Chapter V: Part III: Lincoln Makes a Memorandum (1)

(_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.