Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Well, then, another drink! Ben Jonson knows,
So do you, Michael Drayton, that to-morrow
I reach my fifty-second year. But hark ye,
To-morrow lacks two days of being a month--
Here is a secret--since I made my will.
Heigh ho! that's done too! I wonder why I did it?
That I should make a will! Yet it may be
That then and jump at this most crescent hour
Heaven inspired the deed.

As a mad younker
I knew an aged man in Warwickshire
Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," for sadness
Of change, or passing time, or secret thoughts.
If it was spring he sighed it, if 'twas fall,
With drifting leaves, he looked upon the rain
And with doleful suspiration kept
This habit of his grief. And on a time
As he stood looking at the flying clouds,
I loitering near, expectant, heard him say it,
Inquired, "Why do you say 'Ah, mercy me,'
Now that it's April?" So he hobbled off
And left me empty there.

Now here am I!
Oh, it is strange to find myself this age,
And rustling like a peascod, though unshelled,
And, like this aged man of Warwickshire,
Slaved by a mood which must have breath--"Tra-la!
That's what I say instead of "Ah, mercy me."
For look you, Ben, I catch myself with "Tra-la"
The moment I break sleep to see the day.
At work, alone, vexed, laughing, mad or glad
I say, "Tra-la" unknowing. Oft at table
I say, "Tra-la." And 'tother day, poor Anne
Looked long at me and said, "You say, 'Tra-la'
Sometimes when you're asleep; why do you so?"
Then I bethought me of that aged man
Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," but answered:
"Perhaps I am so happy when awake
The song crops out in slumber--who can say?"
And Anne arose, began to keel the pot,
But was she answered, Ben? Who know a woman?

To-morrow is my birthday. If I die,
Slip out of this with Bacchus for a guide,
What soul would interdict the poppied way?
Heroes may look the Monster down, a child
Can wilt a lion, who is cowed to see
Such bland unreckoning of his strength--but I,
Having so greatly lived, would sink away
Unknowing my departure. I have died
A thousand times, and with a valiant soul
Have drunk the cup, but why? In such a death
To-morrow shines and there's a place to lean.
But in this death that has no bottom to it,
No bank beyond, no place to step, the soul
Grows sick, and like a falling dream we shrink
From that inane which gulfs us, without place
For us to stand and see it.

Yet, dear Ben,
This thing must be; that's what we live to know
Out of long dreaming, saying that we know it.
As yeasty heroes in their braggart teens
Spout learnedly of war, who never saw
A cannon aimed. You drink too much to-day,
Or get a scratch while turning Lucy's stile,
And like a beast you sicken. Like a beast
They cart you off. What matter if your thought
Outsoared the Phoenix? Like a beast you rot.
Methinks that something wants our flesh, as we
Hunger for flesh of beasts. But still to-morrow,
To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace--O, Michael Drayton,
Some end must be. But 'twixt the fear of ceasing
And weariness of going on we lie
Upon these thorns!

These several springs I find
No new birth in the Spring. And yet in London
I used to cry, "O, would I were in Stratford;
It's April and the larks are singing now.
The flags are green along the Avon river;
O, would I were a rambler in the fields.
This poor machine is racing to its wreck.
This grist of thought is endless, this old sorrow
Sprouts, winds and crawls in London's darkness. Come
Back to your landscape! Peradventure waits
Some woman there who will make new the earth,
And crown the spring with fire."

So back I come.
And the springs march before me, say, "Behold
Here are we, and what would you, can you use us?
What good is air if lungs are out, or springs
When the mind's flown so far away no spring,
Nor loveliness of earth can call it back?
I tell you what it is: in early youth
The life is in the loins; by thirty years
It travels through the stomach to the lungs,
And then we strut and crow. By forty years
The fruit is swelling while the leaves are fresh.
By fifty years you're ripe, begin to rot.
At fifty-two, or fifty-five or sixty
The life is in the seed--what's spring to you?
Puff! Puff! You are so winged and light you fly.
For every passing zephyr, are blown off,
And drifting, God knows where, cry out "tra-la,"
"Ah, mercy me," as it may happen you.
Puff! Puff! away you go!

Another drink?
Why, you may drown the earth with ale and I
Will drain it like a sea. The more I drink
The better I see that this is April time. ...

Ben! There is one Voice which says to everything:
"Dream what you will, I'll make you bear your seed.
And, having borne, the sickle comes among ye
And takes your stalk." The rich and sappy greens
Of spring or June show life within the loins,
And all the world is fair, for now the plant
Can drink the level cup of flame where heaven
Is poured full by the sun. But when the blossom
Flutters its colors, then it takes the cup
And waves the stalk aside. And having drunk
The stalk to penury, then slumber comes
With dreams of spring stored in the imprisoned germ,
An old life and a new life all in one,
A thing of memory and of prophecy,
Of reminiscence, longing, hope and fear.
What has been ours is taken, what was ours
Becomes entailed on our seed in the spring,
Fees in possession and enjoyment too. ...

The thing is sex, Ben. It is that which lives
And dies in us, makes April and unmakes,
And leaves a man like me at fifty-two,
Finished but living, on the pinnacle
Betwixt a death and birth, the earth consumed
And heaven rolled up to eyes whose troubled glances
Would shape again to something better--what?
Give me a woman, Ben, and I will pick
Out of this April, by this larger art
Of fifty-two, such songs as we have heard,
Both you and I, when weltering in the clouds
Of that eternity which comes in sleep,
Or in the viewless spinning of the soul
When most intense. The woman is somewhere,
And that's what tortures, when I think this field
So often gleaned could blossom once again
If I could find her.

Well, as to my plays:
I have not written out what I would write.
They have a thousand buds of finer flowering.
And over "Hamlet" hangs a teasing spirit
As fine to that as sense is fine to flesh.
Good friends, my soul beats up its prisoned wings
Against the ceiling of a vaster whorl
And would break through and enter. But, fair friends,
What strength in place of sex shall steady me?
What is the motive of this higher mount?
What process in the making of myself--
The very fire, as it were, of my growth--
Shall furnish forth these writings by the way,
As incident, expression of the nature
Relumed for adding branches, twigs and leaves?...

Suppose I'd make a tragedy of this,
Focus my fancied "Dante" to this theme,
And leave my halfwrit "Sappho," which at best
Is just another delving in the mine
That gave me "Cleopatra" and the Sonnets?
If you have genius, write my tragedy,
And call it "Shakespeare, Gentleman of Stratford,"
Who lost his soul amid a thousand souls,
And had to live without it, yet live with it
As wretched as the souls whose lives he lived.
Here is a play for you: Poor William Shakespeare,
This moment growing drunk, the famous author
Of certain sugared sonnets and some plays,
With this machine too much to him, which started
Some years ago, now cries him nay and runs
Even when the house shakes and complains, "I fall,
You shake me down, my timbers break apart.
Why, if an engine must go on like this
The building should be stronger."

Or to mix,
And by the mixing, unmix metaphors,
No mortal man has blood enough for brains
And stomach too, when the brain is never done
With thinking and creating.

For you see,
I pluck a flower, cut off a dragon's head--
Choose twixt these figures--lo, a dozen buds,
A dozen heads out-crop. For every fancy,
Play, sonnet, what you will, I write me out
With thinking "Now I'm done," a hundred others
Crowd up for voices, and, like twins unborn
Kick and turn o'er for entrance to the world.
And I, poor fecund creature, who would rest,
As 'twere from an importunate husband, fly
To money-lending, farming, mulberry trees,
Enclosing Welcombe fields, or idling hours
In common talk with people like the Combes.
All this to get a heartiness, a hold
On earth again, lest Heaven Hercules,
Finding me strayed to mid-air, kicking heels
Above the mountain tops, seize on my scruff
And bear me off or strangle.

Good, my friends,
The "Tempest" is as nothing to the voice
That calls me to performance--what I know not.
I've planned an epic of the Asian wash
Which slopped the star of Athens and put out,
Which should all history analyze, and present
A thousand notables in the guise of life,
And show the ancient world and worlds to come
To the last blade of thought and tiniest seed
Of growth to be. With visions such as these
My spirit turns in restless ecstacy,
And this enslaved brain is master sponge,
And sucks the blood of body, hands and feet.
While my poor spirit, like a butterfly
Gummed in its shell, beats its bedraggled wings,
And cannot rise.

I'm cold, both hands and feet.
These three days past I have been cold, this hour
I am warm in three days. God bless the ale.
God did do well to give us anodynes. ...
So now you know why I am much alone,
And cannot fellow with Augustine Phillips,
John Heminge, Richard Burbage, Henry Condell,
And do not have them here, dear ancient friends,
Who grieve, no doubt, and wonder for changed love.
Love is not love which alters when it finds
A change of heart, but mine has changed not, only
I cannot be my old self. I blaspheme:
I hunger for broiled fish, but fly the touch
Of hands of flesh.

I am most passionate,
And long am used perplexities of love
To bemoan and to bewail. And do you wonder,
Seeing what I am, what my fate has been?
Well, hark you; Anne is sixty now, and I,
A crater which erupts, look where she stands
In lava wrinkles, eight years older than I am,
As years go, but I am a youth afire
While she is lean and slippered. It's a Fury
Which takes me sometimes, makes my hands clutch out
For virgins in their teens. O sullen fancy!
I want them not, I want the love which springs
Like flame which blots the sun, where fuel of body
Is piled in reckless generosity. ...
You are most learned, Ben, Greek and Latin know,
And think me nature's child, scarce understand
How much of physic, law, and ancient annals
I have stored up by means of studious zeal.
But pass this by, and for the braggart breath
Ensuing now say, "Will was in his cups,
Potvaliant, boozed, corned, squiffy, obfuscated,
Crapulous, inter pocula, or so forth.
Good sir, or so, or friend, or gentleman,
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country, on my honor, Shakespeare
At Stratford, on the twenty-second of April,
Year sixteen-sixteen of our Lord was merry--
Videlicet, was drunk." Well, where was I?--
Oh yes, at braggart breath, and now to say it:
I believe and say it as I would lightly speak
Of the most common thing to sense, outside
Myself to touch or analyze, this mind
Which has been used by Something, as I use
A quill for writing, never in this world
In the most high and palmy days of Greece,
Or in this roaring age, has known its peer.
No soul as mine has lived, felt, suffered, dreamed,
Broke open spirit secrets, followed trails
Of passions curious, countless lives explored
As I have done. And what are Greek and Latin,
The lore of Aristotle, Plato to this?
Since I know them by what I am, the essence
From which their utterance came, myself a flower
Of every graft and being in myself
The recapitulation and the complex
Of all the great. Were not brains before books?
And even geometries in some brain
Before old Gutenberg? O fie, Ben Jonson,
If I am nature's child am I not all?
Howe'er it be, ascribe this to the ale,
And say that reason in me was a fume.
But if you honor me, as you have said,
As much as any, this side idolatry,
Think, Ben, of this: That I, whate'er I be
In your regard, have come to fifty-two,
Defeated in my love, who knew too well
That poets through the love of women turn
To satyrs or to gods, even as women
By the first touch of passion bloom or rot
As angels or as bawds.

Bethink you also
How I have felt, seen, known the mystic process
Working in man's soul from the woman soul
As part thereof in essence, spirit and flesh,
Even as a malady may be, while this thing
Is health and growth, and growing draws all life,
All goodness, wisdom for its nutriment.
Till it become a vision paradisic,
And a ladder of fire for climbing, from its topmost
Rung a place for stepping into heaven. ...

This I have know, but had not. Nor have I
Stood coolly off and seen the woman, used
Her blood upon my palette. No, but heaven
Commanded my strength's use to abort and slay
What grew within me, while I saw the blood
Of love untimely ripped, as 'twere a child
Killed i' the womb, a harpy or an angel
With my own blood stained.

As a virgin shamed
By the swelling life unlicensed needles it,
But empties not her womb of some last shred
Of flesh which fouls the alleys of her body,
And fills her wholesome nerves with poisoned sleep,
And weakness to the last of life, so I
For some shame not unlike, some need of life
To rid me of this life I had conceived
Did up and choke it too, and thence begot
A fever and a fixed debility
For killing that begot.

Now you see that I
Have not grown from a central dream, but grown
Despite a wound, and over the wound and used
My flesh to heal my flesh. My love's a fever
Which longed for that which nursed the malady,
And fed on that which still preserved the ill,
The uncertain, sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
Has left me. And as reason is past care
I am past cure, with ever more unrest
Made frantic-mad, my thoughts as madmen's are,
And my discourse at random from the truth,
Not knowing what she is, who swore her fair
And thought her bright, who is as black as hell
And dark as night.

But list, good gentlemen,
This love I speak of is not as a cloak
Which one may put away to wear a coat,
And doff that for a jacket, like the loves
We men are wont to have as loves or wives.
She is the very one, the soul of souls,
And when you put her on you put on light,
Or wear the robe of Nessus, poisonous fire,
Which if you tear away you tear your life,
And if you wear you fall to ashes. So
'Tis not her bed-vow broke, I have broke mine,
That ruins me; 'tis honest faith quite lost,
And broken hope that we could find each other,
And that mean more to me and less to her.
'Tis that she could take all of me and leave me
Without a sense of loss, without a tear,
And make me fool and perjured for the oath
That swore her fair and true. I feel myself
As like a virgin who her body gives
For love of one whose love she dreams is hers,
But wakes to find herself a toy of blood,
And dupe of prodigal breath, abandoned quite
For other conquests. For I gave myself,
And shrink for thought thereof, and for the loss
Of myself never to myself restored.
The urtication of this shame made plays
And sonnets, as you'll find behind all deeds
That mount to greatness, anger, hate, disgust,
But, better, love.

To hell with punks and wenches,
Drabs, mopsies, doxies, minxes, trulls and queans,
Rips, harridans and strumpets, pieces, jades.
And likewise to the eternal bonfire lechers,
All rakehells, satyrs, goats and placket fumblers,
Gibs, breakers-in-at-catch-doors, thunder tubes.
I think I have a fever--hell and furies!
Or else this ale grows hotter i' the mouth.
Ben, if I die before you, let me waste
Richly and freely in the good brown earth,
Untrumpeted and by no bust marked out.
What good, Ben Jonson, if the world could see
What face was mine, who wrote these plays and sonnets?
Life, you have hurt me. Since Death has a veil
I take the veil and hide, and like great Cæsar
Who drew his toga round him, I depart.

Good friends, let's to the fields--I have a fever.
After a little walk, and by your pardon,
I think I'll sleep. There is no sweeter thing,
Nor fate more blessed than to sleep. Here, world,
I pass you like an orange to a child:
I can no more with you. Do what you will.
What should my care be when I have no power
To save, guide, mould you? Naughty world you need me
As little as I need you: go your way!
Tyrants shall rise and slaughter fill the earth,
But I shall sleep. In wars and wars and wars
The ever-replenished youth of earth shall shriek
And clap their gushing wounds--but I shall sleep,
Nor earthy thunder wake me when the cannon
Shall shake the throne of Tartarus. Orators
Shall fulmine over London or America
Of rights eternal, parchments, sacred charters
And cut each others' throats when reason fails--
But I shall sleep. This globe may last and breed
The race of men till Time cries out "How long?"
But I shall sleep ten thousand thousand years.
I am a dream, Ben, out of a blessed sleep--
Let's walk and hear the lark.

SWEET CLOVER

Only a few plants up--and not a blossom
My clover didn't catch. What is the matter?
Old John comes by. I show him my result.
Look, John! My clover patch is just a failure,
I wanted you to sow it. Now you see
What comes of letting Hunter do your work.
The ground was not plowed right, or disced perhaps,
Or harrowed fine enough, or too little seed
Was sown.

But John, who knows a clover field,
Pulls up a plant and cleans the roots of soil
And studies them.

He says, Look at the roots!
Hunter neglected to inoculate
The seed, for clover seed must always have
Clover bacteria to make it grow,
And blossom. In a thrifty field of clover
The roots are studded thick with tubercles,
Like little warts, made by bacteria.
And somehow these bacteria lay hold
Upon the nitrogen that fills the soil,
And make the plants grow, make them blossom too.
When Hunter sowed this field he was not well:
He should have hauled some top-soil to this field
From some old clover field, or made a culture
Of these bacteria and soaked the seed
In it before he sowed it.

As I said,
Hunter was sick when he was working here.
And then he ran away to Indiana
And left his wife and children. Now he's back.
His cough was just as bad in Indiana
As it is here. A cough is pretty hard
To run away from. Wife and children too
Are pretty hard to leave, since thought of them
Stays with a fellow and cannot be left.
Yes, Hunter's back, but he can't work for you.
He's straightening out his little farm and making
Provision for his family. Hunter's changed.
He is a better man. It almost seems
That Hunter's blossomed. ...

I am sorry for him.
The doctor says he has tuberculosis.

SOMETHING BEYOND THE HILL

To a western breeze
A row of golden tulips is nodding.
They flutter their golden wings
In a sudden ecstasy and say:
Something comes to us from beyond,
Out of the sky, beyond the hill
We give it to you.

* * * * *

And I walk through rows of jonquils
To a beloved door,
Which you open.
And you stand with the priceless gold of your tulip head
Nodding to me, and saying:
Something comes to me
Out of the mystery of Eternal Beauty--
I give it to you.

* * * * *

There is the morning wonder of hyacinth in your eyes,
And the freshness of June iris in your hands,
And the rapture of gardenias in your bosom.
But your voice is the voice of the robin
Singing at dawn amid new leaves.
It is like sun-light on blue water
Where the south-wind is on the water
And the buds of the flags are green.
It is like the wild bird of the sedges
With fluttering wings on a wind-blown reed
Showering lyrics over the sun-light
Between rhythmical pauses
When his heart has stopped,
Making light and water
Into song.

* * * * *

Let me hear your voice,
And the voice of Eternal Beauty
Through the music of your voice.
Let me gather the iris of your hands.
Against my face.
And close my eyes with your eyes.
Let me listen with you
For the Voice.

FRONT THE AGES WITH A SMILE

How did the sculptor, Voltaire, keep you quiet and posed
In an arm chair, just think, at your busiest age we are told,
Being better than seventy? How did he manage to stay you
From hopping through Europe for long enough time for his work,
Which shows you in marble, the look and the smile and the nose,
The filleted brow very bald, the thin little hands,
The posture pontifical, face imperturbable, smile so serene.
How did the sculptor detain you, you ever so restless,
You ever so driven by princes and priests? So I stand here
Enwrapped of this face of you, frail little frame of you,
And think of your work--how nothing could balk you
Or quench you or damp you. How you twisted and turned,
Emerged from the fingers of malice, emerged with a laugh,
Kept Europe in laughter, in turmoil, in fear
For your eighty-four years!

And they say of you still
You were light and a mocker! You should have been solemn,
And argued with monkeys and swine, speaking truthfully always.
Nay, truthful with whom, to what end? With a breed such as lived
In your day and your place? It was never their due!
Truth for the truthful and true, and a lie for the liar if need be--
A board out of plumb for a place out of plumb, for the hypocrite flashes
Of lightning or rods red hot for thrusting in tortuous places.
Well, this was your way, you lived out the genius God gave you.
And they hated you for it, hunted you all over Europe--
Why should they not hate you? Why should you not follow your light?
But wherever they drove you, you climbed to a place more satiric.
Did France bar her door? Geneva remained--good enough!
Les Delices close to some several cantons, you know.
Would they lay hands upon you? I fancy you laughing,
You stand at your door and step into Vaud by one path;
You stand at your door and step by another to France--
Such safe jurisdictions, in truth, as the Illinois rowdies
Step from county to county ahead of the frustrate policeman.
And here you have printers to print what you write and a house
For the acting of plays, La Pucelle, Orphelin.
O busy Voltaire, never resting. ...

So England conservative, England of Southey and Burke,
The fox-hunting squires, the England of Church and of State,
The England half mule and half ox, writes you down, O Voltaire:
The quack grass of popery flourished in France, you essayed
To plow up the tangle, and harrow the roots from the soil.
It took a good ploughman to plow it, a ploughman of laughter,
A ploughman who laughed when the plow struck the roots, and your breast
Was thrown on the handles.

And yet to this day, O Voltaire,
They charge you with levity, scoffing, when all that you did
Was to plough up the quack grass, and turn up the roots to the sun,
And let the sun kill them. For laughter is sun-light,
And nothing of worth or of truth needs to fear it.
But listen
The strength of a nation is mind, I will grant you, and still
But give it a tongue read and spoken more greatly than others,
That nation can judge true or false and the judgment abides.
The judgment in English condemns you, where is there a judgment
To save you from this? Is it German, or Russian, or French?

Did you give up three years of your life
To wipe out the sentence that burned the wracked body of Calas?
Did you help the oppressed Montbailli and Lally, O well,
Six lines in an article written in English are plenty
To weigh what you did, put it by with a generous gesture,
Give the minds of the student your measure, impress them
Forever that all of this sacrifice, service was noble,
But done with mixed motives, the fruits of your meddlesome nature,
Your hatred of churches and priests. Six lines are the record
Of all of these years of hard plowing in quack-grass, while batting
At poisonous flies and stepping on poisonous snakes ...

How well did you know that life to a genius, a god,
Is naught but a farce! How well did you look with those eyes
As black as a beetle's through all the ridiculous show:
Ridiculous war, and ridiculous strife, and ridiculous pomp.
Ridiculous dignity, riches, rituals, reasons and creeds.
Ridiculous guesses at what the great Silence is saying.
Ridiculous systems wound over the earth like a snake
Devouring the children of Fear! Ridiculous customs,
Ridiculous judgments and laws, philosophies, worships.
You saw through and laughed at--you saw above all
That a soul must make end with a groan, or a curse, or a laugh.

So you smiled till the lines of your mouth
A crescent became with dimples for horns, so expressing
To centuries after who see you in marble: Behold me,
I lived, I loved, I laughed, I toiled without ceasing
Through eighty-four years for realities--O let them pass,
Let life go by. Would you rise over death like a god?
Front the ages with a smile!

POOR PIERROT

Here far away from the city, here by the yellow dunes
I will lie and soothe my heart where the sea croons.
For what can I do with strife, or what can I do with hate?
Or the city, or life, or fame, or love or fate?

Or the struggle since time began of the rich and poor?
Or the law that drives the weak from the temple's door?
Bury me under the sand so that my sorrow shall lie
Hidden under the dunes from the world's eye.

I have learned the secret of silence, silence long and deep:
The dead knew all that I know, that is why they sleep.
They could do nothing with fate, or love, or fame, or strife--
When life fills full the soul then life kills life.

I would glide under the earth as a shadow over a dune,
Into the soul of silence, under the sun and moon.
And forever as long as the world stands or the stars flee
Be one with the sands of the shore and one with the sea.

MIRAGE OF THE DESERT

Well, there's the brazier set by the temple door:
Blue flames run over the coals and flicker through.
There are cool spaces of sky between white clouds--
But what are flames and spaces but eyes of blue?

* * * * *

And there's the harp on which great fingers play
Of gods who touch the wires, dreaming infinite things;
And there's a soul that wanders out when called
By a voice afar from the answering strings.

* * * * *

And there's the wish of the deep fulfillment of tears,
Till the vision, the mad music are wept away.
One cannot have them and live, but if one die
It might be better than living--who can say?

* * * * *

Why do we thirst for urns beyond urns who know
How sweet they are, yet bitter, not enough?
Eternity will quench your thirst, O soul--
But never the Desert's spectre, cup of love!

* * * * *

DAHLIAS

The mad wind is the warden,
And the smiling dahlias nod
To the dahlias across the garden,
And the wastes of the golden rod.

They never pray for pardon,
Nor ask his way nor forego,
Nor close their hearts nor harden
Nor stay his hand, nor bestow

Their hearts filched out of their bosoms,
Nor plan for dahlias to be.
For the wind blows over the garden
And sets the dahlias free.

They drift to the song of the warden,
Heedless they give him heed.
And he walks and blows through the garden
Blossom and leaf and seed.

THE GRAND RIVER MARSHES

Silvers and purples breathing in a sky
Of fiery mid-days, like a watching tiger,
Of the restrained but passionate July
Upon the marshes of the river lie,
Like the filmed pinions of the dragon fly.

* * * * *

A whole horizon's waste of rushes bend
Under the flapping of the breeze's wing,
Departing and revisiting
The haunts of the river twisting without end.

* * * * *

The torsions of the river make long miles
Of the waters of the river which remain
Coiled by the village, tortuous aisles
Of water between the rushes, which restrain
The bewildered currents in returning files,
Twisting between the greens like a blue racer,
Too hurt to leap with body or uplift
Its head while gliding, neither slow nor swift

* * * * *

Against the shaggy yellows of the dunes
The iron bridge's reticules
Are seen by fishermen from the Damascened lagoons.
But from the bridge, watching the little steamer
Paddling against the current up to Eastmanville,
The river loosened from the abandoned spools
Of earth and heaven wanders without will,
Between the rushes, like a silken streamer.
And two old men who turn the bridge
For passing boats sit in the sun all day,
Toothless and sleepy, ancient river dogs,
And smoke and talk of a glory passed away.
And of the ruthless sacrilege
Which mowed away the pines,
And cast them in the current here as logs,
To be devoured by the mills to the last sliver,
Making for a little hour heroes and heroines,
Dancing and laughter at Grand Haven,
When the great saws sent screeches up and whines,
And cries for more and more
Slaughter of forests up and down the river
And along the lake's shore.

* * * * *

But all is quiet on the river now
As when the snow lay windless in the wood,
And the last Indian stood
And looked to find the broken bough
That told the path under the snow.
All is as silent as the spiral lights
Of purple and of gold that from the marshes rise,
Like the wings of swarming dragon flies,
Far up toward Eastmanville, where the enclosing skies
Quiver with heat; as silent as the flights
Of the crow like smoke from shops against the glare
Of dunes and purple air,
There where Grand Haven against the sand hill lies.

* * * * *

The forests and the mills are gone!
All is as silent as the voice I heard
On a summer dawn
When we two fished among the river reeds.
As silent as the pain
In a heart that feeds
A sorrow, but does not complain.
As silent as above the bridge in this July,
Noiseless, far up in this mirror-lighted sky
Wheels aimlessly a hydroplane:
A man-bestridden dragon fly!

DELILAH

Because thou wast most delicate,
A woman fair for men to see,
The earth did compass thy estate,
Thou didst hold life and death in fee,
And every soul did bend the knee.

[Sidenote: (Wherein the corrupt spirit of privilege is symbolized by
Delilah and the People by Samson.)]

Much pleasure also made thee grieve
For that the goblet had been drained.
The well spiced viand thou didst leave
To frown on want whose throat was strained,
And violence whose hands were stained.

The purple of thy royal cloak,
Made the sea paler for its hue.
Much people bent beneath the yoke
To fetch thee jewels white and blue,
And rings to pass thy gold hair through.

Therefore, Delilah wast thou called,
Because the choice wines nourished thee
In Sorek, by the mountains walled
Against the north wind's misery,
Where flourished every pleasant tree.

[Sidenote: (Delilah hath a taste for ease and luxury and wantoneth
with divers lovers.)]

Thy lovers also were as great
In numbers as the sea sands were;
Thou didst requite their love with hate;
And give them up to massacre,
Who brought thee gifts of gold and myrrh.

[Sidenote: (Delilah conceiveth the design of ensnaring Samson.)]

At Gaza and at Ashkelon,
The obscene Dagon worshipping,
Thy face was fair to look upon.
Yet thy tongue, sweet to talk or sing,
Was deadlier than the adder's sting.

Wherefore, thou saidst: "I will procure
The strong man Samson for my spouse,
His death will make my ease secure.
The god has heard this people's vows
To recompense their injured house."

Thereafter, when the giant lay
Supinely rolled against thy feet,
Him thou didst craftily betray,
With amorous vexings, low and sweet,
To tell thee that which was not meet.

[Sidenote: (Delilah attempteth to discover the source of Samson's
strength. Samson very neatly deceiveth her.)]

And Samson spake to thee again;
"With seven green withes I may be bound,
So shall I be as other men."
Whereat the lords the green withes found--
The same about his limbs were bound.

Then did the fish-god in thee cry:
"The Philistines be upon thee now."
But Samson broke the withes awry,
As when a keen fire toucheth tow;
So thou didst not the secret know.

But thou, being full of guile, didst plead:
"My lord, thou hast but mocked my love
With lies who gave thy saying heed;
Hast thou not vexed my heart enough,
To ease me all the pain thereof?"

Now, in the chamber with fresh hopes,
The liers in wait did list, and then
He said: "Go to, and get new ropes,
Wherewith thou shalt bind me again,
So shall I be as other men."

[Sidenote: (Samson retaineth his intellect and the lustihood of his
body and again misleadeth the subtle craft of Delilah.)]

Then didst thou do as he had said,
Whereat the fish-god in thee cried,
"The Philistines be upon thy head,"
He shook his shoulders deep and wide,
And cast the ropes like thread aside.

Yet thou still fast to thy conceit,
Didst chide him softly then and say:
"Beforetime thou hast shown deceit,
And mocked my quest with idle play,
Thou canst not now my wish gainsay."

Then with the secret in his thought,
He said: "If thou wilt weave my hair,
The web withal, the deed is wrought;
Thou shalt have all my strength in snare,
And I as other men shall fare."

Seven locks of him thou tookest and wove
The web withal and fastened it,
And then the pin thy treason drove,
With laughter making all things fit,
As did beseem thy cunning wit.

[Sidenote: (Delilah still pursueth her designs and Samson beginning to
be somewhat wearied hinteth very close to his secret.)]

Then the god Dagon speaking by
Thy delicate mouth made horrid din;
"Lo the Philistine lords are nigh"--
He woke ere thou couldst scarce begin,
And took away the web and pin.

Yet, saying not it doth suffice,
Thou in the chamber's secrecy,
Didst with thy artful words entice
Samson to give his heart to thee,
And tell thee where his strength might be.

Pleading, "How canst thou still aver,
I love thee, being yet unkind?
How is it thou dost minister
Unto my heart with treacherous mind,
Thou art but cruelly inclined."

From early morn to falling dusk,
At night upon the curtained bed,
Fragrant with spikenard and with musk,
For weariness he laid his head,
Whilst thou the insidious net didst spread.

[Sidenote: (Samson being weakened by lust and overcome by Delilah's
importunities and guile telleth her wherein his great strength
consisteth.)]

Nor wouldst not give him any rest,
But vexed with various words his soul,
Till death far more than life was blest,
Shot through and through with heavy dole,
He gave his strength to thy control.

Saying, "I am a Nazarite,
To God alway, nor hath there yet
Razor or shears done despite
To these my locks of coarsen jet,
Therefore my strength hath known no let."

"But, and if these be shaven close,
Whereas I once was strong as ten,
I may not meet my meanest foes
Among the hated Philistine,
I shall be weak like other men."

He turned to sleep, the spell was done,
Thou saidst "Come up this once, I trow
The secret of his strength is known;
Hereafter sweat shall bead his brow,
Bring up the silver thou didst vow."

[Sidenote: (Samson having trusted Delilah turneth to sleep whereat her
minions with force falleth upon him and depriveth him of his
strength.)]

They came, and sleeping on thy knees,
The giant of his locks was shorn.
And Dagon, being now at ease,
Cried like the harbinger of morn,
To see the giant's strength forlorn.

For he wist not the Lord was gone:--
"I will go as I went erewhile,"
He said, "and shake my mighty brawn."
Without the captains, file on file,
Did execute Delilah's guile.

[Sidenote: (Sansculottism, as it seemeth, is overthrown.)]

At Gaza where the mockers pass,
Midst curses and unholy sound,
They fettered him with chains of brass,
Put out his eyes, and being bound
Within the prison house he ground.

The heathen looking on did sing;
"Behold our god into our hand,
Hath brought him for our banqueting,
Who slew us and destroyed our land,
Against whom none of us could stand."

[Sidenote: (Samson being no longer formidable and being deprived of
his eyes is reduced to slavery and made the sport of the heathen.)]

Now, therefore, when the festival
Waxed merrily, with one accord,
The lords and captains loud did call,
To bring him out whom they abhorred,
To make them sport who sat at board.

[Sidenote: (After a time Samson prayeth for vengeance even though
himself should perish thereby.)]

And Samson made them sport and stood
Betwixt the pillars of the house,
Above with scornful hardihood,
Both men and women made carouse,
And ridiculed his eyeless brows.

Then Samson prayed "Remember me
O Lord, this once, if not again.
O God, behold my misery,
Now weaker than all other men,
Who once was mightier than ten."

"Grant vengeance for these sightless eyes,
And for this unrequited toil,
For fraud, injustice, perjuries,
For lords whose greed devours the soil,
And kings and rulers who despoil."

[Sidenote: (Wherein by a very nice conceit revolution is symbolized.)]

"For all that maketh light of Thee,
And sets at naught Thy holy word,
For tongues that babble blasphemy,
And impious hands that hold the sword--
Grant vengeance, though I perish, Lord."

He grasped the pillars, having prayed,
And bowed himself--the building fell,
And on three thousand souls was laid,
Gone soon to death with mighty yell.
And Samson died, for it was well.

The lords and captains greatly err,
Thinking that Samson is no more,
Blind, but with ever-growing hair,
He grinds from Tyre to Singapore,
While yet Delilah plays the whore.

So it hath been, and yet will be,
The captains, drunken at the feast
To garnish their felicity,
Will taunt him as a captive beast,
Until their insolence hath ceased.

[Sidenote: (Wherein it is shown that while the people like Samson have
been blinded, and have not recovered their sight still that their hair
continueth to grow.)]

Of ribaldry that smelleth sweet,
To Dagon and to Ashtoreth;
Of bloody stripes from head to feet,
He will endure unto the death,
Being blind, he also nothing saith.

Then 'gainst the Doric capitals,
Resting in prayer to God for power,
He will shake down your marble walls,
Abiding heaven's appointed hour,
And those that fly shall hide and cower.

But this Delilah shall survive,
To do the sin already done,
Her treacherous wiles and arts shall thrive,
At Gaza and at Ashkelon,
A woman fair to look upon.

THE WORLD-SAVER

If the grim Fates, to stave ennui,
Play whips for fun, or snares for game,
The liar full of ease goes free,
And Socrates must bear the shame.

With the blunt sage he stands despised,
The Pharisees salute him not;
Laughter awaits the truth he prized,
And Judas profits by his plot.

A million angels kneel and pray,
And sue for grace that he may win--
Eternal Jove prepares the day,
And sternly sets the fateful gin.

Satan, who hates the light, is fain,
To back his virtuous enterprise;
The omnipotent powers alone refrain,
Only the Lord of hosts denies.

Whatever of woven argument,
Lacks warp to hold the woof in place,
Smothers his honest discontent,
But leaves to view his woeful face.

Fling forth the flag, devour the land,
Grasp destiny and use the law;
But dodge the epigram's keen brand,
And fall not by the ass's jaw.

The idiot snicker strikes more down,
Than fell at Troy or Waterloo;
Still, still he meets it with a frown,
And argues loudly for "the True."

Injustice lengthens out her chain,
Greed, yet ahungered, calls for more;
But while the eons wax and wane,
He storms the barricaded door.

Wisdom and peace and fair intent,
Are tedious as a tale twice told;
One thing increases being spent--
Perennial youth belongs to gold.

At Weehawken the soul set free,
Rules the high realm of Bunker Hill,
Drink life from that philosophy,
And flourish by the age's will.

If he shall toil to clear the field,
Fate's children seize the prosperous year;
Boldly he fashions some new shield,
And naked feels the victor's spear.

He rolls the world up into day,
He finds the grain, and gets the hull.
He sees his own mind in the sway,
And Progress tiptoes on his skull.

Angels and fiends behold the wrong,
And execrate his losing fight;
While Jove amidst the choral song
Smiles, and the heavens glow with light!

--_Trueblood_

* * * * *

Trueblood is bewitched to write a drama--
Only one drama, then to die. Enough
To win the heights but once! He writes me letters,
These later days marked "Opened by the Censor,"
About his drama, asks me what I think
About this point of view, and that approach,
And whether to etch in his hero's soul
By etching in his hero's enemies,
Or luminate his hero by enshadowing
His hero's enemies. How shall I tell him
Which is the actual and the larger theme,
His hero or his hero's enemies?
And through it all I see that Trueblood's mind
Runs to the under-dog, the fallen Titan
The god misunderstood, the lover of man
Destroyed by heaven for his love of man.
In July, 1914, while in London
He took me to his house to dine and showed me
The verses as above. And while I read
He left the room, returned, I heard him move
The ash trays on the table where we sat
And set some object on the table.

Then
As I looked up from reading I discovered
A skull and bony hand upon the table.
And Trueblood said: "Look at the loft brow!
And what a hand was this! A right hand too.
Those fingers in the flesh did miracles.
And when I have my hero's skull before me,
His hand that moulded peoples, I should write
The drama that possesses all my thought.
You'd think the spirit of the man would come
And show me how to find the key that fits
The story of his life, reveal its secret.
I know the secrets, but I want the secret.
You'd think his spirit out of gratitude
Would start me off. It's something, I insist,
To find a haven with a dramatist
After your bones have crossed the sea, and after
Passing from hand to hand they reach seclusion,
And reverent housing.

Dying in New York
He lay for ten years in a lonely grave
Somewhere along the Hudson, I believe.
No grave yard in the city would receive him.
Neither a banker nor a friend of banks,
Nor falling in a duel to awake
Indignant sorrow, space in Trinity
Was not so much as offered. He was poor,
And never had a tomb like Washington.
Of course he wasn't Washington--but still,
Study that skull a little! In ten years
A mad admirer living here in England
Went to America and dug him up,
And brought his bones to Liverpool. Just then
Our country was in turmoil over France--
(The details are so rich I lose my head,
And can't construct my acts.)--hell's flaming here,
And we are fighting back the roaring fire
That France had lighted. England would abort
The era she embraced. Here is a point
That vexes me in laying out the scenes,
And persons of the play. For parliament
Went into fury that these bones were here
On British soil. The city raged. They took
The poor town-crier, gave him nine months' prison
For crying on the streets the bones' arrival.
I'd like to put that crier in my play.
The scene of his arrest would thrill, in case
I put it on a background understood,
And showing why the fellow was arrested,
And what a high offence to heaven it was.
Then here's another thing: The monument
This zealous friend had planned was never raised.
The city wouldn't have it--you can guess
The brain that filled this skull and moved this hand
Had given England trouble. Yes, believe me!
He roused rebellion and he scattered pamphlets.
He had the English gift of writing pamphlets.
He stirred up peoples with his English gift
Against the mother country. How to show this
In action, not in talk, is difficult.

Well, then here is our friend who has these bones
And cannot honor them in burial.
And so he keeps them, then becomes a bankrupt.
And look! the bones pass to our friend's receiver.
Are they an asset? Our Lord Chancellor
Does not regard them so. I'd like to work
Some humor in my drama at this point,
And satirize his lordship just a little.
Though you can scarcely call a skull an asset
If it be of a man who helped to cost you
The loss of half the world. So the receiver
Cast out the bones and for a time a laborer
Took care of them. He sold them to a man
Who dealt in furniture. The empty coffin
About this time turned up in Guilford--then
It's 1854, the man is dead
Near forty years, when just the skull and hand
Are owned by Rev. Ainslie, who evades
All questions touching on that ownership,
And where the ribs, spine, arms and thigh bones are--
The rest in short.

And as for me--no matter
Who sold them, gave them to me, loaned them to me.
Behold the good right hand, behold the skull
Of _Thomas Paine_, theo-philanthropist,
Of Quaker parents, born in England! Look,
That is the hand that wrote the Crisis, wrote
The Age of Reason, Common Sense, and rallied
Americans against the mother country,
With just that English gift of pamphleteering.
You see I'd have to bring George Washington,
And James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson
Upon the stage, and put into their mouths
The eulogies they spoke on Thomas Paine,
To get before the audience that they thought
He did as much as any man to win
Your independence; that your Declaration
Was founded on his writings, even inspired
A clause against your negro slavery--how--
Look at this hand!--he was the first to write
_United States of America_--there's the hand
That was the first to write those words. Good Lord
This drama would out-last a Chinese drama
If I put all the story in. But tell me
What to omit, and what to stress?

And still
I'd have the greatest drama in the world
If I could prove he was dishonored, hunted,
Neglected, libeled, buried like a beast,
His bones dug up, thrown in and out of Chancery.
And show these horrors overtook Tom Paine
Because he was too great, and by this showing
Instruct the world to honor its torch bearers
For time to come. No? Well, that can't be done--
I know that; but it puzzles me to think
That Hamilton--we'll say, is so revered,
So lauded, toasted, all his papers studied
On tariffs and on banks, evoking ahs!
Great genius! and so forth--and there's the Crisis
And Common Sense which only little Shelleys
Haunting the dusty book shops read at all.
It wasn't that he liked his rum and drank
Too much at times, or chased a pretty skirt--
For Hamilton did that. Paine never mixed
In money matters to another's wrong
For his sake or a system's. Yes, I know
The world cares more for chastity and temperance
Than for a faultless life in money matters.
No use to dramatize that vital contrast,
The world to-day is what it always was.
But you don't call this Hamilton an artist
And Paine a mere logician and a wrangler?
Your artist soul gets limed in this mad world
As much as any. There is Leonardo--
The point's not here.

I think it's more like this:
Some men are Titans and some men are gods,
And some are gods who fall while climbing back
Up to Olympus whence they came. And some
While fighting for the race fall into holes
Where to return and rescue them is death.
Why look you here! You'd think America
Had gone to war to cheat the guillotine
Of Thomas Paine, in fiery gratitude.
He's there in France's national assembly,
And votes to save King Louis with this phrase:
Don't kill the man but kill the kingly office.
They think him faithless to the revolution
For words like these--and clap! the prison door
Shuts on our Thomas. So he writes a letter
To president--of what! to Washington
President of the United States of America,
A title which Paine coined in seventy-seven
Now lettered on a monstrous seal of state!
And Washington is silent, never answers,
And leaves our Thomas shivering in a cell,
Who hears the guillotine go slash and click!
Perhaps this is the nucleus of my drama.
Or else to show that Washington was wise
Respecting England's hatred of our Thomas,
And wise to lift no finger to save Thomas,
Incurring England's wrath, who hated Thomas
For pamphlets like the "Crisis" "Common Sense."
That may be just the story for my drama.
Old Homer satirized the human race
For warring for the rescue of a Cyprian.
But there's not stuff for satire in a war
Ensuing on the insult for the rescue
Of nothing but a fellow who wrote pamphlets,
And won a continent for the rescuer.
That's tragedy, the more so if the fellow
Likes rum and writes that Jesus was a man.
This crushing of poor Thomas in the hate
Of England and her power, America's
Great fear and lowered strength might make a drama
As showing how the more you do in life
The greater shall you suffer. This is true,
If what you battered down gets hold of you.
This drama almost drives me mad at times.
I have his story at my fingers' ends.
But it won't take a shape. It flies my hands.
I think I'll have to give it up. What's that?
Well, if an audience of to-day would turn
From seeing Thomas Paine upon the stage
What is the use to write it, if they'd turn
No matter how you wrote it? I believe
They wouldn't like it in America,
Nor England either, maybe--you are right!
A drama with no audience is a failure.
But here's this skull. What shall I do with it?
If I should have it cased in solid silver
There is no shrine to take it--no Cologne
For skulls like this.