(The Image Passes.)

Third Throne

Now hither bring him,—thus I breathe my spell. His doom is now made irreversible.

The Throne of Necessity

Pass under me. Now of this cup drink deep. There, he has drunk it and so falls in sleep. Now guard him, Destiny!

(A sound of cannon. Lincoln awakes. The Secretary of War enters.)

The Secretary of War

Fort Sumter has been fired on!

Lincoln

Call the troops!

PART III

LINCOLN MAKES A MEMORANDUM

(November 23rd, 1864.)

“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present Civil War it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adoption to effect his purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power on the minds of the now contestants he could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun he could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”

WINTER GARDEN THEATRE

(New York, November 23rd, 1864.) John Wilkes Booth is speaking behind the scenes to his brother.

If you—if you had told me this before, If I had known of it—if I had known, I had not played to-night, no, by the gods, I had not played Marc Antony, nor heard You speak the words of Brutus. You—my brother, You nursed in liberty—you nourished upon Great thoughts and dreams, have soiled me, soiled the name Of Booth, our father’s name. Yes, you have soiled All spirits free, all lofty souls, the soul Of Brutus and of Shakespeare. Why, till now Conceal from me your vote for Lincoln—why? Why? In your heart of hearts you are ashamed, And loose the secret now for penitence! For you have helped the hand that wrecks and slays Who will be king and on these ruined States Erect a throne. He who commenced this war, And broke the law to do it. He who struck The liberty of speech and of the press; He who tore up the ancient writ of freemen, And filled the jails against the law. Lincoln! Into whose ears the shrieks of horror rise From Gettysburg, Manassas—yet who says The will of God be done, for him you vote! And walk these boards to-night and live the soul Of Brutus, speak his words—Oh! “Had you rather Cæsar were living and die all slaves than That Cæsar were dead to live all freemen.” God! You had this secret in your breast the while: This vote for Lincoln, and these words of Brutus Blown from the Shakespeare trumpet to our ears, Hearts, consciences, meant what to you—meant what? Words for an actor, words for a lisping girl Repeating them by rote! But why not truth For men to live by, to be taken into The beings of men for living? Oh, my God— I hate you and I leave you. I shall never Look on your face again!

THE SPARROW HAWK IN THE RAIN

(Alexander Stephens hears news.)

(Liberty Hall, April 9th, 1865.)

That’s done! And well, I’d rather not have gone To take such news. But now I’m glad you picked me— I saw and heard him. I was ushered in, And after hems and haws, I said at last, “Lee has surrendered.”

What a face he had When I said that: “Lee has surrendered.” Once, When I was just a boy, I shot a sparhawk, Just tore his breast away, and did not kill him. He hopped up to a twig and perched, I peered Through bushes for my victim—there he was His breast shot all away, so I could see His heart a-beating—but the sparhawk’s eyes Were bright as dew, with pain! I thought of this When I saw Alec Stephens, said to him, “Lee has surrendered.”

There the midget sat His face as wrinkled as thin cream, as yellow As squirrel skin—But ah, that piercing eye! As restless as my sparhawk’s, not with moving But just with light, such pained uneasiness. So there he sat, a thin, pale, little man, Wrapped in a monstrous cloak, as wide and dark As his own melancholy—I shed tears For such soul sickness, sorrow and such eyes, That breast all shot away, that heart exposed For eyes to see it beat, those burning eyes!

I stood there with my hat within my hand, Said: “Mr. Stephens, I have come to tell you, Lee has surrendered.” He just looked at me Then in a thin, cracked voice he said at once, “It had to come.” That’s all, “It had to come.” “Pray have a seat,” he added. For you see He’s known me for some years, I am his friend. “It had to come.” He only said that once. Then, after silence, he chirped up again: “I knew when I came back from Hampton Roads It soon would be. Home-coming is the thing When all is over in the world you’ve loved, And worked with. And this Liberty Hall is good. My sleeplessness is not so tiring here, My pain more tolerable, and as for thought, That goes on anywhere, and thought is life, And while I think, I live.”

He paused a minute, I took a seat, enthralled with what he said, A sparhawk in the rain, breast torn away, His beating heart in view, his burning eyes! “But everyone will see, the North will see, Our cause was theirs, the South’s cause was the cause Of everyone both north and south. They’ll see Their liberties not long survive our own. There is no difference, and cannot be Between empire, consolidation, none Between imperialism, centralism, none!”

I saw he was disposed to talk, let fall My hat upon the floor. There in that cloak All huddled like a child he sat and talked In that thin voice. Bent over, hands on knees, I listened like a man bewitched.

He said: “As I am sick, cannot endure the strain Of practice at the bar, am face to face With silence after thunder, after war, This terrifying calm, and after days Top full of problems, duties in my place In the South, vice-president, adviser, Upon insoluble things, now after these I cannot sit here idle, so I plan To write a book. For, if I tell the truth, My book will live, will be a shaft of granite Which guns can never batter. First, perhaps, I’ll have to go to prison, let it be. The North is now a maniac—here I am, Easy to capture, but I’ll think in prison, Perhaps they’ll let me write, but anyway I’ll try to write a book and answer questions.

“A soldier at Manassas shot to death Asked, as he died, ‘What is it all about?’ Thousands of boys, I fancy, asked the same Dying at Petersburg and Antietam, Cold Harbor, Gettysburg. I’ll answer them. I’ll dedicate the book to all true friends Of Liberty wherever they may be, Especially to those with eyes to look Upon a federation of free states as means Surest and purest to preserve mankind Against the monarch principle.”

Just then A darkey came to bring him broth, he drank And I arose to go. He waved his hand And asked me: “Would you like to hear about The book I plan to write?”

I longed to stay And hear him talk, but feared to tire him out. I hinted this, he smiled a little smile And said: “If I’m alone, I think, and thought Without you talk it out is like a hopper That is not emptied and may overflow, Or choke the grinding stones. Be seated, sir, If you would please to listen.”

So I stayed. When he had drunk the broth, he settled back To talk to me and tell me of his book, A sparhawk, as I said, with burning eyes! “First I will show the nature of the league, The compact, constitution, the republic Called federative even by Washington. I only sketch the plan to you. Take this: States make the Declaration, therefore states Existed at the time to make it. States Signed up the Articles of Confederation In seventeen seventy-eight, and to what end? Why for ‘perpetual union.’ Was it so? No, nine years after, states, the very same Withdrew, seceded from ‘perpetual union’ Under the Articles and acceded to, Ratified, what you will, the Constitution, And formed not a ‘perpetual union’ but `More perfect union.’

“If there is a man Or ever was more gifted with the power Of cunning words that reach the heart than Lincoln, I do not know him. Don’t you see it wins, Captures the swelling feelings to declare The Union older than the states?—it’s false, But Lincoln says it. Here’s another strain That moves the mob: ‘The Constitution has No word providing for its own destruction, The ending of the government thereunder.’ This Lincoln is a sophist, and in truth With all this moral cry against the curse Of slavery and these arguments of Lincoln We were put down, just as a hue and cry Will stifle Reason; but you can be sure Reason will have her way and punishment Will fall for her betrayal.

“Let us see: ‘Was there provisions in the Articles Of that perpetual union for the end Of that perpetual union? Not at all! How did these states then end it? By seceding To form a better one! Is there provision For getting out, withdrawing from the Union Formed by the Constitution? No! Why not? Could not states do what they had done before, Leave ‘a more perfect union,’ as they left ‘Perpetual union?’ What’s a state in fact? A state’s a sovereign, look in Vattell, look In any great authority. So a sovereign May take back what it delegated, mark you, Not what it deeded, parted with, but only Delegated. In regard to that All powers not delegated were reserved. Well, to resume, no word is in the charter To end the charter. And a contract has No word to end it by, how do you end it? You end it by rescinding, when one party Has broken it. Is this a contract, compact? Even the mighty Webster said it was. And further, if the Northern States, he said, Refuse to carry in effect the part Respecting restoration of fugitive slaves, The South would be no longer bound to keep— What did he say? the compact, that’s the word! Next then, what caused the war? I’ll show and prove It was not slavery of the blacks, but slavery The North would force on us. For seventy years Fierce, bitter conflict waged between the forces Of those who would maintain the Federal form, And those who would absorb in the Federal head All power of government; between the forces Of sovereignty in the people and control, And sovereignty in a central hand. Why, look, No sooner was the perfect union formed Than monarchists began to play their arts Through tariffs, banks, assumption bills, the Act That made the Federal Courts. And none of these Had warrant in the charter; yet you see They overleaped its bounds. And so it was To make all clear, explicit, when we framed For these Confederate States our charter, we Forbade expressly tariffs, meant to foster Industrial adventures.

“No, my friend, Our slavery was not the cause of war. They would have Empire and the slavery That comes from it: unlicensed power to deal With fortunes, lives, economies and rights. We fought them in the Congress seventy years; We fought them at the hustings, with the ballot; And when they shouldered guns, we shouldered guns, And fought them to the last—now we have lost, And so I write my book.

“What is the difference Between a mob, an army shouting God, Fired by a moral erethism fixed On slaughter for the triumph of its dream, A riddance of its hate—what is the difference Between an army like this and a man Who dreams God moves, inspires him to an act Of foul assassination? None at all! Why, there’s your Northern army shouting God, Your pure New England with its tariff spoils, Its banks and growing wealth, uplifting hands, Invoking God against us till they flame A crazy party and a maddened army, To war upon us. But if slavery Be sinful, where’s the word of Christ to say That slavery is sinful? Not a word From him who scourged the Scribes and Pharisees For robbing widows’ houses, but no word Against the sin of slavery. Yet behold He found no faith in all of Israel To equal that—of whom?—a man who owned Slaves, as we did. I mean the Centurion. And is this all? St. Paul who speaks for God With equal inspiration with New England, As I should judge, enjoins the slaves to count Their masters worthy of all honor, that God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

“But If it be wrong to hold as property A service, even a man to keep the service— Let us be clear and fair—then is it wrong To hold indentures of apprenticeship? And if, as Lincoln says, it is a right Given of God for every man to have, Eat if he will the bread he earns, then God Is blasphemed in the North where labor’s paid Not what it earns, but what it must accept, Chained by necessity, and so enslaved. And all these tariff laws are slavery By which my bread is taken, all the banks That profit by their issues, special rights, Enslave us, in the future will enslave Both North and South, when darkeys shall be free To choose their masters, but must choose, no less Take what the master hand consents to pay, And eat what bread is given. Yes, you know Our slavery was a gentle thing, belied As bloody, sullen, selfish—yet you know It was a gentle thing, a way to keep A race inferior in a place of work, Duly controlled. For once that race is freed It will go forth to mingle, mix and wed With whites and claim equality, the ballot, Places of trust and profit, judgment seats. Lincoln denies he favors this, no less We’ll come to that. And all the while the mills And factories in the North will bring to us The helpless poor of Europe, and enslave them By pauper wages, and enslave us all With tariff-favored products. Slavery! God’s curse is on us for our Slavery! What do you think?

“They say we broke the law, Were rebels, insurrectionists; I’ll treat Those subjects in my book. But let us see, They did not keep the law; they had their banks, They had their tariffs, they infracted laws Respecting slaves who ran away, they joined Posses and leagues to break those laws, and we In virtue of these breaches, were released From this, the compact, just as Webster says. Did Lincoln keep the law and keep his oath The Constitution to support, obey? He did not keep it, and he broke his oath. Did he have lawful power to call the troops? Did he have lawful warrant to blockade Our southern ports? No one pretends he did. His Congress by a special act made valid These tyrant usurpations. Had he power To strike the habeas corpus, gag the press?— No power at all—he only seized the power To reach what he conceived was all supreme, The saving of the Union—more of this. Well, then, what are these words: You break the law On those who break it and confess they do? You have two ideas: Union and Secession, Or two republics made from one, that’s all. And those who think secession criminal Turn criminals themselves to stay the crime, And shout the Union. To this end I come, This figment called the Union, which obsessed The brain of Lincoln.

“For the point is this, You may take Truth or Liberty or Union For a battle cry, kill and be killed therefor, But if our reasons rule, if we are men, We take them at our peril. We must stake Our souls upon the choice, be clear of mind That what we cry as Truth is Truth indeed, That Liberty is Liberty, that the Union Is not a noun, a word, a subtlety, But is a status, substance, living temple Reared from the bottom up on stones of fate, Predestined. Yet the truth is only this: The Union is a noun and nothing more, And stands for what? A federative thing Formed of the wills of states, not otherwise. Existing; and to kill to save the Union Is but the exercise of a hue and cry, An arbitrary passion, sophist’s dream. And Robespierre, who killed for liberty, And Cæsar, who destroyed the Roman liberties To have his way, are of the quality Of Lincoln, whom I know. Take Robespierre, Was he not by a sense of justice moved, Pure, and as frigid as a bust of stone? And Cæsar had devoted friends, and Cæsar, The accomplished orator, general and scholar, Charming and gentle in his private walks, Destroyed the hopes of Rome.

“Now, mark me friend, I do not think that Lincoln meant to crush The institutions of his country—no, His fault was this—the Union, yes the noun, Rose to religious mysticism, and enthralled With sentiment his soul. And his ideas Of its formation, structure in his logic Rested upon a subtle solecism. And for this noun, in spite of virtues great Of head and heart, he used his other self, His Cæsar self, his self of Robespierre, In the great office which he exercised, To bring us Oak Hill, Corinth, Fredericksburg. Think you, if when he kept the store at Salem A humble, studious man, he had been told He would make wails of horror, wake the cries Of pestilence and famine in the camps, Bring devastation, rapine, fire and death— Had he been told this, he had said—‘My soul! Never,’ and with Hazael said, ‘Behold, Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’ Power changes men! And when the people give Power or surrender it, they scarcely know The thing they give, surrender.

“But I ask What is there in the Union, what indeed In any government’s supremacy Or maintenance that justifies these acts— These horrors, slaughters—near a million men Slaughtered for what? The Union. Treasure spent Beyond all counting for the Union. When No life had been destroyed, no dollar spent If they had let us go, left us alone To go our way. You see they did to us What England did; succeeded, where she failed. And thus you see that human life is cheap, And suffering a sequence when a dream, An Idea takes a man, a mob, an army. Which makes our life a jest, our boasted Reason An instrument too weak for savagery. Then for the rest—you see—I think you see.—” Sleep now was taking him. My little sparhawk Was worn out, and his eyes began to droop, His voice to fail him. In a moment then He sank down in his cloak and fell asleep— And I arose and left.

ADELAIDE AND JOHN WILKES BOOTH

(At the National Hall, Washington, April 9, 1865.)

Adelaide

Yes, even this you can surmount by art, Lee has surrendered, but—

Booth

No! all is lost. God judge me, right or wrong, but never man. I love peace more than life, have loved the Union. Have waited for the clouds to break, have prayed For justice, peace; but now all hope is dead. My prayers are futile, as my hopes have been. God’s will be done. I go to see and share The end, though bitter.

Adelaide

John! you must be calm.

Booth

I am most calm, but fixed.

Adelaide

You are not calm; Strange light is in your eyes, your face is pale. You cannot stretch your hands out but they tremble. You have avoided me, you walk alone, Sup, sit alone, lest concentrated thought, This thought of yours be turned aside. My friend, Take Beauty in your heart to heal its hurts. Art is for you. You are a son of Art— Why waste your spirit on such things as these? Rulers and nations pass, and wars are lost, Their issues are forgotten, pushed aside— Art is eternal and the sons of Art Live in its calm, above the dust and sweat Of politics and statecraft. O my friend, Why should this Brutus, the tyrranicide, The patriot, move you so; and why not Brutus As a soul made clear by Shakespeare for your Art To glory in and re-create for men To see what Brutus was?

Booth

Why, what is this But playing with life, that’s all it is to play, Hard play at that, to sleep, to walk, to rest For strength to trip the stage and imitate The soul of Brutus! If it be so much, Art as you say, to live him on the stage, What would it be to live him to the life, And do his act in deed?

Adelaide

What do you say? John, you are mad! So that is in your heart! Look! pause! and muster all your strength of mind, Forecast, survey—fly from yourself—away— Even for a week withdraw your mind from this— That you may see, return with freshened mind To look upon the horror that you plot. John, by the love you woke in me for beauty Of face and genius, listen, on my knees I ask you, pause and think!

Booth

But I have thought. I know I shall be hated by the North, And doubted in the South, it may be, yet God’s will be done. For in a day to come My name will shine as shines the name of Brutus, Whose spirit is in me and speaks to me. Could you have seen, as I have seen, the woes And horrors of this war in every state, Then you would pray, as I have prayed, to God To give the Northern mind pity and justice, And dry this sea of blood. Alas! my country! What is this trifling Art beside my country, This rhetoric spoken, memorized? My friend, I would have given a thousand lives to see My country whole, unbroken. Even now I’d give my life to see her what she was, Before this man, this tyrant, bloody Cæsar, This Cæsar worse than Cæsar, who—behold, In the name of God—why, think in the name of God Made her a pitiless sovereignty, a force As cold as steel, and dragged her glorious flag Through cruelty, oppression, till its stripes Are bloody gashes on the face of heaven. How I have loved that flag! How I have longed To see it flap free from the scarlet mist That spoils its glory. As for me, this country Which I loved as a lover loves his bride, Seems now a dream! The South has all my love, What has it done? Withdrawn, and that alone, From the Union which was formed by states withdrawing From the old confederacy, and leaving states Out in the cold that did not wish to join. What has the South done that it might not do Under the Declaration? Then to think That all these tens of thousands of our kin, Our blood, our brothers, should be massacred For loving God and Liberty, serving God. And now this day! The South is crushed at last, The negroes freed by what?—by force, by force Which John Brown used, and for the which he paid With his damned neck! O Reason! Adelaide, Of all men I am sanest, they are mad Who cannot see these truths: that slavery Is sanctioned by the Creator, read St. Paul; That men may revolutionize, as matter of right, Secede from what they have acceded to, And not be murdered for it. Do you think I have not measured motives, thoughts? My friend, I could be happy, if I could forget The duty laid upon me, have the means For happiness, so many friends and you, Great competence and fame, and greater fame In store for deeper art. So much for this! As for the South, as citizens, persons, love The South is not my friend. Then there’s my mother, Whom I adore: See what I sacrifice: Fame, money, friends, my mother—and for what? Were it the South, I should not think to act— But it is God, is Justice, and I love God, Justice, more than wealth or fame, yes more Than home or mother. All is lost at last. The South has been erased and is no more. The Republic of the North and South is dead, Gutted by a guerilla. Yes, my country Has vanished from the earth and is no more, I have no wish to live, my country being Dead and a stench.

Adelaide

I put my arms around you— Be patient—listen—do not thrust me off— John—

Booth

You must not hold me, Adelaide—farewell.

Adelaide

John! John!

Booth

God calls me—I obey!

(He goes out.)

BRUTUS LIVES AGAIN IN BOOTH

(Ford’s Theatre, Good Friday, April 14th, 1865.)

First Stage Hand

What time is it?

Second Stage Hand

Time for the curtain nearly.

First Stage Hand

There’s Miss Keene in the wings.

The orchestra starts up; the audience sings:

Honor to our soldiers, Our Nation’s greatest pride, Who ’neath our Starry Banner’s folds, Have fought, have bled and died. They’re Nature’s noblest handiwork, No king as proud as they. God bless the heroes of the land, And cheer them on their way.

Scene II. The White House.

Colfax Oglesby Lincoln

Lincoln

This for you, Colfax.

(Hands him a pass)

Come in at nine to-morrow. I’m off soon for the theatre with my wife— A little party. Grant was going too; Has changed his mind, goes north with Mrs. Grant. There’ll be an audience to see the hero Of Appomatox.

Oglesby

Well, rather you, I think Who picked Grant for the work, and brought the war To end, as it has ended.

Lincoln

Oh, not me. I am familiar as an old shoe here. I’d say the war is ending. There may be Some battle yet.

Colfax

Mere sputterings of the flame.

Lincoln

Well, something’s on. I had my dream last night Which I have had before, so often, always Before some great event: I’m in a boat, And swiftly move toward a shadowy shore. I had this dream preceding Bull Run, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam. It may be A battle’s on this minute. I think so. It must relate to Sherman. For I know No other great event to follow my dream.

Oglesby

Our dreams are made of days lived long ago: Your boat’s perhaps your flat boat at New Salem.

Colfax

I’m happy to live now, the war is won. God bless you, Mr. President, keep you too.

Lincoln

You will excuse me, gentlemen. I go, For Mrs. Lincoln waits.

(He goes out.)

Oglesby

The other day Lincoln was with Charles Sumner down the James, Was reading Shakespeare, read aloud three times Those lines which read: “Duncan is in his grave, After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing Can touch him further.”

Colfax

Did you note to-night He looked those words: “Nothing can touch him further”? These months before how ghastly gray his face! What droop of melancholy in his eyes! What weariness without words, what ultimate woe! And now to-night he stood transfigured here Clothed in a great serenity and a joy As if his life had wrought what he would have it.

Oglesby

Yes, he is changed. Shall we go on?

(They go out.)

Scene III. The entrance of Ford’s Theatre.

Booth

(Passing the doorkeeper without a ticket.)

Is this all right?

Doorkeeper

All right for you.

Booth

Can you leave, Go with me for a brandy?

Doorkeeper

No.

Booth

Why not? The play’s commenced, and everyone is here.

Doorkeeper

Not everyone—the presidential party!

Booth

They enter without tickets.

Doorkeeper

Yes, I know. Go in and watch Miss Keene a little, John. You might get wakened up to play again, Marc Antony to your brother’s Brutus.

Booth

No! Never with him again. And as for that My next part will be Brutus.

(He goes into the theatre.)

Scene IV. Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln Driving to the Theatre.

Lincoln

Mary, the war is over. We have had Hard times since we came here. But now, thank God, The war is over. We may hope for peace, And happiness for the four years that remain, While I close up my work as President. Then back to Illinois to rest and live. I have some money saved. Wrote recently To friends to find a house for me in Chicago— We can live there, or Springfield. Law again, At least enough to keep us.

Mrs. Lincoln

That’s my dream, And from this night we start to live, rejoice.

(They drive on.)

Scene V. The stage of Ford’s Theatre.

(Laura Keene as “Florence Trenchard”; John Dyatt as “Dundreary” in dialogue in Tom Taylor’s “American Cousin.”)

Florence

“Can’t you see the point of that joke?”

Dundreary

“No, really.”

Florence

“You can’t see it?”

Dundreary

“No!”

(Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln and party enter the box.)

Florence

(Making a profound courtesy to Lincoln.)

“Everyone can see that!”

(The audience breaks into great applause. The band plays “Hail to the Chief.” Lincoln bows to the audience.)

Scene VI. Back of the stage.

First Stage Hand

Whose horse is at the door?

Second Stage Hand

Booth’s!

A Voice

Ten twenty-five.

First Stage Hand

Ten twenty-five.

Second Stage Hand

Ten twenty-five.

Scene VII. The Presidential Box.

Lincoln

Oh, no! No persecution, bloody work, How to articulate the states again, Just how to handle the states that left us—well, There will be problems up from day to day, During my term, at least. But no revenge, No hate, no hanging, killing—rather shoo! Like Hannah Armstrong used to shoo her chickens. Let the obstreporous, unreconciled Go clear to—Halifax—get out! But, Major, My feeling is to treat the Southern people As fellow citizens. To be their fellows And not their masters is my way.

Maj. Rathbone

We need Your genius, Mr. President, for the work Of reconstruction more, if that may be, Then we had need of you to push the war.

Mrs. Lincoln

How do you like the play?

Lincoln

Oh, very good.

Scene VIII. Dress Circle.

First Auditor

(Gazing at the Presidential box.)

What’s keeping General Grant? I came to see The conqueror of Lee.

Second Auditor

He will not come. Too late now.

First Auditor

(Looking at his watch.)

Yes, ten twenty-five.

Second Auditor

Who’s that?

First Auditor

Who?

Second Auditor

Why, a man as pale as snow Or ivory, with hair black as a horse’s tail Passed back of the seats there, and approached the entrance To Lincoln’s box.

First Auditor

A secret officer, With message of a battle. Oh, perhaps Sherman has vanquished Johnston!

Scene IX. In the passageway leading to the Presidential box.

Booth

Right or wrong, God judge me—never man. Liberty is dead—I would not live, Beyond my country’s life. Oh, Liberty! Brutus, sustain me!

Scene X. The Presidential box.

Major Rathbone

(Observing Lincoln rise.)

Can I get something for you?

Lincoln

I want my coat. I felt a chill and shudder down my back.

(He gets his coat and is seated.)

Scene XI. Booth at the door of the Presidential box aiming a pistol.

Booth

Brutus! (He fires. The President’s head falls upon his breast. Booth rushes into the box, slashes Major Rathbone with a dagger, leaps from the box to the stage. Falls, arises.)

Scene XII. On the stage.

Booth

Sic semper Tyrannis! The South is avenged!

(He rushes off. Great confusion.)

BOOTH’S PHILIPPI

(Garrett’s Tobacco House, Bowling Green, Virginia, April 26th, 1865. Booth and Harrold.)

SCENE I

Booth

If this must be, I take it. Be a man. Don’t whine like that. You suffer only from fear. But if you had this torturing leg. My God! If you rode sixty miles as I did, flesh Prodded at every jump by broken bones ...

Harrold

What’s that?

Booth

A dog there in the yard.

Harrold

Those troopers We hid from on the way here—Federals— Did they go on, or follow, hunting us?

Booth

We’re ended likely. Let us stand our ground. We have our carbines for the ending up ... But oh, to be thus hunted, like a dog, Through swamps, woods, thickets, chased by gunboats too, With every hand against me. And for what? For doing what brought honor unto Brutus, And deathless fame to Tell. Who’ll clear my name? Who’ll print what I have written? There’s the pang To die and have my spirit and sacrifice Sealed up in silence, or drowned out in cries Of “cut-throat” or “assassin.” I struck down A greater tyrant than great Brutus slew. And my act was more pure than his or Tell’s. One would be great, and one had private wrongs To heap his country’s up for quick revenge. But I, what greatness could I hope for this? What wrongs had I except the common wrong? I struck for country and for that alone; I struck for liberty that groaned beneath A tyrant’s monstrous tyranny—and now look The cold hand they extend me in the South For which I struck! Our country bleeding, broken, Cried to me for relief, and I was made The instrument of God by God alone.

Harrold

A rooster crows!

Booth

Two hours till morning yet. It’s only two o’clock.

Harrold

What shall we do?

Booth

To-night we’ll try the river once again ... Why not return to Washington and end it? They’d try me and I’d clear my name. Repent? No, I do not repent. But I’ve a soul Too great to die a felon’s death. Swift guns Against a firing wall are honorable. Before them I can clear my name. O God! Give me a brave man’s death, for I have wronged, Nor hated no one. And was this a wrong To kill a tyrant? God must deem it so, By making it a curse upon our time, Our country and our countrymen. My fate How miserable soever it may be Proves not I did a wrong.

Great Milton come And comfort me in this my agony! You who could write a tyrant forfeits life To those whom he oppresses, and ’tis just To take him off. O curse of Cain no less! Now I must pray again.

(He prays.)

Scene II. (At the Garrett House.)

(Lieutenant Baker, and a squad, including Boston Corbett.)

Baker

(Knocking at the door.) Halloo! halloo!

A Voice

What’s wanted?

Baker

Open the door!

Scene III. (Inside the Tobacco House.)

Harrold

They’ve come.

Booth

Yes! rapping at the door. Perhaps Old Garrett will not tell that we are here. Hold to your carbine. Do as I command.

Scene IV. (At the Garrett House.)

Baker

(Taking Garrett by the throat.)

Where are these fellows? In your house?

Garrett

No! No!

Baker

We’ll search! Men, search the house!

Garrett

They are not here!

Baker

You make yourself accomplice if you hide them. Last time: where are they?

Garrett

In the Tobacco House.

Scene V. (Inside the Tobacco House.)

Harrold

They’re walking toward us.

Booth

Do as I command.

Baker

(Outside.) Come out of there.

Boston Corbett

(Outside.) Lieutenant, they can pick The whole of us through cracks with their carbines. Old Garrett says they’re armed.

(He goes back of the tobacco house.)

Baker

Come out of there. Five minutes to come out, then I set fire To the tobacco house.

Booth

(Inside.)

Who are you? What do you want?

Baker

(Outside.)

We want you. And we know you. Come, you are Booth, assassin of the President. Surrender arms. Come out!

Booth

(Inside.)

I want a little time to think about it.

(A silence.)

Baker

(Outside.)

Well, now come out.

Booth

(Inside.)

You are a brave man, captain, I believe, Honorable too. I am a cripple, have One leg, the other broken. Yet no less If you will take your men a hundred yards From the door of the tobacco house, I’ll come Out as you command and fight you all.

Baker

(Outside.)

I have not come to fight, but capture you.

Booth

(Inside.)

Give me a chance for life. I’ll better terms. If you will take your men off fifty yards I’ll come out, fight you all, till I am killed, Or kill you all.

Baker

(Outside.)

No!

Booth

(Inside.)

You are a coward, sir, Denying to a brave man chance for life.

Harrold

(Inside.)

They’ve set the house afire! Now, let me out!

(The house burns.)

Booth

(Inside.)

You hellish coward, would you leave me now? Go! Go! and leave me. It would be dishonor To die with such a coward. Let this man Come out of here!

Baker

(Outside.)

All right! Hand out his arms And come.

Booth

(Inside amid flames.)

A coward goes to cowards.

(The flames are coming up around Booth.)

(He stands on a crutch, pale and defiant.)

Scene VI. (Boston Corbett looking through a crack in the Tobacco House at Booth amid the flames.)

Corbett

I hear you God and will obey!

(He points a carbine through a crack and fires at Booth. Booth leaps and falls. The soldiers go in and bring him out on the lawn.)

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