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diff --git a/1040-h/1040-h.htm b/1040-h/1040-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9661f1f --- /dev/null +++ b/1040-h/1040-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3868 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> + +<head> + +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> + +<title> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Three Taverns, by Edwin Arlington Robinson +</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +body { color: black; + background: white; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +p {text-indent: 0% } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 200%; + text-align: center } + +p.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +p.t4b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 60%; + text-align: center } + +h1 { text-align: center } +h2 { text-align: center } +h3 { text-align: center } +h4 { text-align: center } +h5 { text-align: center } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +p.contents {text-indent: -3%; + margin-left: 5% } + +p.thought {text-indent: 0% ; + letter-spacing: 4em ; + text-align: center } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.transnote {text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.intro {font-size: 90% ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.quote {text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1040 ***</div> + +<p> +<br /><br /> +[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED. +Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation +is indented two spaces. Some obvious errors may have been corrected.] +</p> + +<h1> +<br /><br /><br /> + The Three Taverns<br /> +</h1> + +<p class="t3b"> + A Book of Poems<br /> +</p> + +<p class="t3b"> + By Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /> +</p> + +<p class="t4"> + Author of "The Man Against the Sky", "Merlin, A Poem", etc.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="t4"> + [American (Maine) Poet. 1869-1935.]<br /> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /><br /> + To THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY and LILLA CABOT PERRY<br /> +</p> + +<p class="t3b"> +<br /><br /><br /> + Contents<br /> +</p> + +<p> + <a href="#valley">The Valley of the Shadow</a><br /> + <a href="#jew">The Wandering Jew</a><br /> + <a href="#neighbors">Neighbors</a><br /> + <a href="#mill">The Mill</a><br /> + <a href="#hills">The Dark Hills</a><br /> + <a href="#taverns">The Three Taverns</a><br /> + <a href="#demos1">Demos I</a><br /> + <a href="#demos2">Demos II</a><br /> + <a href="#dutchman">The Flying Dutchman</a><br /> + <a href="#tact">Tact</a><br /> + <a href="#way">On the Way</a><br /> + <a href="#john">John Brown</a><br /> + <a href="#gods">The False Gods</a><br /> + <a href="#example">Archibald's Example</a><br /> + <a href="#bridge">London Bridge</a><br /> + <a href="#tasker">Tasker Norcross</a><br /> + <a href="#song">A Song at Shannon's</a><br /> + <a href="#souvenir">Souvenir</a><br /> + <a href="#discovery">Discovery</a><br /> + <a href="#firelight">Firelight</a><br /> + <a href="#tenants">The New Tenants</a><br /> + <a href="#inferential">Inferential</a><br /> + <a href="#rat">The Rat</a><br /> + <a href="#rahel">Rahel to Varnhagen</a><br /> + <a href="#nimmo">Nimmo</a><br /> + <a href="#peace">Peace on Earth</a><br /> + <a href="#summer">Late Summer</a><br /> + <a href="#wife">An Evangelist's Wife</a><br /> + <a href="#jester">The Old King's New Jester</a><br /> + <a href="#lazarus">Lazarus</a><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> +Several poems included in this book appeared originally +in American periodicals, as follows: The Three Taverns, London Bridge, +A Song at Shannon's, The New Tenants, Discovery, John Brown; +Archibald's Example, The Valley of the Shadow; Nimmo; The Wandering Jew, +Souvenir; Neighbors, Tact; Demos; The Mill, An Evangelist's Wife; +Firelight; Late Summer; Inferential; The Flying Dutchman; +On the Way, The False Gods; Peace on Earth; The Old King's New Jester. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="t2"> + —————————<br /> + The Three Taverns<br /> + —————————<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="valley"></a> + The Valley of the Shadow<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + There were faces to remember in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + There were faces unregarded, there were faces to forget;<br /> + There were fires of grief and fear that are a few forgotten ashes,<br /> + There were sparks of recognition that are not forgotten yet.<br /> + For at first, with an amazed and overwhelming indignation<br /> + At a measureless malfeasance that obscurely willed it thus,<br /> + They were lost and unacquainted — till they found themselves in others,<br /> + Who had groped as they were groping where dim ways were perilous.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There were lives that were as dark as are the fears and intuitions<br /> + Of a child who knows himself and is alone with what he knows;<br /> + There were pensioners of dreams and there were debtors of illusions,<br /> + All to fail before the triumph of a weed that only grows.<br /> + There were thirsting heirs of golden sieves that held not wine or water,<br /> + And had no names in traffic or more value there than toys:<br /> + There were blighted sons of wonder in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + Where they suffered and still wondered why their wonder made no noise.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There were slaves who dragged the shackles of a precedent unbroken,<br /> + Demonstrating the fulfilment of unalterable schemes,<br /> + Which had been, before the cradle, Time's inexorable tenants<br /> + Of what were now the dusty ruins of their father's dreams.<br /> + There were these, and there were many who had stumbled up to manhood,<br /> + Where they saw too late the road they should have taken long ago:<br /> + There were thwarted clerks and fiddlers in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + The commemorative wreckage of what others did not know.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And there were daughters older than the mothers who had borne them,<br /> + Being older in their wisdom, which is older than the earth;<br /> + And they were going forward only farther into darkness,<br /> + Unrelieved as were the blasting obligations of their birth;<br /> + And among them, giving always what was not for their possession,<br /> + There were maidens, very quiet, with no quiet in their eyes:<br /> + There were daughters of the silence in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + Each an isolated item in the family sacrifice.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There were creepers among catacombs where dull regrets were torches,<br /> + Giving light enough to show them what was there upon the shelves —<br /> + Where there was more for them to see than pleasure would remember<br /> + Of something that had been alive and once had been themselves.<br /> + There were some who stirred the ruins with a solid imprecation,<br /> + While as many fled repentance for the promise of despair:<br /> + There were drinkers of wrong waters in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + And all the sparkling ways were dust that once had led them there.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There were some who knew the steps of Age incredibly beside them,<br /> + And his fingers upon shoulders that had never felt the wheel;<br /> + And their last of empty trophies was a gilded cup of nothing,<br /> + Which a contemplating vagabond would not have come to steal.<br /> + Long and often had they figured for a larger valuation,<br /> + But the size of their addition was the balance of a doubt:<br /> + There were gentlemen of leisure in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + Not allured by retrospection, disenchanted, and played out.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And among the dark endurances of unavowed reprisals<br /> + There were silent eyes of envy that saw little but saw well;<br /> + And over beauty's aftermath of hazardous ambitions<br /> + There were tears for what had vanished as they vanished where they fell.<br /> + Not assured of what was theirs, and always hungry for the nameless,<br /> + There were some whose only passion was for Time who made them cold:<br /> + There were numerous fair women in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + Dreaming rather less of heaven than of hell when they were old.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Now and then, as if to scorn the common touch of common sorrow,<br /> + There were some who gave a few the distant pity of a smile;<br /> + And another cloaked a soul as with an ash of human embers,<br /> + Having covered thus a treasure that would last him for a while.<br /> + There were many by the presence of the many disaffected,<br /> + Whose exemption was included in the weight that others bore:<br /> + There were seekers after darkness in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + And they alone were there to find what they were looking for.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + So they were, and so they are; and as they came are coming others,<br /> + And among them are the fearless and the meek and the unborn;<br /> + And a question that has held us heretofore without an answer<br /> + May abide without an answer until all have ceased to mourn.<br /> + For the children of the dark are more to name than are the wretched,<br /> + Or the broken, or the weary, or the baffled, or the shamed:<br /> + There are builders of new mansions in the Valley of the Shadow,<br /> + And among them are the dying and the blinded and the maimed.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="jew"></a> + The Wandering Jew<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + I saw by looking in his eyes<br /> + That they remembered everything;<br /> + And this was how I came to know<br /> + That he was here, still wandering.<br /> + For though the figure and the scene<br /> + Were never to be reconciled,<br /> + I knew the man as I had known<br /> + His image when I was a child.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + With evidence at every turn,<br /> + I should have held it safe to guess<br /> + That all the newness of New York<br /> + Had nothing new in loneliness;<br /> + Yet here was one who might be Noah,<br /> + Or Nathan, or Abimelech,<br /> + Or Lamech, out of ages lost, —<br /> + Or, more than all, Melchizedek.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Assured that he was none of these,<br /> + I gave them back their names again,<br /> + To scan once more those endless eyes<br /> + Where all my questions ended then.<br /> + I found in them what they revealed<br /> + That I shall not live to forget,<br /> + And wondered if they found in mine<br /> + Compassion that I might regret.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Pity, I learned, was not the least<br /> + Of time's offending benefits<br /> + That had now for so long impugned<br /> + The conservation of his wits:<br /> + Rather it was that I should yield,<br /> + Alone, the fealty that presents<br /> + The tribute of a tempered ear<br /> + To an untempered eloquence.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Before I pondered long enough<br /> + On whence he came and who he was,<br /> + I trembled at his ringing wealth<br /> + Of manifold anathemas;<br /> + I wondered, while he seared the world,<br /> + What new defection ailed the race,<br /> + And if it mattered how remote<br /> + Our fathers were from such a place.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Before there was an hour for me<br /> + To contemplate with less concern<br /> + The crumbling realm awaiting us<br /> + Than his that was beyond return,<br /> + A dawning on the dust of years<br /> + Had shaped with an elusive light<br /> + Mirages of remembered scenes<br /> + That were no longer for the sight.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + For now the gloom that hid the man<br /> + Became a daylight on his wrath,<br /> + And one wherein my fancy viewed<br /> + New lions ramping in his path.<br /> + The old were dead and had no fangs,<br /> + Wherefore he loved them — seeing not<br /> + They were the same that in their time<br /> + Had eaten everything they caught.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + The world around him was a gift<br /> + Of anguish to his eyes and ears,<br /> + And one that he had long reviled<br /> + As fit for devils, not for seers.<br /> + Where, then, was there a place for him<br /> + That on this other side of death<br /> + Saw nothing good, as he had seen<br /> + No good come out of Nazareth?<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Yet here there was a reticence,<br /> + And I believe his only one,<br /> + That hushed him as if he beheld<br /> + A Presence that would not be gone.<br /> + In such a silence he confessed<br /> + How much there was to be denied;<br /> + And he would look at me and live,<br /> + As others might have looked and died.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + As if at last he knew again<br /> + That he had always known, his eyes<br /> + Were like to those of one who gazed<br /> + On those of One who never dies.<br /> + For such a moment he revealed<br /> + What life has in it to be lost;<br /> + And I could ask if what I saw,<br /> + Before me there, was man or ghost.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + He may have died so many times<br /> + That all there was of him to see<br /> + Was pride, that kept itself alive<br /> + As too rebellious to be free;<br /> + He may have told, when more than once<br /> + Humility seemed imminent,<br /> + How many a lonely time in vain<br /> + The Second Coming came and went.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Whether he still defies or not<br /> + The failure of an angry task<br /> + That relegates him out of time<br /> + To chaos, I can only ask.<br /> + But as I knew him, so he was;<br /> + And somewhere among men to-day<br /> + Those old, unyielding eyes may flash,<br /> + And flinch — and look the other way.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="neighbors"></a> + Neighbors<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + As often as we thought of her,<br /> + We thought of a gray life<br /> + That made a quaint economist<br /> + Of a wolf-haunted wife;<br /> + We made the best of all she bore<br /> + That was not ours to bear,<br /> + And honored her for wearing things<br /> + That were not things to wear.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There was a distance in her look<br /> + That made us look again;<br /> + And if she smiled, we might believe<br /> + That we had looked in vain.<br /> + Rarely she came inside our doors,<br /> + And had not long to stay;<br /> + And when she left, it seemed somehow<br /> + That she was far away.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + At last, when we had all forgot<br /> + That all is here to change,<br /> + A shadow on the commonplace<br /> + Was for a moment strange.<br /> + Yet there was nothing for surprise,<br /> + Nor much that need be told:<br /> + Love, with his gift of pain, had given<br /> + More than one heart could hold.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="mill"></a> + The Mill<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + The miller's wife had waited long,<br /> + The tea was cold, the fire was dead;<br /> + And there might yet be nothing wrong<br /> + In how he went and what he said:<br /> + "There are no millers any more,"<br /> + Was all that she had heard him say;<br /> + And he had lingered at the door<br /> + So long that it seemed yesterday.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Sick with a fear that had no form<br /> + She knew that she was there at last;<br /> + And in the mill there was a warm<br /> + And mealy fragrance of the past.<br /> + What else there was would only seem<br /> + To say again what he had meant;<br /> + And what was hanging from a beam<br /> + Would not have heeded where she went.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And if she thought it followed her,<br /> + She may have reasoned in the dark<br /> + That one way of the few there were<br /> + Would hide her and would leave no mark:<br /> + Black water, smooth above the weir<br /> + Like starry velvet in the night,<br /> + Though ruffled once, would soon appear<br /> + The same as ever to the sight.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="hills"></a> + The Dark Hills<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Dark hills at evening in the west,<br /> + Where sunset hovers like a sound<br /> + Of golden horns that sang to rest<br /> + Old bones of warriors under ground,<br /> + Far now from all the bannered ways<br /> + Where flash the legions of the sun,<br /> + You fade — as if the last of days<br /> + Were fading, and all wars were done.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="taverns"></a> + The Three Taverns<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + When the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us<br /> + as far as Appii Forum, and The Three Taverns.<br /> + (Acts 28:15)<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Herodion, Apelles, Amplias,<br /> + And Andronicus? Is it you I see —<br /> + At last? And is it you now that are gazing<br /> + As if in doubt of me? Was I not saying<br /> + That I should come to Rome? I did say that;<br /> + And I said furthermore that I should go<br /> + On westward, where the gateway of the world<br /> + Lets in the central sea. I did say that,<br /> + But I say only, now, that I am Paul —<br /> + A prisoner of the Law, and of the Lord<br /> + A voice made free. If there be time enough<br /> + To live, I may have more to tell you then<br /> + Of western matters. I go now to Rome,<br /> + Where Caesar waits for me, and I shall wait,<br /> + And Caesar knows how long. In Caesarea<br /> + There was a legend of Agrippa saying<br /> + In a light way to Festus, having heard<br /> + My deposition, that I might be free,<br /> + Had I stayed free of Caesar; but the word<br /> + Of God would have it as you see it is —<br /> + And here I am. The cup that I shall drink<br /> + Is mine to drink — the moment or the place<br /> + Not mine to say. If it be now in Rome,<br /> + Be it now in Rome; and if your faith exceed<br /> + The shadow cast of hope, say not of me<br /> + Too surely or too soon that years and shipwreck,<br /> + And all the many deserts I have crossed<br /> + That are not named or regioned, have undone<br /> + Beyond the brevities of our mortal healing<br /> + The part of me that is the least of me.<br /> + You see an older man than he who fell<br /> + Prone to the earth when he was nigh Damascus,<br /> + Where the great light came down; yet I am he<br /> + That fell, and he that saw, and he that heard.<br /> + And I am here, at last; and if at last<br /> + I give myself to make another crumb<br /> + For this pernicious feast of time and men —<br /> + Well, I have seen too much of time and men<br /> + To fear the ravening or the wrath of either.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Yes, it is Paul you see — the Saul of Tarsus<br /> + That was a fiery Jew, and had men slain<br /> + For saying Something was beyond the Law,<br /> + And in ourselves. I fed my suffering soul<br /> + Upon the Law till I went famishing,<br /> + Not knowing that I starved. How should I know,<br /> + More then than any, that the food I had —<br /> + What else it may have been — was not for me?<br /> + My fathers and their fathers and their fathers<br /> + Had found it good, and said there was no other,<br /> + And I was of the line. When Stephen fell,<br /> + Among the stones that crushed his life away,<br /> + There was no place alive that I could see<br /> + For such a man. Why should a man be given<br /> + To live beyond the Law? So I said then,<br /> + As men say now to me. How then do I<br /> + Persist in living? Is that what you ask?<br /> + If so, let my appearance be for you<br /> + No living answer; for Time writes of death<br /> + On men before they die, and what you see<br /> + Is not the man. The man that you see not —<br /> + The man within the man — is most alive;<br /> + Though hatred would have ended, long ago,<br /> + The bane of his activities. I have lived,<br /> + Because the faith within me that is life<br /> + Endures to live, and shall, till soon or late,<br /> + Death, like a friend unseen, shall say to me<br /> + My toil is over and my work begun.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + How often, and how many a time again,<br /> + Have I said I should be with you in Rome!<br /> + He who is always coming never comes,<br /> + Or comes too late, you may have told yourselves;<br /> + And I may tell you now that after me,<br /> + Whether I stay for little or for long,<br /> + The wolves are coming. Have an eye for them,<br /> + And a more careful ear for their confusion<br /> + Than you need have much longer for the sound<br /> + Of what I tell you — should I live to say<br /> + More than I say to Caesar. What I know<br /> + Is down for you to read in what is written;<br /> + And if I cloud a little with my own<br /> + Mortality the gleam that is immortal,<br /> + I do it only because I am I —<br /> + Being on earth and of it, in so far<br /> + As time flays yet the remnant. This you know;<br /> + And if I sting men, as I do sometimes,<br /> + With a sharp word that hurts, it is because<br /> + Man's habit is to feel before he sees;<br /> + And I am of a race that feels. Moreover,<br /> + The world is here for what is not yet here<br /> + For more than are a few; and even in Rome,<br /> + Where men are so enamored of the Cross<br /> + That fame has echoed, and increasingly,<br /> + The music of your love and of your faith<br /> + To foreign ears that are as far away<br /> + As Antioch and Haran, yet I wonder<br /> + How much of love you know, and if your faith<br /> + Be the shut fruit of words. If so, remember<br /> + Words are but shells unfilled. Jews have at least<br /> + A Law to make them sorry they were born<br /> + If they go long without it; and these Gentiles,<br /> + For the first time in shrieking history,<br /> + Have love and law together, if so they will,<br /> + For their defense and their immunity<br /> + In these last days. Rome, if I know the name,<br /> + Will have anon a crown of thorns and fire<br /> + Made ready for the wreathing of new masters,<br /> + Of whom we are appointed, you and I, —<br /> + And you are still to be when I am gone,<br /> + Should I go presently. Let the word fall,<br /> + Meanwhile, upon the dragon-ridden field<br /> + Of circumstance, either to live or die;<br /> + Concerning which there is a parable,<br /> + Made easy for the comfort and attention<br /> + Of those who preach, fearing they preach in vain.<br /> + You are to plant, and then to plant again<br /> + Where you have gathered, gathering as you go;<br /> + For you are in the fields that are eternal,<br /> + And you have not the burden of the Lord<br /> + Upon your mortal shoulders. What you have<br /> + Is a light yoke, made lighter by the wearing,<br /> + Till it shall have the wonder and the weight<br /> + Of a clear jewel, shining with a light<br /> + Wherein the sun and all the fiery stars<br /> + May soon be fading. When Gamaliel said<br /> + That if they be of men these things are nothing,<br /> + But if they be of God they are for none<br /> + To overthrow, he spoke as a good Jew,<br /> + And one who stayed a Jew; and he said all.<br /> + And you know, by the temper of your faith,<br /> + How far the fire is in you that I felt<br /> + Before I knew Damascus. A word here,<br /> + Or there, or not there, or not anywhere,<br /> + Is not the Word that lives and is the life;<br /> + And you, therefore, need weary not yourselves<br /> + With jealous aches of others. If the world<br /> + Were not a world of aches and innovations,<br /> + Attainment would have no more joy of it.<br /> + There will be creeds and schisms, creeds in creeds,<br /> + And schisms in schisms; myriads will be done<br /> + To death because a farthing has two sides,<br /> + And is at last a farthing. Telling you this,<br /> + I, who bid men to live, appeal to Caesar.<br /> + Once I had said the ways of God were dark,<br /> + Meaning by that the dark ways of the Law.<br /> + Such is the glory of our tribulations;<br /> + For the Law kills the flesh that kills the Law,<br /> + And we are then alive. We have eyes then;<br /> + And we have then the Cross between two worlds —<br /> + To guide us, or to blind us for a time,<br /> + Till we have eyes indeed. The fire that smites<br /> + A few on highways, changing all at once,<br /> + Is not for all. The power that holds the world<br /> + Away from God that holds himself away —<br /> + Farther away than all your works and words<br /> + Are like to fly without the wings of faith —<br /> + Was not, nor ever shall be, a small hazard<br /> + Enlivening the ways of easy leisure<br /> + Or the cold road of knowledge. When our eyes<br /> + Have wisdom, we see more than we remember;<br /> + And the old world of our captivities<br /> + May then become a smitten glimpse of ruin,<br /> + Like one where vanished hewers have had their day<br /> + Of wrath on Lebanon. Before we see,<br /> + Meanwhile, we suffer; and I come to you,<br /> + At last, through many storms and through much night.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Yet whatsoever I have undergone,<br /> + My keepers in this instance are not hard.<br /> + But for the chance of an ingratitude,<br /> + I might indeed be curious of their mercy,<br /> + And fearful of their leisure while I wait,<br /> + A few leagues out of Rome. Men go to Rome,<br /> + Not always to return — but not that now.<br /> + Meanwhile, I seem to think you look at me<br /> + With eyes that are at last more credulous<br /> + Of my identity. You remark in me<br /> + No sort of leaping giant, though some words<br /> + Of mine to you from Corinth may have leapt<br /> + A little through your eyes into your soul.<br /> + I trust they were alive, and are alive<br /> + Today; for there be none that shall indite<br /> + So much of nothing as the man of words<br /> + Who writes in the Lord's name for his name's sake<br /> + And has not in his blood the fire of time<br /> + To warm eternity. Let such a man —<br /> + If once the light is in him and endures —<br /> + Content himself to be the general man,<br /> + Set free to sift the decencies and thereby<br /> + To learn, except he be one set aside<br /> + For sorrow, more of pleasure than of pain;<br /> + Though if his light be not the light indeed,<br /> + But a brief shine that never really was,<br /> + And fails, leaving him worse than where he was,<br /> + Then shall he be of all men destitute.<br /> + And here were not an issue for much ink,<br /> + Or much offending faction among scribes.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + The Kingdom is within us, we are told;<br /> + And when I say to you that we possess it<br /> + In such a measure as faith makes it ours,<br /> + I say it with a sinner's privilege<br /> + Of having seen and heard, and seen again,<br /> + After a darkness; and if I affirm<br /> + To the last hour that faith affords alone<br /> + The Kingdom entrance and an entertainment,<br /> + I do not see myself as one who says<br /> + To man that he shall sit with folded hands<br /> + Against the Coming. If I be anything,<br /> + I move a driven agent among my kind,<br /> + Establishing by the faith of Abraham,<br /> + And by the grace of their necessities,<br /> + The clamoring word that is the word of life<br /> + Nearer than heretofore to the solution<br /> + Of their tomb-serving doubts. If I have loosed<br /> + A shaft of language that has flown sometimes<br /> + A little higher than the hearts and heads<br /> + Of nature's minions, it will yet be heard,<br /> + Like a new song that waits for distant ears.<br /> + I cannot be the man that I am not;<br /> + And while I own that earth is my affliction,<br /> + I am a man of earth, who says not all<br /> + To all alike. That were impossible,<br /> + Even as it were so that He should plant<br /> + A larger garden first. But you today<br /> + Are for the larger sowing; and your seed,<br /> + A little mixed, will have, as He foresaw,<br /> + The foreign harvest of a wider growth,<br /> + And one without an end. Many there are,<br /> + And are to be, that shall partake of it,<br /> + Though none may share it with an understanding<br /> + That is not his alone. We are all alone;<br /> + And yet we are all parcelled of one order —<br /> + Jew, Gentile, or barbarian in the dark<br /> + Of wildernesses that are not so much<br /> + As names yet in a book. And there are many,<br /> + Finding at last that words are not the Word,<br /> + And finding only that, will flourish aloft,<br /> + Like heads of captured Pharisees on pikes,<br /> + Our contradictions and discrepancies;<br /> + And there are many more will hang themselves<br /> + Upon the letter, seeing not in the Word<br /> + The friend of all who fail, and in their faith<br /> + A sword of excellence to cut them down.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + As long as there are glasses that are dark —<br /> + And there are many — we see darkly through them;<br /> + All which have I conceded and set down<br /> + In words that have no shadow. What is dark<br /> + Is dark, and we may not say otherwise;<br /> + Yet what may be as dark as a lost fire<br /> + For one of us, may still be for another<br /> + A coming gleam across the gulf of ages,<br /> + And a way home from shipwreck to the shore;<br /> + And so, through pangs and ills and desperations,<br /> + There may be light for all. There shall be light.<br /> + As much as that, you know. You cannot say<br /> + This woman or that man will be the next<br /> + On whom it falls; you are not here for that.<br /> + Your ministration is to be for others<br /> + The firing of a rush that may for them<br /> + Be soon the fire itself. The few at first<br /> + Are fighting for the multitude at last;<br /> + Therefore remember what Gamaliel said<br /> + Before you, when the sick were lying down<br /> + In streets all night for Peter's passing shadow.<br /> + Fight, and say what you feel; say more than words.<br /> + Give men to know that even their days of earth<br /> + To come are more than ages that are gone.<br /> + Say what you feel, while you have time to say it.<br /> + Eternity will answer for itself,<br /> + Without your intercession; yet the way<br /> + For many is a long one, and as dark,<br /> + Meanwhile, as dreams of hell. See not your toil<br /> + Too much, and if I be away from you,<br /> + Think of me as a brother to yourselves,<br /> + Of many blemishes. Beware of stoics,<br /> + And give your left hand to grammarians;<br /> + And when you seem, as many a time you may,<br /> + To have no other friend than hope, remember<br /> + That you are not the first, or yet the last.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + The best of life, until we see beyond<br /> + The shadows of ourselves (and they are less<br /> + Than even the blindest of indignant eyes<br /> + Would have them) is in what we do not know.<br /> + Make, then, for all your fears a place to sleep<br /> + With all your faded sins; nor think yourselves<br /> + Egregious and alone for your defects<br /> + Of youth and yesterday. I was young once;<br /> + And there's a question if you played the fool<br /> + With a more fervid and inherent zeal<br /> + Than I have in my story to remember,<br /> + Or gave your necks to folly's conquering foot,<br /> + Or flung yourselves with an unstudied aim,<br /> + Less frequently than I. Never mind that.<br /> + Man's little house of days will hold enough,<br /> + Sometimes, to make him wish it were not his,<br /> + But it will not hold all. Things that are dead<br /> + Are best without it, and they own their death<br /> + By virtue of their dying. Let them go, —<br /> + But think you not the world is ashes yet,<br /> + And you have all the fire. The world is here<br /> + Today, and it may not be gone tomorrow;<br /> + For there are millions, and there may be more,<br /> + To make in turn a various estimation<br /> + Of its old ills and ashes, and the traps<br /> + Of its apparent wrath. Many with ears<br /> + That hear not yet, shall have ears given to them,<br /> + And then they shall hear strangely. Many with eyes<br /> + That are incredulous of the Mystery<br /> + Shall yet be driven to feel, and then to read<br /> + Where language has an end and is a veil,<br /> + Not woven of our words. Many that hate<br /> + Their kind are soon to know that without love<br /> + Their faith is but the perjured name of nothing.<br /> + I that have done some hating in my time<br /> + See now no time for hate; I that have left,<br /> + Fading behind me like familiar lights<br /> + That are to shine no more for my returning,<br /> + Home, friends, and honors, — I that have lost all else<br /> + For wisdom, and the wealth of it, say now<br /> + To you that out of wisdom has come love,<br /> + That measures and is of itself the measure<br /> + Of works and hope and faith. Your longest hours<br /> + Are not so long that you may torture them<br /> + And harass not yourselves; and the last days<br /> + Are on the way that you prepare for them,<br /> + And was prepared for you, here in a world<br /> + Where you have sinned and suffered, striven and seen.<br /> + If you be not so hot for counting them<br /> + Before they come that you consume yourselves,<br /> + Peace may attend you all in these last days —<br /> + And me, as well as you. Yes, even in Rome.<br /> + Well, I have talked and rested, though I fear<br /> + My rest has not been yours; in which event,<br /> + Forgive one who is only seven leagues<br /> + From Caesar. When I told you I should come,<br /> + I did not see myself the criminal<br /> + You contemplate, for seeing beyond the Law<br /> + That which the Law saw not. But this, indeed,<br /> + Was good of you, and I shall not forget;<br /> + No, I shall not forget you came so far<br /> + To meet a man so dangerous. Well, farewell.<br /> + They come to tell me I am going now —<br /> + With them. I hope that we shall meet again,<br /> + But none may say what he shall find in Rome.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="demos1"></a> + Demos I<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + All you that are enamored of my name<br /> + And least intent on what most I require,<br /> + Beware; for my design and your desire,<br /> + Deplorably, are not as yet the same.<br /> + Beware, I say, the failure and the shame<br /> + Of losing that for which you now aspire<br /> + So blindly, and of hazarding entire<br /> + The gift that I was bringing when I came.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Give as I will, I cannot give you sight<br /> + Whereby to see that with you there are some<br /> + To lead you, and be led. But they are dumb<br /> + Before the wrangling and the shrill delight<br /> + Of your deliverance that has not come,<br /> + And shall not, if I fail you — as I might.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="demos2"></a> + Demos II<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + So little have you seen of what awaits<br /> + Your fevered glimpse of a democracy<br /> + Confused and foiled with an equality<br /> + Not equal to the envy it creates,<br /> + That you see not how near you are the gates<br /> + Of an old king who listens fearfully<br /> + To you that are outside and are to be<br /> + The noisy lords of imminent estates.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Rather be then your prayer that you shall have<br /> + Your kingdom undishonored. Having all,<br /> + See not the great among you for the small,<br /> + But hear their silence; for the few shall save<br /> + The many, or the many are to fall —<br /> + Still to be wrangling in a noisy grave.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="dutchman"></a> + The Flying Dutchman<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Unyielding in the pride of his defiance,<br /> + Afloat with none to serve or to command,<br /> + Lord of himself at last, and all by Science,<br /> + He seeks the Vanished Land.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Alone, by the one light of his one thought,<br /> + He steers to find the shore from which we came, —<br /> + Fearless of in what coil he may be caught<br /> + On seas that have no name.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Into the night he sails; and after night<br /> + There is a dawning, though there be no sun;<br /> + Wherefore, with nothing but himself in sight,<br /> + Unsighted, he sails on.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + At last there is a lifting of the cloud<br /> + Between the flood before him and the sky;<br /> + And then — though he may curse the Power aloud<br /> + That has no power to die —<br /> +</p> + +<p> + He steers himself away from what is haunted<br /> + By the old ghost of what has been before, —<br /> + Abandoning, as always, and undaunted,<br /> + One fog-walled island more.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="tact"></a> + Tact<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Observant of the way she told<br /> + So much of what was true,<br /> + No vanity could long withhold<br /> + Regard that was her due:<br /> + She spared him the familiar guile,<br /> + So easily achieved,<br /> + That only made a man to smile<br /> + And left him undeceived.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Aware that all imagining<br /> + Of more than what she meant<br /> + Would urge an end of everything,<br /> + He stayed; and when he went,<br /> + They parted with a merry word<br /> + That was to him as light<br /> + As any that was ever heard<br /> + Upon a starry night.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + She smiled a little, knowing well<br /> + That he would not remark<br /> + The ruins of a day that fell<br /> + Around her in the dark:<br /> + He saw no ruins anywhere,<br /> + Nor fancied there were scars<br /> + On anyone who lingered there,<br /> + Alone below the stars.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="way"></a> + On the Way<br /> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + (Philadelphia, 1794)<br /> +</p> + +<p> +Note. — The following imaginary dialogue between Alexander Hamilton +and Aaron Burr, which is not based upon any specific incident +in American history, may be supposed to have occurred a few months previous +to Hamilton's retirement from Washington's Cabinet in 1795 +and a few years before the political ingenuities of Burr — +who has been characterized, without much exaggeration, +as the inventor of American politics — began to be conspicuously formidable +to the Federalists. These activities on the part of Burr resulted, +as the reader will remember, in the Burr-Jefferson tie for the Presidency +in 1800, and finally in the Burr-Hamilton duel at Weehawken in 1804. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Hamilton, if he rides you down, remember<br /> + That I was here to speak, and so to save<br /> + Your fabric from catastrophe. That's good;<br /> + For I perceive that you observe him also.<br /> + A President, a-riding of his horse,<br /> + May dust a General and be forgiven;<br /> + But why be dusted — when we're all alike,<br /> + All equal, and all happy. Here he comes —<br /> + And there he goes. And we, by your new patent,<br /> + Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside,<br /> + With our two hats off to his Excellency.<br /> + Why not his Majesty, and done with it?<br /> + Forgive me if I shook your meditation,<br /> + But you that weld our credit should have eyes<br /> + To see what's coming. Bury me first if -I- do.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There's always in some pocket of your brain<br /> + A care for me; wherefore my gratitude<br /> + For your attention is commensurate<br /> + With your concern. Yes, Burr, we are two kings;<br /> + We are as royal as two ditch-diggers;<br /> + But owe me not your sceptre. These are the days<br /> + When first a few seem all; but if we live,<br /> + We may again be seen to be the few<br /> + That we have always been. These are the days<br /> + When men forget the stars, and are forgotten.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + But why forget them? They're the same that winked<br /> + Upon the world when Alcibiades<br /> + Cut off his dog's tail to induce distinction.<br /> + There are dogs yet, and Alcibiades<br /> + Is not forgotten.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Yes, there are dogs enough,<br /> + God knows; and I can hear them in my dreams.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Never a doubt. But what you hear the most<br /> + Is your new music, something out of tune<br /> + With your intention. How in the name of Cain,<br /> + I seem to hear you ask, are men to dance,<br /> + When all men are musicians. Tell me that,<br /> + I hear you saying, and I'll tell you the name<br /> + Of Samson's mother. But why shroud yourself<br /> + Before the coffin comes? For all you know,<br /> + The tree that is to fall for your last house<br /> + Is now a sapling. You may have to wait<br /> + So long as to be sorry; though I doubt it,<br /> + For you are not at home in your new Eden<br /> + Where chilly whispers of a likely frost<br /> + Accumulate already in the air.<br /> + I think a touch of ermine, Hamilton,<br /> + Would be for you in your autumnal mood<br /> + A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + If so it is you think, you may as well<br /> + Give over thinking. We are done with ermine.<br /> + What I fear most is not the multitude,<br /> + But those who are to loop it with a string<br /> + That has one end in France and one end here.<br /> + I'm not so fortified with observation<br /> + That I could swear that more than half a score<br /> + Among us who see lightning see that ruin<br /> + Is not the work of thunder. Since the world<br /> + Was ordered, there was never a long pause<br /> + For caution between doing and undoing.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Go on, sir; my attention is a trap<br /> + Set for the catching of all compliments<br /> + To Monticello, and all else abroad<br /> + That has a name or an identity.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I leave to you the names — there are too many;<br /> + Yet one there is to sift and hold apart,<br /> + As now I see. There comes at last a glimmer<br /> + That is not always clouded, or too late.<br /> + But I was near and young, and had the reins<br /> + To play with while he manned a team so raw<br /> + That only God knows where the end had been<br /> + Of all that riding without Washington.<br /> + There was a nation in the man who passed us,<br /> + If there was not a world. I may have driven<br /> + Since then some restive horses, and alone,<br /> + And through a splashing of abundant mud;<br /> + But he who made the dust that sets you on<br /> + To coughing, made the road. Now it seems dry,<br /> + And in a measure safe.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Here's a new tune<br /> + From Hamilton. Has your caution all at once,<br /> + And over night, grown till it wrecks the cradle?<br /> + I have forgotten what my father said<br /> + When I was born, but there's a rustling of it<br /> + Among my memories, and it makes a noise<br /> + About as loud as all that I have held<br /> + And fondled heretofore of your same caution.<br /> + But that's affairs, not feelings. If our friends<br /> + Guessed half we say of them, our enemies<br /> + Would itch in our friends' jackets. Howsoever,<br /> + The world is of a sudden on its head,<br /> + And all are spilled — unless you cling alone<br /> + With Washington. Ask Adams about that.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + We'll not ask Adams about anything.<br /> + We fish for lizards when we choose to ask<br /> + For what we know already is not coming,<br /> + And we must eat the answer. Where's the use<br /> + Of asking when this man says everything,<br /> + With all his tongues of silence?<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I dare say.<br /> + I dare say, but I won't. One of those tongues<br /> + I'll borrow for the nonce. He'll never miss it.<br /> + We mean his Western Majesty, King George.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I mean the man who rode by on his horse.<br /> + I'll beg of you the meed of your indulgence<br /> + If I should say this planet may have done<br /> + A deal of weary whirling when at last,<br /> + If ever, Time shall aggregate again<br /> + A majesty like his that has no name.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Then you concede his Majesty? That's good,<br /> + And what of yours? Here are two majesties.<br /> + Favor the Left a little, Hamilton,<br /> + Or you'll be floundering in the ditch that waits<br /> + For riders who forget where they are riding.<br /> + If we and France, as you anticipate,<br /> + Must eat each other, what Caesar, if not yourself,<br /> + Do you see for the master of the feast?<br /> + There may be a place waiting on your head<br /> + For laurel thick as Nero's. You don't know.<br /> + I have not crossed your glory, though I might<br /> + If I saw thrones at auction.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Yes, you might.<br /> + If war is on the way, I shall be — here;<br /> + And I've no vision of your distant heels.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I see that I shall take an inference<br /> + To bed with me to-night to keep me warm.<br /> + I thank you, Hamilton, and I approve<br /> + Your fealty to the aggregated greatness<br /> + Of him you lean on while he leans on you.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + This easy phrasing is a game of yours<br /> + That you may win to lose. I beg your pardon,<br /> + But you that have the sight will not employ<br /> + The will to see with it. If you did so,<br /> + There might be fewer ditches dug for others<br /> + In your perspective; and there might be fewer<br /> + Contemporary motes of prejudice<br /> + Between you and the man who made the dust.<br /> + Call him a genius or a gentleman,<br /> + A prophet or a builder, or what not,<br /> + But hold your disposition off the balance,<br /> + And weigh him in the light. Once (I believe<br /> + I tell you nothing new to your surmise,<br /> + Or to the tongues of towns and villages)<br /> + I nourished with an adolescent fancy —<br /> + Surely forgivable to you, my friend —<br /> + An innocent and amiable conviction<br /> + That I was, by the grace of honest fortune,<br /> + A savior at his elbow through the war,<br /> + Where I might have observed, more than I did,<br /> + Patience and wholesome passion. I was there,<br /> + And for such honor I gave nothing worse<br /> + Than some advice at which he may have smiled.<br /> + I must have given a modicum besides,<br /> + Or the rough interval between those days<br /> + And these would never have made for me my friends,<br /> + Or enemies. I should be something somewhere —<br /> + I say not what — but I should not be here<br /> + If he had not been there. Possibly, too,<br /> + You might not — or that Quaker with his cane.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Possibly, too, I should. When the Almighty<br /> + Rides a white horse, I fancy we shall know it.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /> +</p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + It was a man, Burr, that was in my mind;<br /> + No god, or ghost, or demon — only a man:<br /> + A man whose occupation is the need<br /> + Of those who would not feel it if it bit them;<br /> + And one who shapes an age while he endures<br /> + The pin pricks of inferiorities;<br /> + A cautious man, because he is but one;<br /> + A lonely man, because he is a thousand.<br /> + No marvel you are slow to find in him<br /> + The genius that is one spark or is nothing:<br /> + His genius is a flame that he must hold<br /> + So far above the common heads of men<br /> + That they may view him only through the mist<br /> + Of their defect, and wonder what he is.<br /> + It seems to me the mystery that is in him<br /> + That makes him only more to me a man<br /> + Than any other I have ever known.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I grant you that his worship is a man.<br /> + I'm not so much at home with mysteries,<br /> + May be, as you — so leave him with his fire:<br /> + God knows that I shall never put it out.<br /> + He has not made a cripple of himself<br /> + In his pursuit of me, though I have heard<br /> + His condescension honors me with parts.<br /> + Parts make a whole, if we've enough of them;<br /> + And once I figured a sufficiency<br /> + To be at least an atom in the annals<br /> + Of your republic. But I must have erred.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + You smile as if your spirit lived at ease<br /> + With error. I should not have named it so,<br /> + Failing assent from you; nor, if I did,<br /> + Should I be so complacent in my skill<br /> + To comb the tangled language of the people<br /> + As to be sure of anything in these days.<br /> + Put that much in account with modesty.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + What in the name of Ahab, Hamilton,<br /> + Have you, in the last region of your dreaming,<br /> + To do with "people"? You may be the devil<br /> + In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals<br /> + Are waiting on the progress of our ship<br /> + Unless you steer it, but you'll find it irksome<br /> + Alone there in the stern; and some warm day<br /> + There'll be an inland music in the rigging,<br /> + And afterwards on deck. I'm not affined<br /> + Or favored overmuch at Monticello,<br /> + But there's a mighty swarming of new bees<br /> + About the premises, and all have wings.<br /> + If you hear something buzzing before long,<br /> + Be thoughtful how you strike, remembering also<br /> + There was a fellow Naboth had a vineyard,<br /> + And Ahab cut his hair off and went softly.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I don't remember that he cut his hair off.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Somehow I rather fancy that he did.<br /> + If so, it's in the Book; and if not so,<br /> + He did the rest, and did it handsomely.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Commend yourself to Ahab and his ways<br /> + If they inveigle you to emulation;<br /> + But where, if I may ask it, are you tending<br /> + With your invidious wielding of the Scriptures?<br /> + You call to mind an eminent archangel<br /> + Who fell to make him famous. Would you fall<br /> + So far as he, to be so far remembered?<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Before I fall or rise, or am an angel,<br /> + I shall acquaint myself a little further<br /> + With our new land's new language, which is not —<br /> + Peace to your dreams — an idiom to your liking.<br /> + I'm wondering if a man may always know<br /> + How old a man may be at thirty-seven;<br /> + I wonder likewise if a prettier time<br /> + Could be decreed for a good man to vanish<br /> + Than about now for you, before you fade,<br /> + And even your friends are seeing that you have had<br /> + Your cup too full for longer mortal triumph.<br /> + Well, you have had enough, and had it young;<br /> + And the old wine is nearer to the lees<br /> + Than you are to the work that you are doing.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + When does this philological excursion<br /> + Into new lands and languages begin?<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Anon — that is, already. Only Fortune<br /> + Gave me this afternoon the benefaction<br /> + Of your blue back, which I for love pursued,<br /> + And in pursuing may have saved your life —<br /> + Also the world a pounding piece of news:<br /> + Hamilton bites the dust of Washington,<br /> + Or rather of his horse. For you alone,<br /> + Or for your fame, I'd wish it might have been so.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Not every man among us has a friend<br /> + So jealous for the other's fame. How long<br /> + Are you to diagnose the doubtful case<br /> + Of Demos — and what for? Have you a sword<br /> + For some new Damocles? If it's for me,<br /> + I have lost all official appetite,<br /> + And shall have faded, after January,<br /> + Into the law. I'm going to New York.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + No matter where you are, one of these days<br /> + I shall come back to you and tell you something.<br /> + This Demos, I have heard, has in his wrist<br /> + A pulse that no two doctors have as yet<br /> + Counted and found the same, and in his mouth<br /> + A tongue that has the like alacrity<br /> + For saying or not for saying what most it is<br /> + That pullulates in his ignoble mind.<br /> + One of these days I shall appear again,<br /> + To tell you more of him and his opinions;<br /> + I shall not be so long out of your sight,<br /> + Or take myself so far, that I may not,<br /> + Like Alcibiades, come back again.<br /> + He went away to Phrygia, and fared ill.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There's an example in Themistocles:<br /> + He went away to Persia, and fared well.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + BURR<br /> +</p> + +<p> + So? Must I go so far? And if so, why so?<br /> + I had not planned it so. Is this the road<br /> + I take? If so, farewell.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p> + HAMILTON<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Quite so. Farewell.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="john"></a> + John Brown<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Though for your sake I would not have you now<br /> + So near to me tonight as now you are,<br /> + God knows how much a stranger to my heart<br /> + Was any cold word that I may have written;<br /> + And you, poor woman that I made my wife,<br /> + You have had more of loneliness, I fear,<br /> + Than I — though I have been the most alone,<br /> + Even when the most attended. So it was<br /> + God set the mark of his inscrutable<br /> + Necessity on one that was to grope,<br /> + And serve, and suffer, and withal be glad<br /> + For what was his, and is, and is to be,<br /> + When his old bones, that are a burden now,<br /> + Are saying what the man who carried them<br /> + Had not the power to say. Bones in a grave,<br /> + Cover them as they will with choking earth,<br /> + May shout the truth to men who put them there,<br /> + More than all orators. And so, my dear,<br /> + Since you have cheated wisdom for the sake<br /> + Of sorrow, let your sorrow be for you,<br /> + This last of nights before the last of days,<br /> + The lying ghost of what there is of me<br /> + That is the most alive. There is no death<br /> + For me in what they do. Their death it is<br /> + They should heed most when the sun comes again<br /> + To make them solemn. There are some I know<br /> + Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation,<br /> + For tears in them — and all for one old man;<br /> + For some of them will pity this old man,<br /> + Who took upon himself the work of God<br /> + Because he pitied millions. That will be<br /> + For them, I fancy, their compassionate<br /> + Best way of saying what is best in them<br /> + To say; for they can say no more than that,<br /> + And they can do no more than what the dawn<br /> + Of one more day shall give them light enough<br /> + To do. But there are many days to be,<br /> + And there are many men to give their blood,<br /> + As I gave mine for them. May they come soon!<br /> +</p> + +<p> + May they come soon, I say. And when they come,<br /> + May all that I have said unheard be heard,<br /> + Proving at last, or maybe not — no matter —<br /> + What sort of madness was the part of me<br /> + That made me strike, whether I found the mark<br /> + Or missed it. Meanwhile, I've a strange content,<br /> + A patience, and a vast indifference<br /> + To what men say of me and what men fear<br /> + To say. There was a work to be begun,<br /> + And when the Voice, that I have heard so long,<br /> + Announced as in a thousand silences<br /> + An end of preparation, I began<br /> + The coming work of death which is to be,<br /> + That life may be. There is no other way<br /> + Than the old way of war for a new land<br /> + That will not know itself and is tonight<br /> + A stranger to itself, and to the world<br /> + A more prodigious upstart among states<br /> + Than I was among men, and so shall be<br /> + Till they are told and told, and told again;<br /> + For men are children, waiting to be told,<br /> + And most of them are children all their lives.<br /> + The good God in his wisdom had them so,<br /> + That now and then a madman or a seer<br /> + May shake them out of their complacency<br /> + And shame them into deeds. The major file<br /> + See only what their fathers may have seen,<br /> + Or may have said they saw when they saw nothing.<br /> + I do not say it matters what they saw.<br /> + Now and again to some lone soul or other<br /> + God speaks, and there is hanging to be done, —<br /> + As once there was a burning of our bodies<br /> + Alive, albeit our souls were sorry fuel.<br /> + But now the fires are few, and we are poised<br /> + Accordingly, for the state's benefit,<br /> + A few still minutes between heaven and earth.<br /> + The purpose is, when they have seen enough<br /> + Of what it is that they are not to see,<br /> + To pluck me as an unripe fruit of treason,<br /> + And then to fling me back to the same earth<br /> + Of which they are, as I suppose, the flower —<br /> + Not given to know the riper fruit that waits<br /> + For a more comprehensive harvesting.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Yes, may they come, and soon. Again I say,<br /> + May they come soon! — before too many of them<br /> + Shall be the bloody cost of our defection.<br /> + When hell waits on the dawn of a new state,<br /> + Better it were that hell should not wait long, —<br /> + Or so it is I see it who should see<br /> + As far or farther into time tonight<br /> + Than they who talk and tremble for me now,<br /> + Or wish me to those everlasting fires<br /> + That are for me no fear. Too many fires<br /> + Have sought me out and seared me to the bone —<br /> + Thereby, for all I know, to temper me<br /> + For what was mine to do. If I did ill<br /> + What I did well, let men say I was mad;<br /> + Or let my name for ever be a question<br /> + That will not sleep in history. What men say<br /> + I was will cool no cannon, dull no sword,<br /> + Invalidate no truth. Meanwhile, I was;<br /> + And the long train is lighted that shall burn,<br /> + Though floods of wrath may drench it, and hot feet<br /> + May stamp it for a slight time into smoke<br /> + That shall blaze up again with growing speed,<br /> + Until at last a fiery crash will come<br /> + To cleanse and shake a wounded hemisphere,<br /> + And heal it of a long malignity<br /> + That angry time discredits and disowns.<br /> + Tonight there are men saying many things;<br /> + And some who see life in the last of me<br /> + Will answer first the coming call to death;<br /> + For death is what is coming, and then life.<br /> + I do not say again for the dull sake<br /> + Of speech what you have heard me say before,<br /> + But rather for the sake of all I am,<br /> + And all God made of me. A man to die<br /> + As I do must have done some other work<br /> + Than man's alone. I was not after glory,<br /> + But there was glory with me, like a friend,<br /> + Throughout those crippling years when friends were few,<br /> + And fearful to be known by their own names<br /> + When mine was vilified for their approval.<br /> + Yet friends they are, and they did what was given<br /> + Their will to do; they could have done no more.<br /> + I was the one man mad enough, it seems,<br /> + To do my work; and now my work is over.<br /> + And you, my dear, are not to mourn for me,<br /> + Or for your sons, more than a soul should mourn<br /> + In Paradise, done with evil and with earth.<br /> + There is not much of earth in what remains<br /> + For you; and what there may be left of it<br /> + For your endurance you shall have at last<br /> + In peace, without the twinge of any fear<br /> + For my condition; for I shall be done<br /> + With plans and actions that have heretofore<br /> + Made your days long and your nights ominous<br /> + With darkness and the many distances<br /> + That were between us. When the silence comes,<br /> + I shall in faith be nearer to you then<br /> + Than I am now in fact. What you see now<br /> + Is only the outside of an old man,<br /> + Older than years have made him. Let him die,<br /> + And let him be a thing for little grief.<br /> + There was a time for service, and he served;<br /> + And there is no more time for anything<br /> + But a short gratefulness to those who gave<br /> + Their scared allegiance to an enterprise<br /> + That has the name of treason — which will serve<br /> + As well as any other for the present.<br /> + There are some deeds of men that have no names,<br /> + And mine may like as not be one of them.<br /> + I am not looking far for names tonight.<br /> + The King of Glory was without a name<br /> + Until men gave him one; yet there He was,<br /> + Before we found Him and affronted Him<br /> + With numerous ingenuities of evil,<br /> + Of which one, with His aid, is to be swept<br /> + And washed out of the world with fire and blood.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Once I believed it might have come to pass<br /> + With a small cost of blood; but I was dreaming —<br /> + Dreaming that I believed. The Voice I heard<br /> + When I left you behind me in the north, —<br /> + To wait there and to wonder and grow old<br /> + Of loneliness, — told only what was best,<br /> + And with a saving vagueness, I should know<br /> + Till I knew more. And had I known even then —<br /> + After grim years of search and suffering,<br /> + So many of them to end as they began —<br /> + After my sickening doubts and estimations<br /> + Of plans abandoned and of new plans vain —<br /> + After a weary delving everywhere<br /> + For men with every virtue but the Vision —<br /> + Could I have known, I say, before I left you<br /> + That summer morning, all there was to know —<br /> + Even unto the last consuming word<br /> + That would have blasted every mortal answer<br /> + As lightning would annihilate a leaf,<br /> + I might have trembled on that summer morning;<br /> + I might have wavered; and I might have failed.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And there are many among men today<br /> + To say of me that I had best have wavered.<br /> + So has it been, so shall it always be,<br /> + For those of us who give ourselves to die<br /> + Before we are so parcelled and approved<br /> + As to be slaughtered by authority.<br /> + We do not make so much of what they say<br /> + As they of what our folly says of us;<br /> + They give us hardly time enough for that,<br /> + And thereby we gain much by losing little.<br /> + Few are alive to-day with less to lose<br /> + Than I who tell you this, or more to gain;<br /> + And whether I speak as one to be destroyed<br /> + For no good end outside his own destruction,<br /> + Time shall have more to say than men shall hear<br /> + Between now and the coming of that harvest<br /> + Which is to come. Before it comes, I go —<br /> + By the short road that mystery makes long<br /> + For man's endurance of accomplishment.<br /> + I shall have more to say when I am dead.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="gods"></a> + The False Gods<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + "We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,<br /> + From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet.<br /> + You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes, —<br /> + Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "You may swear that we are solid, you may say that we are strong,<br /> + But we know that we are neither and we say that you are wrong;<br /> + You may find an easy worship in acclaiming our indulgence,<br /> + But your large admiration of us now is not for long.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "If your doom is to adore us with a doubt that's never still,<br /> + And you pray to see our faces — pray in earnest, and you will.<br /> + You may gaze at us and live, and live assured of our confusion:<br /> + For the False Gods are mortal, and are made for you to kill.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "And you may as well observe, while apprehensively at ease<br /> + With an Art that's inorganic and is anything you please,<br /> + That anon your newest ruin may lie crumbling unregarded,<br /> + Like an old shrine forgotten in a forest of new trees.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Howsoever like no other be the mode you may employ,<br /> + There's an order in the ages for the ages to enjoy;<br /> + Though the temples you are shaping and the passions you are singing<br /> + Are a long way from Athens and a longer way from Troy.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "When we promise more than ever of what never shall arrive,<br /> + And you seem a little more than ordinarily alive,<br /> + Make a note that you are sure you understand our obligations —<br /> + For there's grief always auditing where two and two are five.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "There was this for us to say and there was this for you to know,<br /> + Though it humbles and it hurts us when we have to tell you so.<br /> + If you doubt the only truth in all our perjured composition,<br /> + May the True Gods attend you and forget us when we go."<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="example"></a> + Archibald's Example<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Old Archibald, in his eternal chair,<br /> + Where trespassers, whatever their degree,<br /> + Were soon frowned out again, was looking off<br /> + Across the clover when he said to me:<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "My green hill yonder, where the sun goes down<br /> + Without a scratch, was once inhabited<br /> + By trees that injured him — an evil trash<br /> + That made a cage, and held him while he bled.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Gone fifty years, I see them as they were<br /> + Before they fell. They were a crooked lot<br /> + To spoil my sunset, and I saw no time<br /> + In fifty years for crooked things to rot.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Trees, yes; but not a service or a joy<br /> + To God or man, for they were thieves of light.<br /> + So down they came. Nature and I looked on,<br /> + And we were glad when they were out of sight.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Trees are like men, sometimes; and that being so,<br /> + So much for that." He twinkled in his chair,<br /> + And looked across the clover to the place<br /> + That he remembered when the trees were there.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="bridge"></a> + London Bridge<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + "Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing — and what of it?<br /> + Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that?<br /> + If I were not their father and if you were not their mother,<br /> + We might believe they made a noise. . . . What are you — driving at!"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Well, be glad that you can hear them, and be glad they are so near us, —<br /> + For I have heard the stars of heaven, and they were nearer still.<br /> + All within an hour it is that I have heard them calling,<br /> + And though I pray for them to cease, I know they never will;<br /> + For their music on my heart, though you may freeze it, will fall always,<br /> + Like summer snow that never melts upon a mountain-top.<br /> + Do you hear them? Do you hear them overhead — the children — singing?<br /> + Do you hear the children singing? . . . God, will you make them stop!"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "And what now in his holy name have you to do with mountains?<br /> + We're back to town again, my dear, and we've a dance tonight.<br /> + Frozen hearts and falling music? Snow and stars, and — what the devil!<br /> + Say it over to me slowly, and be sure you have it right."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "God knows if I be right or wrong in saying what I tell you,<br /> + Or if I know the meaning any more of what I say.<br /> + All I know is, it will kill me if I try to keep it hidden —<br /> + Well, I met him. . . . Yes, I met him, and I talked with him — today."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "You met him? Did you meet the ghost of someone you had poisoned,<br /> + Long ago, before I knew you for the woman that you are?<br /> + Take a chair; and don't begin your stories always in the middle.<br /> + Was he man, or was he demon? Anyhow, you've gone too far<br /> + To go back, and I'm your servant. I'm the lord, but you're the master.<br /> + Now go on with what you know, for I'm excited."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Do you mean —<br /> + Do you mean to make me try to think that you know less than I do?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "I know that you foreshadow the beginning of a scene.<br /> + Pray be careful, and as accurate as if the doors of heaven<br /> + Were to swing or to stay bolted from now on for evermore."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Do you conceive, with all your smooth contempt of every feeling,<br /> + Of hiding what you know and what you must have known before?<br /> + Is it worth a woman's torture to stand here and have you smiling,<br /> + With only your poor fetish of possession on your side?<br /> + No thing but one is wholly sure, and that's not one to scare me;<br /> + When I meet it I may say to God at last that I have tried.<br /> + And yet, for all I know, or all I dare believe, my trials<br /> + Henceforward will be more for you to bear than are your own;<br /> + And you must give me keys of yours to rooms I have not entered.<br /> + Do you see me on your threshold all my life, and there alone?<br /> + Will you tell me where you see me in your fancy — when it leads you<br /> + Far enough beyond the moment for a glance at the abyss?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Will you tell me what intrinsic and amazing sort of nonsense<br /> + You are crowding on the patience of the man who gives you — this?<br /> + Look around you and be sorry you're not living in an attic,<br /> + With a civet and a fish-net, and with you to pay the rent.<br /> + I say words that you can spell without the use of all your letters;<br /> + And I grant, if you insist, that I've a guess at what you meant."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Have I told you, then, for nothing, that I met him? Are you trying<br /> + To be merry while you try to make me hate you?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Think again,<br /> + My dear, before you tell me, in a language unbecoming<br /> + To a lady, what you plan to tell me next. If I complain,<br /> + If I seem an atom peevish at the preference you mention —<br /> + Or imply, to be precise — you may believe, or you may not,<br /> + That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are.<br /> + But I shouldn't throw that at you. Make believe that I forgot.<br /> + Make believe that he's a genius, if you like, — but in the meantime<br /> + Don't go back to rocking-horses. There, there, there, now."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Make believe!<br /> + When you see me standing helpless on a plank above a whirlpool,<br /> + Do I drown, or do I hear you when you say it? Make believe?<br /> + How much more am I to say or do for you before I tell you<br /> + That I met him! What's to follow now may be for you to choose.<br /> + Do you hear me? Won't you listen? It's an easy thing to listen. . . ."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "And it's easy to be crazy when there's everything to lose."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "If at last you have a notion that I mean what I am saying,<br /> + Do I seem to tell you nothing when I tell you I shall try?<br /> + If you save me, and I lose him — I don't know — it won't much matter.<br /> + I dare say that I've lied enough, but now I do not lie."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Do you fancy me the one man who has waited and said nothing<br /> + While a wife has dragged an old infatuation from a tomb?<br /> + Give the thing a little air and it will vanish into ashes.<br /> + There you are — piff! presto!"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "When I came into this room,<br /> + It seemed as if I saw the place, and you there at your table,<br /> + As you are now at this moment, for the last time in my life;<br /> + And I told myself before I came to find you, `I shall tell him,<br /> + If I can, what I have learned of him since I became his wife.'<br /> + And if you say, as I've no doubt you will before I finish,<br /> + That you have tried unceasingly, with all your might and main,<br /> + To teach me, knowing more than I of what it was I needed,<br /> + Don't think, with all you may have thought, that you have tried in vain;<br /> + For you have taught me more than hides in all the shelves of knowledge<br /> + Of how little you found that's in me and was in me all along.<br /> + I believed, if I intruded nothing on you that I cared for,<br /> + I'd be half as much as horses, — and it seems that I was wrong;<br /> + I believed there was enough of earth in me, with all my nonsense<br /> + Over things that made you sleepy, to keep something still awake;<br /> + But you taught me soon to read my book, and God knows I have read it —<br /> + Ages longer than an angel would have read it for your sake.<br /> + I have said that you must open other doors than I have entered,<br /> + But I wondered while I said it if I might not be obscure.<br /> + Is there anything in all your pedigrees and inventories<br /> + With a value more elusive than a dollar's? Are you sure<br /> + That if I starve another year for you I shall be stronger<br /> + To endure another like it — and another — till I'm dead?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Has your tame cat sold a picture? — or more likely had a windfall?<br /> + Or for God's sake, what's broke loose? Have you a bee-hive in your head?<br /> + A little more of this from you will not be easy hearing.<br /> + Do you know that? Understand it, if you do; for if you won't. . . .<br /> + What the devil are you saying! Make believe you never said it,<br /> + And I'll say I never heard it. . . . Oh, you. . . . If you. . . ."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "If I don't?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "There are men who say there's reason hidden somewhere in a woman,<br /> + But I doubt if God himself remembers where the key was hung."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "He may not; for they say that even God himself is growing.<br /> + I wonder if he makes believe that he is growing young;<br /> + I wonder if he makes believe that women who are giving<br /> + All they have in holy loathing to a stranger all their lives<br /> + Are the wise ones who build houses in the Bible. . . ."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Stop — you devil!"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + ". . . Or that souls are any whiter when their bodies are called wives.<br /> + If a dollar's worth of gold will hoop the walls of hell together,<br /> + Why need heaven be such a ruin of a place that never was?<br /> + And if at last I lied my starving soul away to nothing,<br /> + Are you sure you might not miss it? Have you come to such a pass<br /> + That you would have me longer in your arms if you discovered<br /> + That I made you into someone else. . . . Oh! . . . Well, there are<br /> + worse ways.<br /> + But why aim it at my feet — unless you fear you may be sorry. . . .<br /> + There are many days ahead of you."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "I do not see those days."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "I can see them. Granted even I am wrong, there are the children.<br /> + And are they to praise their father for his insight if we die?<br /> + Do you hear them? Do you hear them overhead — the children — singing?<br /> + Do you hear them? Do you hear the children?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Damn the children!"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Why?<br /> + What have THEY done? . . . Well, then, — do it. . . . Do it now,<br /> + and have it over."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Oh, you devil! . . . Oh, you. . . ."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "No, I'm not a devil, I'm a prophet —<br /> + One who sees the end already of so much that one end more<br /> + Would have now the small importance of one other small illusion,<br /> + Which in turn would have a welcome where the rest have gone before.<br /> + But if I were you, my fancy would look on a little farther<br /> + For the glimpse of a release that may be somewhere still in sight.<br /> + Furthermore, you must remember those two hundred invitations<br /> + For the dancing after dinner. We shall have to shine tonight.<br /> + We shall dance, and be as happy as a pair of merry spectres,<br /> + On the grave of all the lies that we shall never have to tell;<br /> + We shall dance among the ruins of the tomb of our endurance,<br /> + And I have not a doubt that we shall do it very well.<br /> + There! — I'm glad you've put it back; for I don't like it.<br /> + Shut the drawer now.<br /> + No — no — don't cancel anything. I'll dance until I drop.<br /> + I can't walk yet, but I'm going to. . . . Go away somewhere,<br /> + and leave me. . . .<br /> + Oh, you children! Oh, you children! . . . God, will they never stop!"<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="tasker"></a> + Tasker Norcross<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + "Whether all towns and all who live in them —<br /> + So long as they be somewhere in this world<br /> + That we in our complacency call ours —<br /> + Are more or less the same, I leave to you.<br /> + I should say less. Whether or not, meanwhile,<br /> + We've all two legs — and as for that, we haven't —<br /> + There were three kinds of men where I was born:<br /> + The good, the not so good, and Tasker Norcross.<br /> + Now there are two kinds."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Meaning, as I divine,<br /> + Your friend is dead," I ventured.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Ferguson,<br /> + Who talked himself at last out of the world<br /> + He censured, and is therefore silent now,<br /> + Agreed indifferently: "My friends are dead —<br /> + Or most of them."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Remember one that isn't,"<br /> + I said, protesting. "Honor him for his ears;<br /> + Treasure him also for his understanding."<br /> + Ferguson sighed, and then talked on again:<br /> + "You have an overgrown alacrity<br /> + For saying nothing much and hearing less;<br /> + And I've a thankless wonder, at the start,<br /> + How much it is to you that I shall tell<br /> + What I have now to say of Tasker Norcross,<br /> + And how much to the air that is around you.<br /> + But given a patience that is not averse<br /> + To the slow tragedies of haunted men —<br /> + Horrors, in fact, if you've a skilful eye<br /> + To know them at their firesides, or out walking, —"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Horrors," I said, "are my necessity;<br /> + And I would have them, for their best effect,<br /> + Always out walking."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Ferguson frowned at me:<br /> + "The wisest of us are not those who laugh<br /> + Before they know. Most of us never know —<br /> + Or the long toil of our mortality<br /> + Would not be done. Most of us never know —<br /> + And there you have a reason to believe<br /> + In God, if you may have no other. Norcross,<br /> + Or so I gather of his infirmity,<br /> + Was given to know more than he should have known,<br /> + And only God knows why. See for yourself<br /> + An old house full of ghosts of ancestors,<br /> + Who did their best, or worst, and having done it,<br /> + Died honorably; and each with a distinction<br /> + That hardly would have been for him that had it,<br /> + Had honor failed him wholly as a friend.<br /> + Honor that is a friend begets a friend.<br /> + Whether or not we love him, still we have him;<br /> + And we must live somehow by what we have,<br /> + Or then we die. If you say chemistry,<br /> + Then you must have your molecules in motion,<br /> + And in their right abundance. Failing either,<br /> + You have not long to dance. Failing a friend,<br /> + A genius, or a madness, or a faith<br /> + Larger than desperation, you are here<br /> + For as much longer than you like as may be.<br /> + Imagining now, by way of an example,<br /> + Myself a more or less remembered phantom —<br /> + Again, I should say less — how many times<br /> + A day should I come back to you? No answer.<br /> + Forgive me when I seem a little careless,<br /> + But we must have examples, or be lucid<br /> + Without them; and I question your adherence<br /> + To such an undramatic narrative<br /> + As this of mine, without the personal hook."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "A time is given in Ecclesiastes<br /> + For divers works," I told him. "Is there one<br /> + For saying nothing in return for nothing?<br /> + If not, there should be." I could feel his eyes,<br /> + And they were like two cold inquiring points<br /> + Of a sharp metal. When I looked again,<br /> + To see them shine, the cold that I had felt<br /> + Was gone to make way for a smouldering<br /> + Of lonely fire that I, as I knew then,<br /> + Could never quench with kindness or with lies.<br /> + I should have done whatever there was to do<br /> + For Ferguson, yet I could not have mourned<br /> + In honesty for once around the clock<br /> + The loss of him, for my sake or for his,<br /> + Try as I might; nor would his ghost approve,<br /> + Had I the power and the unthinking will<br /> + To make him tread again without an aim<br /> + The road that was behind him — and without<br /> + The faith, or friend, or genius, or the madness<br /> + That he contended was imperative.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + After a silence that had been too long,<br /> + "It may be quite as well we don't," he said;<br /> + "As well, I mean, that we don't always say it.<br /> + You know best what I mean, and I suppose<br /> + You might have said it better. What was that?<br /> + Incorrigible? Am I incorrigible?<br /> + Well, it's a word; and a word has its use,<br /> + Or, like a man, it will soon have a grave.<br /> + It's a good word enough. Incorrigible,<br /> + May be, for all I know, the word for Norcross.<br /> + See for yourself that house of his again<br /> + That he called home: An old house, painted white,<br /> + Square as a box, and chillier than a tomb<br /> + To look at or to live in. There were trees —<br /> + Too many of them, if such a thing may be —<br /> + Before it and around it. Down in front<br /> + There was a road, a railroad, and a river;<br /> + Then there were hills behind it, and more trees.<br /> + The thing would fairly stare at you through trees,<br /> + Like a pale inmate out of a barred window<br /> + With a green shade half down; and I dare say<br /> + People who passed have said: `There's where he lives.<br /> + We know him, but we do not seem to know<br /> + That we remember any good of him,<br /> + Or any evil that is interesting.<br /> + There you have all we know and all we care.'<br /> + They might have said it in all sorts of ways;<br /> + And then, if they perceived a cat, they might<br /> + Or might not have remembered what they said.<br /> + The cat might have a personality —<br /> + And maybe the same one the Lord left out<br /> + Of Tasker Norcross, who, for lack of it,<br /> + Saw the same sun go down year after year;<br /> + All which at last was my discovery.<br /> + And only mine, so far as evidence<br /> + Enlightens one more darkness. You have known<br /> + All round you, all your days, men who are nothing —<br /> + Nothing, I mean, so far as time tells yet<br /> + Of any other need it has of them<br /> + Than to make sextons hardy — but no less<br /> + Are to themselves incalculably something,<br /> + And therefore to be cherished. God, you see,<br /> + Being sorry for them in their fashioning,<br /> + Indemnified them with a quaint esteem<br /> + Of self, and with illusions long as life.<br /> + You know them well, and you have smiled at them;<br /> + And they, in their serenity, may have had<br /> + Their time to smile at you. Blessed are they<br /> + That see themselves for what they never were<br /> + Or were to be, and are, for their defect,<br /> + At ease with mirrors and the dim remarks<br /> + That pass their tranquil ears."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Come, come," said I;<br /> + "There may be names in your compendium<br /> + That we are not yet all on fire for shouting.<br /> + Skin most of us of our mediocrity,<br /> + We should have nothing then that we could scratch.<br /> + The picture smarts. Cover it, if you please,<br /> + And do so rather gently. Now for Norcross."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Ferguson closed his eyes in resignation,<br /> + While a dead sigh came out of him. "Good God!"<br /> + He said, and said it only half aloud,<br /> + As if he knew no longer now, nor cared,<br /> + If one were there to listen: "Have I said nothing —<br /> + Nothing at all — of Norcross? Do you mean<br /> + To patronize him till his name becomes<br /> + A toy made out of letters? If a name<br /> + Is all you need, arrange an honest column<br /> + Of all the people you have ever known<br /> + That you have never liked. You'll have enough;<br /> + And you'll have mine, moreover. No, not yet.<br /> + If I assume too many privileges,<br /> + I pay, and I alone, for their assumption;<br /> + By which, if I assume a darker knowledge<br /> + Of Norcross than another, let the weight<br /> + Of my injustice aggravate the load<br /> + That is not on your shoulders. When I came<br /> + To know this fellow Norcross in his house,<br /> + I found him as I found him in the street —<br /> + No more, no less; indifferent, but no better.<br /> + `Worse' were not quite the word: he was not bad;<br /> + He was not . . . well, he was not anything.<br /> + Has your invention ever entertained<br /> + The picture of a dusty worm so dry<br /> + That even the early bird would shake his head<br /> + And fly on farther for another breakfast?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "But why forget the fortune of the worm,"<br /> + I said, "if in the dryness you deplore<br /> + Salvation centred and endured? Your Norcross<br /> + May have been one for many to have envied."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Salvation? Fortune? Would the worm say that?<br /> + He might; and therefore I dismiss the worm<br /> + With all dry things but one. Figures away,<br /> + Do you begin to see this man a little?<br /> + Do you begin to see him in the air,<br /> + With all the vacant horrors of his outline<br /> + For you to fill with more than it will hold?<br /> + If so, you needn't crown yourself at once<br /> + With epic laurel if you seem to fill it.<br /> + Horrors, I say, for in the fires and forks<br /> + Of a new hell — if one were not enough —<br /> + I doubt if a new horror would have held him<br /> + With a malignant ingenuity<br /> + More to be feared than his before he died.<br /> + You smile, as if in doubt. Well, smile again.<br /> + Now come into his house, along with me:<br /> + The four square sombre things that you see first<br /> + Around you are four walls that go as high<br /> + As to the ceiling. Norcross knew them well,<br /> + And he knew others like them. Fasten to that<br /> + With all the claws of your intelligence;<br /> + And hold the man before you in his house<br /> + As if he were a white rat in a box,<br /> + And one that knew himself to be no other.<br /> + I tell you twice that he knew all about it,<br /> + That you may not forget the worst of all<br /> + Our tragedies begin with what we know.<br /> + Could Norcross only not have known, I wonder<br /> + How many would have blessed and envied him!<br /> + Could he have had the usual eye for spots<br /> + On others, and for none upon himself,<br /> + I smile to ponder on the carriages<br /> + That might as well as not have clogged the town<br /> + In honor of his end. For there was gold,<br /> + You see, though all he needed was a little,<br /> + And what he gave said nothing of who gave it.<br /> + He would have given it all if in return<br /> + There might have been a more sufficient face<br /> + To greet him when he shaved. Though you insist<br /> + It is the dower, and always, of our degree<br /> + Not to be cursed with such invidious insight,<br /> + Remember that you stand, you and your fancy,<br /> + Now in his house; and since we are together,<br /> + See for yourself and tell me what you see.<br /> + Tell me the best you see. Make a slight noise<br /> + Of recognition when you find a book<br /> + That you would not as lief read upside down<br /> + As otherwise, for example. If there you fail,<br /> + Observe the walls and lead me to the place,<br /> + Where you are led. If there you meet a picture<br /> + That holds you near it for a longer time<br /> + Than you are sorry, you may call it yours,<br /> + And hang it in the dark of your remembrance,<br /> + Where Norcross never sees. How can he see<br /> + That has no eyes to see? And as for music,<br /> + He paid with empty wonder for the pangs<br /> + Of his infrequent forced endurance of it;<br /> + And having had no pleasure, paid no more<br /> + For needless immolation, or for the sight<br /> + Of those who heard what he was never to hear.<br /> + To see them listening was itself enough<br /> + To make him suffer; and to watch worn eyes,<br /> + On other days, of strangers who forgot<br /> + Their sorrows and their failures and themselves<br /> + Before a few mysterious odds and ends<br /> + Of marble carted from the Parthenon —<br /> + And all for seeing what he was never to see,<br /> + Because it was alive and he was dead —<br /> + Here was a wonder that was more profound<br /> + Than any that was in fiddles and brass horns.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "He knew, and in his knowledge there was death.<br /> + He knew there was a region all around him<br /> + That lay outside man's havoc and affairs,<br /> + And yet was not all hostile to their tumult,<br /> + Where poets would have served and honored him,<br /> + And saved him, had there been anything to save.<br /> + But there was nothing, and his tethered range<br /> + Was only a small desert. Kings of song<br /> + Are not for thrones in deserts. Towers of sound<br /> + And flowers of sense are but a waste of heaven<br /> + Where there is none to know them from the rocks<br /> + And sand-grass of his own monotony<br /> + That makes earth less than earth. He could see that,<br /> + And he could see no more. The captured light<br /> + That may have been or not, for all he cared,<br /> + The song that is in sculpture was not his,<br /> + But only, to his God-forgotten eyes,<br /> + One more immortal nonsense in a world<br /> + Where all was mortal, or had best be so,<br /> + And so be done with. `Art,' he would have said,<br /> + `Is not life, and must therefore be a lie;'<br /> + And with a few profundities like that<br /> + He would have controverted and dismissed<br /> + The benefit of the Greeks. He had heard of them,<br /> + As he had heard of his aspiring soul —<br /> + Never to the perceptible advantage,<br /> + In his esteem, of either. `Faith,' he said,<br /> + Or would have said if he had thought of it,<br /> + `Lives in the same house with Philosophy,<br /> + Where the two feed on scraps and are forlorn<br /> + As orphans after war. He could see stars,<br /> + On a clear night, but he had not an eye<br /> + To see beyond them. He could hear spoken words,<br /> + But had no ear for silence when alone.<br /> + He could eat food of which he knew the savor,<br /> + But had no palate for the Bread of Life,<br /> + That human desperation, to his thinking,<br /> + Made famous long ago, having no other.<br /> + Now do you see? Do you begin to see?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I told him that I did begin to see;<br /> + And I was nearer than I should have been<br /> + To laughing at his malign inclusiveness,<br /> + When I considered that, with all our speed,<br /> + We are not laughing yet at funerals.<br /> + I see him now as I could see him then,<br /> + And I see now that it was good for me,<br /> + As it was good for him, that I was quiet;<br /> + For Time's eye was on Ferguson, and the shaft<br /> + Of its inquiring hesitancy had touched him,<br /> + Or so I chose to fancy more than once<br /> + Before he told of Norcross. When the word<br /> + Of his release (he would have called it so)<br /> + Made half an inch of news, there were no tears<br /> + That are recorded. Women there may have been<br /> + To wish him back, though I should say, not knowing,<br /> + The few there were to mourn were not for love,<br /> + And were not lovely. Nothing of them, at least,<br /> + Was in the meagre legend that I gathered<br /> + Years after, when a chance of travel took me<br /> + So near the region of his nativity<br /> + That a few miles of leisure brought me there;<br /> + For there I found a friendly citizen<br /> + Who led me to his house among the trees<br /> + That were above a railroad and a river.<br /> + Square as a box and chillier than a tomb<br /> + It was indeed, to look at or to live in —<br /> + All which had I been told. "Ferguson died,"<br /> + The stranger said, "and then there was an auction.<br /> + I live here, but I've never yet been warm.<br /> + Remember him? Yes, I remember him.<br /> + I knew him — as a man may know a tree —<br /> + For twenty years. He may have held himself<br /> + A little high when he was here, but now . . .<br /> + Yes, I remember Ferguson. Oh, yes."<br /> + Others, I found, remembered Ferguson,<br /> + But none of them had heard of Tasker Norcross.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="song"></a> + A Song at Shannon's<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Two men came out of Shannon's having known<br /> + The faces of each other for as long<br /> + As they had listened there to an old song,<br /> + Sung thinly in a wastrel monotone<br /> + By some unhappy night-bird, who had flown<br /> + Too many times and with a wing too strong<br /> + To save himself, and so done heavy wrong<br /> + To more frail elements than his alone.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Slowly away they went, leaving behind<br /> + More light than was before them. Neither met<br /> + The other's eyes again or said a word.<br /> + Each to his loneliness or to his kind,<br /> + Went his own way, and with his own regret,<br /> + Not knowing what the other may have heard.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="souvenir"></a> + Souvenir<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + A vanished house that for an hour I knew<br /> + By some forgotten chance when I was young<br /> + Had once a glimmering window overhung<br /> + With honeysuckle wet with evening dew.<br /> + Along the path tall dusky dahlias grew,<br /> + And shadowy hydrangeas reached and swung<br /> + Ferociously; and over me, among<br /> + The moths and mysteries, a blurred bat flew.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Somewhere within there were dim presences<br /> + Of days that hovered and of years gone by.<br /> + I waited, and between their silences<br /> + There was an evanescent faded noise;<br /> + And though a child, I knew it was the voice<br /> + Of one whose occupation was to die.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="discovery"></a> + Discovery<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + We told of him as one who should have soared<br /> + And seen for us the devastating light<br /> + Whereof there is not either day or night,<br /> + And shared with us the glamour of the Word<br /> + That fell once upon Amos to record<br /> + For men at ease in Zion, when the sight<br /> + Of ills obscured aggrieved him and the might<br /> + Of Hamath was a warning of the Lord.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Assured somehow that he would make us wise,<br /> + Our pleasure was to wait; and our surprise<br /> + Was hard when we confessed the dry return<br /> + Of his regret. For we were still to learn<br /> + That earth has not a school where we may go<br /> + For wisdom, or for more than we may know.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="firelight"></a> + Firelight<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Ten years together without yet a cloud,<br /> + They seek each other's eyes at intervals<br /> + Of gratefulness to firelight and four walls<br /> + For love's obliteration of the crowd.<br /> + Serenely and perennially endowed<br /> + And bowered as few may be, their joy recalls<br /> + No snake, no sword; and over them there falls<br /> + The blessing of what neither says aloud.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Wiser for silence, they were not so glad<br /> + Were she to read the graven tale of lines<br /> + On the wan face of one somewhere alone;<br /> + Nor were they more content could he have had<br /> + Her thoughts a moment since of one who shines<br /> + Apart, and would be hers if he had known.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="tenants"></a> + The New Tenants<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + The day was here when it was his to know<br /> + How fared the barriers he had built between<br /> + His triumph and his enemies unseen,<br /> + For them to undermine and overthrow;<br /> + And it was his no longer to forego<br /> + The sight of them, insidious and serene,<br /> + Where they were delving always and had been<br /> + Left always to be vicious and to grow.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And there were the new tenants who had come,<br /> + By doors that were left open unawares,<br /> + Into his house, and were so much at home<br /> + There now that he would hardly have to guess,<br /> + By the slow guile of their vindictiveness,<br /> + What ultimate insolence would soon be theirs.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="inferential"></a> + Inferential<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Although I saw before me there the face<br /> + Of one whom I had honored among men<br /> + The least, and on regarding him again<br /> + Would not have had him in another place,<br /> + He fitted with an unfamiliar grace<br /> + The coffin where I could not see him then<br /> + As I had seen him and appraised him when<br /> + I deemed him unessential to the race.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + For there was more of him than what I saw.<br /> + And there was on me more than the old awe<br /> + That is the common genius of the dead.<br /> + I might as well have heard him: "Never mind;<br /> + If some of us were not so far behind,<br /> + The rest of us were not so far ahead."<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="rat"></a> + The Rat<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + As often as he let himself be seen<br /> + We pitied him, or scorned him, or deplored<br /> + The inscrutable profusion of the Lord<br /> + Who shaped as one of us a thing so mean —<br /> + Who made him human when he might have been<br /> + A rat, and so been wholly in accord<br /> + With any other creature we abhorred<br /> + As always useless and not always clean.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Now he is hiding all alone somewhere,<br /> + And in a final hole not ready then;<br /> + For now he is among those over there<br /> + Who are not coming back to us again.<br /> + And we who do the fiction of our share<br /> + Say less of rats and rather more of men.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="rahel"></a> + Rahel to Varnhagen<br /> +</h3> + +<p> +Note. — Rahel Robert and Varnhagen von Ense were married, +after many protestations on her part, in 1814. The marriage — so far +as he was concerned, at any rate — appears to have been satisfactory. +</p> + +<p> + Now you have read them all; or if not all,<br /> + As many as in all conscience I should fancy<br /> + To be enough. There are no more of them —<br /> + Or none to burn your sleep, or to bring dreams<br /> + Of devils. If these are not sufficient, surely<br /> + You are a strange young man. I might live on<br /> + Alone, and for another forty years,<br /> + Or not quite forty, — are you happier now? —<br /> + Always to ask if there prevailed elsewhere<br /> + Another like yourself that would have held<br /> + These aged hands as long as you have held them,<br /> + Not once observing, for all I can see,<br /> + How they are like your mother's. Well, you have read<br /> + His letters now, and you have heard me say<br /> + That in them are the cinders of a passion<br /> + That was my life; and you have not yet broken<br /> + Your way out of my house, out of my sight, —<br /> + Into the street. You are a strange young man.<br /> + I know as much as that of you, for certain;<br /> + And I'm already praying, for your sake,<br /> + That you be not too strange. Too much of that<br /> + May lead you bye and bye through gloomy lanes<br /> + To a sad wilderness, where one may grope<br /> + Alone, and always, or until he feels<br /> + Ferocious and invisible animals<br /> + That wait for men and eat them in the dark.<br /> + Why do you sit there on the floor so long,<br /> + Smiling at me while I try to be solemn?<br /> + Do you not hear it said for your salvation,<br /> + When I say truth? Are you, at four and twenty,<br /> + So little deceived in us that you interpret<br /> + The humor of a woman to be noticed<br /> + As her choice between you and Acheron?<br /> + Are you so unscathed yet as to infer<br /> + That if a woman worries when a man,<br /> + Or a man-child, has wet shoes on his feet<br /> + She may as well commemorate with ashes<br /> + The last eclipse of her tranquillity?<br /> + If you look up at me and blink again,<br /> + I shall not have to make you tell me lies<br /> + To know the letters you have not been reading.<br /> + I see now that I may have had for nothing<br /> + A most unpleasant shivering in my conscience<br /> + When I laid open for your contemplation<br /> + The wealth of my worn casket. If I did,<br /> + The fault was not yours wholly. Search again<br /> + This wreckage we may call for sport a face,<br /> + And you may chance upon the price of havoc<br /> + That I have paid for a few sorry stones<br /> + That shine and have no light — yet once were stars,<br /> + And sparkled on a crown. Little and weak<br /> + They seem; and they are cold, I fear, for you.<br /> + But they that once were fire for me may not<br /> + Be cold again for me until I die;<br /> + And only God knows if they may be then.<br /> + There is a love that ceases to be love<br /> + In being ourselves. How, then, are we to lose it?<br /> + You that are sure that you know everything<br /> + There is to know of love, answer me that.<br /> + Well? . . . You are not even interested.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Once on a far off time when I was young,<br /> + I felt with your assurance, and all through me,<br /> + That I had undergone the last and worst<br /> + Of love's inventions. There was a boy who brought<br /> + The sun with him and woke me up with it,<br /> + And that was every morning; every night<br /> + I tried to dream of him, but never could,<br /> + More than I might have seen in Adam's eyes<br /> + Their fond uncertainty when Eve began<br /> + The play that all her tireless progeny<br /> + Are not yet weary of. One scene of it<br /> + Was brief, but was eternal while it lasted;<br /> + And that was while I was the happiest<br /> + Of an imaginary six or seven,<br /> + Somewhere in history but not on earth,<br /> + For whom the sky had shaken and let stars<br /> + Rain down like diamonds. Then there were clouds,<br /> + And a sad end of diamonds; whereupon<br /> + Despair came, like a blast that would have brought<br /> + Tears to the eyes of all the bears in Finland,<br /> + And love was done. That was how much I knew.<br /> + Poor little wretch! I wonder where he is<br /> + This afternoon. Out of this rain, I hope.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + At last, when I had seen so many days<br /> + Dressed all alike, and in their marching order,<br /> + Go by me that I would not always count them,<br /> + One stopped — shattering the whole file of Time,<br /> + Or so it seemed; and when I looked again,<br /> + There was a man. He struck once with his eyes,<br /> + And then there was a woman. I, who had come<br /> + To wisdom, or to vision, or what you like,<br /> + By the old hidden road that has no name, —<br /> + I, who was used to seeing without flying<br /> + So much that others fly from without seeing,<br /> + Still looked, and was afraid, and looked again.<br /> + And after that, when I had read the story<br /> + Told in his eyes, and felt within my heart<br /> + The bleeding wound of their necessity,<br /> + I knew the fear was his. If I had failed him<br /> + And flown away from him, I should have lost<br /> + Ingloriously my wings in scrambling back,<br /> + And found them arms again. If he had struck me<br /> + Not only with his eyes but with his hands,<br /> + I might have pitied him and hated love,<br /> + And then gone mad. I, who have been so strong —<br /> + Why don't you laugh? — might even have done all that.<br /> + I, who have learned so much, and said so much,<br /> + And had the commendations of the great<br /> + For one who rules herself — why don't you cry? —<br /> + And own a certain small authority<br /> + Among the blind, who see no more than ever,<br /> + But like my voice, — I would have tossed it all<br /> + To Tophet for one man; and he was jealous.<br /> + I would have wound a snake around my neck<br /> + And then have let it bite me till I died,<br /> + If my so doing would have made me sure<br /> + That one man might have lived; and he was jealous.<br /> + I would have driven these hands into a cage<br /> + That held a thousand scorpions, and crushed them,<br /> + If only by so poisonous a trial<br /> + I could have crushed his doubt. I would have wrung<br /> + My living blood with mediaeval engines<br /> + Out of my screaming flesh, if only that<br /> + Would have made one man sure. I would have paid<br /> + For him the tiresome price of body and soul,<br /> + And let the lash of a tongue-weary town<br /> + Fall as it might upon my blistered name;<br /> + And while it fell I could have laughed at it,<br /> + Knowing that he had found out finally<br /> + Where the wrong was. But there was evil in him<br /> + That would have made no more of his possession<br /> + Than confirmation of another fault;<br /> + And there was honor — if you call it honor<br /> + That hoods itself with doubt and wears a crown<br /> + Of lead that might as well be gold and fire.<br /> + Give it as heavy or as light a name<br /> + As any there is that fits. I see myself<br /> + Without the power to swear to this or that<br /> + That I might be if he had been without it.<br /> + Whatever I might have been that I was not,<br /> + It only happened that it wasn't so.<br /> + Meanwhile, you might seem to be listening:<br /> + If you forget yourself and go to sleep,<br /> + My treasure, I shall not say this again.<br /> + Look up once more into my poor old face,<br /> + Where you see beauty, or the Lord knows what,<br /> + And say to me aloud what else there is<br /> + Than ruins in it that you most admire.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + No, there was never anything like that;<br /> + Nature has never fastened such a mask<br /> + Of radiant and impenetrable merit<br /> + On any woman as you say there is<br /> + On this one. Not a mask? I thank you, sir,<br /> + But you see more with your determination,<br /> + I fear, than with your prudence or your conscience;<br /> + And you have never met me with my eyes<br /> + In all the mirrors I've made faces at.<br /> + No, I shall never call you strange again:<br /> + You are the young and inconvincible<br /> + Epitome of all blind men since Adam.<br /> + May the blind lead the blind, if that be so?<br /> + And we shall need no mirrors? You are saying<br /> + What most I feared you might. But if the blind,<br /> + Or one of them, be not so fortunate<br /> + As to put out the eyes of recollection,<br /> + She might at last, without her meaning it,<br /> + Lead on the other, without his knowing it,<br /> + Until the two of them should lose themselves<br /> + Among dead craters in a lava-field<br /> + As empty as a desert on the moon.<br /> + I am not speaking in a theatre,<br /> + But in a room so real and so familiar<br /> + That sometimes I would wreck it. Then I pause,<br /> + Remembering there is a King in Weimar —<br /> + A monarch, and a poet, and a shepherd<br /> + Of all who are astray and are outside<br /> + The realm where they should rule. I think of him,<br /> + And save the furniture; I think of you,<br /> + And am forlorn, finding in you the one<br /> + To lavish aspirations and illusions<br /> + Upon a faded and forsaken house<br /> + Where love, being locked alone, was nigh to burning<br /> + House and himself together. Yes, you are strange,<br /> + To see in such an injured architecture<br /> + Room for new love to live in. Are you laughing?<br /> + No? Well, you are not crying, as you should be.<br /> + Tears, even if they told only gratitude<br /> + For your escape, and had no other story,<br /> + Were surely more becoming than a smile<br /> + For my unwomanly straightforwardness<br /> + In seeing for you, through my close gate of years<br /> + Your forty ways to freedom. Why do you smile?<br /> + And while I'm trembling at my faith in you<br /> + In giving you to read this book of danger<br /> + That only one man living might have written —<br /> + These letters, which have been a part of me<br /> + So long that you may read them all again<br /> + As often as you look into my face,<br /> + And hear them when I speak to you, and feel them<br /> + Whenever you have to touch me with your hand, —<br /> + Why are you so unwilling to be spared?<br /> + Why do you still believe in me? But no,<br /> + I'll find another way to ask you that.<br /> + I wonder if there is another way<br /> + That says it better, and means anything.<br /> + There is no other way that could be worse?<br /> + I was not asking you; it was myself<br /> + Alone that I was asking. Why do I dip<br /> + For lies, when there is nothing in my well<br /> + But shining truth, you say? How do you know?<br /> + Truth has a lonely life down where she lives;<br /> + And many a time, when she comes up to breathe,<br /> + She sinks before we seize her, and makes ripples.<br /> + Possibly you may know no more of me<br /> + Than a few ripples; and they may soon be gone,<br /> + Leaving you then with all my shining truth<br /> + Drowned in a shining water; and when you look<br /> + You may not see me there, but something else<br /> + That never was a woman — being yourself.<br /> + You say to me my truth is past all drowning,<br /> + And safe with you for ever? You know all that?<br /> + How do you know all that, and who has told you?<br /> + You know so much that I'm an atom frightened<br /> + Because you know so little. And what is this?<br /> + You know the luxury there is in haunting<br /> + The blasted thoroughfares of disillusion —<br /> + If that's your name for them — with only ghosts<br /> + For company? You know that when a woman<br /> + Is blessed, or cursed, with a divine impatience<br /> + (Another name of yours for a bad temper)<br /> + She must have one at hand on whom to wreak it<br /> + (That's what you mean, whatever the turn you give it),<br /> + Sure of a kindred sympathy, and thereby<br /> + Effect a mutual calm? You know that wisdom,<br /> + Given in vain to make a food for those<br /> + Who are without it, will be seen at last,<br /> + And even at last only by those who gave it,<br /> + As one or more of the forgotten crumbs<br /> + That others leave? You know that men's applause<br /> + And women's envy savor so much of dust<br /> + That I go hungry, having at home no fare<br /> + But the same changeless bread that I may swallow<br /> + Only with tears and prayers? Who told you that?<br /> + You know that if I read, and read alone,<br /> + Too many books that no men yet have written,<br /> + I may go blind, or worse? You know yourself,<br /> + Of all insistent and insidious creatures,<br /> + To be the one to save me, and to guard<br /> + For me their flaming language? And you know<br /> + That if I give much headway to the whim<br /> + That's in me never to be quite sure that even<br /> + Through all those years of storm and fire I waited<br /> + For this one rainy day, I may go on,<br /> + And on, and on alone, through smoke and ashes,<br /> + To a cold end? You know so dismal much<br /> + As that about me? . . . Well, I believe you do.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="nimmo"></a> + Nimmo<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + Since you remember Nimmo, and arrive<br /> + At such a false and florid and far drawn<br /> + Confusion of odd nonsense, I connive<br /> + No longer, though I may have led you on.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + So much is told and heard and told again,<br /> + So many with his legend are engrossed,<br /> + That I, more sorry now than I was then,<br /> + May live on to be sorry for his ghost.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + You knew him, and you must have known his eyes, —<br /> + How deep they were, and what a velvet light<br /> + Came out of them when anger or surprise,<br /> + Or laughter, or Francesca, made them bright.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + No, you will not forget such eyes, I think, —<br /> + And you say nothing of them. Very well.<br /> + I wonder if all history's worth a wink,<br /> + Sometimes, or if my tale be one to tell.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + For they began to lose their velvet light;<br /> + Their fire grew dead without and small within;<br /> + And many of you deplored the needless fight<br /> + That somewhere in the dark there must have been.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + All fights are needless, when they're not our own,<br /> + But Nimmo and Francesca never fought.<br /> + Remember that; and when you are alone,<br /> + Remember me — and think what I have thought.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Now, mind you, I say nothing of what was,<br /> + Or never was, or could or could not be:<br /> + Bring not suspicion's candle to the glass<br /> + That mirrors a friend's face to memory.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Of what you see, see all, — but see no more;<br /> + For what I show you here will not be there.<br /> + The devil has had his way with paint before,<br /> + And he's an artist, — and you needn't stare.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There was a painter and he painted well:<br /> + He'd paint you Daniel in the lions' den,<br /> + Beelzebub, Elaine, or William Tell.<br /> + I'm coming back to Nimmo's eyes again.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + The painter put the devil in those eyes,<br /> + Unless the devil did, and there he stayed;<br /> + And then the lady fled from paradise,<br /> + And there's your fact. The lady was afraid.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + She must have been afraid, or may have been,<br /> + Of evil in their velvet all the while;<br /> + But sure as I'm a sinner with a skin,<br /> + I'll trust the man as long as he can smile.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I trust him who can smile and then may live<br /> + In my heart's house, where Nimmo is today.<br /> + God knows if I have more than men forgive<br /> + To tell him; but I played, and I shall pay.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I knew him then, and if I know him yet,<br /> + I know in him, defeated and estranged,<br /> + The calm of men forbidden to forget<br /> + The calm of women who have loved and changed.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + But there are ways that are beyond our ways,<br /> + Or he would not be calm and she be mute,<br /> + As one by one their lost and empty days<br /> + Pass without even the warmth of a dispute.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + God help us all when women think they see;<br /> + God save us when they do. I'm fair; but though<br /> + I know him only as he looks to me,<br /> + I know him, — and I tell Francesca so.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And what of Nimmo? Little would you ask<br /> + Of him, could you but see him as I can,<br /> + At his bewildered and unfruitful task<br /> + Of being what he was born to be — a man.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Better forget that I said anything<br /> + Of what your tortured memory may disclose;<br /> + I know him, and your worst remembering<br /> + Would count as much as nothing, I suppose.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Meanwhile, I trust him; and I know his way<br /> + Of trusting me, as always in his youth.<br /> + I'm painting here a better man, you say,<br /> + Than I, the painter; and you say the truth.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="peace"></a> + Peace on Earth<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + He took a frayed hat from his head,<br /> + And "Peace on Earth" was what he said.<br /> + "A morsel out of what you're worth,<br /> + And there we have it: Peace on Earth.<br /> + Not much, although a little more<br /> + Than what there was on earth before.<br /> + I'm as you see, I'm Ichabod, —<br /> + But never mind the ways I've trod;<br /> + I'm sober now, so help me God."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + I could not pass the fellow by.<br /> + "Do you believe in God?" said I;<br /> + "And is there to be Peace on Earth?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Tonight we celebrate the birth,"<br /> + He said, "of One who died for men;<br /> + The Son of God, we say. What then?<br /> + Your God, or mine? I'd make you laugh<br /> + Were I to tell you even half<br /> + That I have learned of mine today<br /> + Where yours would hardly seem to stay.<br /> + Could He but follow in and out<br /> + Some anthropoids I know about,<br /> + The God to whom you may have prayed<br /> + Might see a world He never made."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Your words are flowing full," said I;<br /> + "But yet they give me no reply;<br /> + Your fountain might as well be dry."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "A wiser One than you, my friend,<br /> + Would wait and hear me to the end;<br /> + And for His eyes a light would shine<br /> + Through this unpleasant shell of mine<br /> + That in your fancy makes of me<br /> + A Christmas curiosity.<br /> + All right, I might be worse than that;<br /> + And you might now be lying flat;<br /> + I might have done it from behind,<br /> + And taken what there was to find.<br /> + Don't worry, for I'm not that kind.<br /> + `Do I believe in God?' Is that<br /> + The price tonight of a new hat?<br /> + Has He commanded that His name<br /> + Be written everywhere the same?<br /> + Have all who live in every place<br /> + Identified His hidden face?<br /> + Who knows but He may like as well<br /> + My story as one you may tell?<br /> + And if He show me there be Peace<br /> + On Earth, as there be fields and trees<br /> + Outside a jail-yard, am I wrong<br /> + If now I sing Him a new song?<br /> + Your world is in yourself, my friend,<br /> + For your endurance to the end;<br /> + And all the Peace there is on Earth<br /> + Is faith in what your world is worth,<br /> + And saying, without any lies,<br /> + Your world could not be otherwise."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "One might say that and then be shot,"<br /> + I told him; and he said: "Why not?"<br /> + I ceased, and gave him rather more<br /> + Than he was counting of my store.<br /> + "And since I have it, thanks to you,<br /> + Don't ask me what I mean to do,"<br /> + Said he. "Believe that even I<br /> + Would rather tell the truth than lie —<br /> + On Christmas Eve. No matter why."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + His unshaved, educated face,<br /> + His inextinguishable grace,<br /> + And his hard smile, are with me still,<br /> + Deplore the vision as I will;<br /> + For whatsoever he be at,<br /> + So droll a derelict as that<br /> + Should have at least another hat.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="summer"></a> + Late Summer<br /> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + (Alcaics)<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Confused, he found her lavishing feminine<br /> + Gold upon clay, and found her inscrutable;<br /> + And yet she smiled. Why, then, should horrors<br /> + Be as they were, without end, her playthings?<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And why were dead years hungrily telling her<br /> + Lies of the dead, who told them again to her?<br /> + If now she knew, there might be kindness<br /> + Clamoring yet where a faith lay stifled.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + A little faith in him, and the ruinous<br /> + Past would be for time to annihilate,<br /> + And wash out, like a tide that washes<br /> + Out of the sand what a child has drawn there.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + God, what a shining handful of happiness,<br /> + Made out of days and out of eternities,<br /> + Were now the pulsing end of patience —<br /> + Could he but have what a ghost had stolen!<br /> +</p> + +<p> + What was a man before him, or ten of them,<br /> + While he was here alive who could answer them,<br /> + And in their teeth fling confirmations<br /> + Harder than agates against an egg-shell?<br /> +</p> + +<p> + But now the man was dead, and would come again<br /> + Never, though she might honor ineffably<br /> + The flimsy wraith of him she conjured<br /> + Out of a dream with his wand of absence.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + And if the truth were now but a mummery,<br /> + Meriting pride's implacable irony,<br /> + So much the worse for pride. Moreover,<br /> + Save her or fail, there was conscience always.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Meanwhile, a few misgivings of innocence,<br /> + Imploring to be sheltered and credited,<br /> + Were not amiss when she revealed them.<br /> + Whether she struggled or not, he saw them.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Also, he saw that while she was hearing him<br /> + Her eyes had more and more of the past in them;<br /> + And while he told what cautious honor<br /> + Told him was all he had best be sure of,<br /> +</p> + +<p> + He wondered once or twice, inadvertently,<br /> + Where shifting winds were driving his argosies,<br /> + Long anchored and as long unladen,<br /> + Over the foam for the golden chances.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "If men were not for killing so carelessly,<br /> + And women were for wiser endurances,"<br /> + He said, "we might have yet a world here<br /> + Fitter for Truth to be seen abroad in;<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "If Truth were not so strange in her nakedness,<br /> + And we were less forbidden to look at it,<br /> + We might not have to look." He stared then<br /> + Down at the sand where the tide threw forward<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Its cold, unconquered lines, that unceasingly<br /> + Foamed against hope, and fell. He was calm enough,<br /> + Although he knew he might be silenced<br /> + Out of all calm; and the night was coming.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "I climb for you the peak of his infamy<br /> + That you may choose your fall if you cling to it.<br /> + No more for me unless you say more.<br /> + All you have left of a dream defends you:<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "The truth may be as evil an augury<br /> + As it was needful now for the two of us.<br /> + We cannot have the dead between us.<br /> + Tell me to go, and I go." — She pondered:<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "What you believe is right for the two of us<br /> + Makes it as right that you are not one of us.<br /> + If this be needful truth you tell me,<br /> + Spare me, and let me have lies hereafter."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + She gazed away where shadows were covering<br /> + The whole cold ocean's healing indifference.<br /> + No ship was coming. When the darkness<br /> + Fell, she was there, and alone, still gazing.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="wife"></a> + An Evangelist's Wife<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + "Why am I not myself these many days,<br /> + You ask? And have you nothing more to ask?<br /> + I do you wrong? I do not hear your praise<br /> + To God for giving you me to share your task?<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Jealous — of Her? Because her cheeks are pink,<br /> + And she has eyes? No, not if she had seven.<br /> + If you should only steal an hour to think,<br /> + Sometime, there might be less to be forgiven.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "No, you are never cruel. If once or twice<br /> + I found you so, I could applaud and sing.<br /> + Jealous of — What? You are not very wise.<br /> + Does not the good Book tell you anything?<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "In David's time poor Michal had to go.<br /> + Jealous of God? Well, if you like it so."<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="jester"></a> + The Old King's New Jester<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + You that in vain would front the coming order<br /> + With eyes that meet forlornly what they must,<br /> + And only with a furtive recognition<br /> + See dust where there is dust, —<br /> + Be sure you like it always in your faces,<br /> + Obscuring your best graces,<br /> + Blinding your speech and sight,<br /> + Before you seek again your dusty places<br /> + Where the old wrong seems right.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Longer ago than cave-men had their changes<br /> + Our fathers may have slain a son or two,<br /> + Discouraging a further dialectic<br /> + Regarding what was new;<br /> + And after their unstudied admonition<br /> + Occasional contrition<br /> + For their old-fashioned ways<br /> + May have reduced their doubts, and in addition<br /> + Softened their final days.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Farther away than feet shall ever travel<br /> + Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State;<br /> + But there are mightier things than we to lead us,<br /> + That will not let us wait.<br /> + And we go on with none to tell us whether<br /> + Or not we've each a tether<br /> + Determining how fast or far we go;<br /> + And it is well, since we must go together,<br /> + That we are not to know.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + If the old wrong and all its injured glamour<br /> + Haunts you by day and gives your night no peace,<br /> + You may as well, agreeably and serenely,<br /> + Give the new wrong its lease;<br /> + For should you nourish a too fervid yearning<br /> + For what is not returning,<br /> + The vicious and unfused ingredient<br /> + May give you qualms — and one or two concerning<br /> + The last of your content.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="lazarus"></a> + Lazarus<br /> +</h3> + +<p> + "No, Mary, there was nothing — not a word.<br /> + Nothing, and always nothing. Go again<br /> + Yourself, and he may listen — or at least<br /> + Look up at you, and let you see his eyes.<br /> + I might as well have been the sound of rain,<br /> + A wind among the cedars, or a bird;<br /> + Or nothing. Mary, make him look at you;<br /> + And even if he should say that we are nothing,<br /> + To know that you have heard him will be something.<br /> + And yet he loved us, and it was for love<br /> + The Master gave him back. Why did He wait<br /> + So long before He came? Why did He weep?<br /> + I thought He would be glad — and Lazarus —<br /> + To see us all again as He had left us —<br /> + All as it was, all as it was before."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Mary, who felt her sister's frightened arms<br /> + Like those of someone drowning who had seized her,<br /> + Fearing at last they were to fail and sink<br /> + Together in this fog-stricken sea of strangeness,<br /> + Fought sadly, with bereaved indignant eyes,<br /> + To find again the fading shores of home<br /> + That she had seen but now could see no longer.<br /> + Now she could only gaze into the twilight,<br /> + And in the dimness know that he was there,<br /> + Like someone that was not. He who had been<br /> + Their brother, and was dead, now seemed alive<br /> + Only in death again — or worse than death;<br /> + For tombs at least, always until today,<br /> + Though sad were certain. There was nothing certain<br /> + For man or God in such a day as this;<br /> + For there they were alone, and there was he —<br /> + Alone; and somewhere out of Bethany,<br /> + The Master — who had come to them so late,<br /> + Only for love of them and then so slowly,<br /> + And was for their sake hunted now by men<br /> + Who feared Him as they feared no other prey —<br /> + For the world's sake was hidden. "Better the tomb<br /> + For Lazarus than life, if this be life,"<br /> + She thought; and then to Martha, "No, my dear,"<br /> + She said aloud; "not as it was before.<br /> + Nothing is ever as it was before,<br /> + Where Time has been. Here there is more than Time;<br /> + And we that are so lonely and so far<br /> + From home, since he is with us here again,<br /> + Are farther now from him and from ourselves<br /> + Than we are from the stars. He will not speak<br /> + Until the spirit that is in him speaks;<br /> + And we must wait for all we are to know,<br /> + Or even to learn that we are not to know.<br /> + Martha, we are too near to this for knowledge,<br /> + And that is why it is that we must wait.<br /> + Our friends are coming if we call for them,<br /> + And there are covers we'll put over him<br /> + To make him warmer. We are too young, perhaps,<br /> + To say that we know better what is best<br /> + Than he. We do not know how old he is.<br /> + If you remember what the Master said,<br /> + Try to believe that we need have no fear.<br /> + Let me, the selfish and the careless one,<br /> + Be housewife and a mother for tonight;<br /> + For I am not so fearful as you are,<br /> + And I was not so eager."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Martha sank<br /> + Down at her sister's feet and there sat watching<br /> + A flower that had a small familiar name<br /> + That was as old as memory, but was not<br /> + The name of what she saw now in its brief<br /> + And infinite mystery that so frightened her<br /> + That life became a terror. Tears again<br /> + Flooded her eyes and overflowed. "No, Mary,"<br /> + She murmured slowly, hating her own words<br /> + Before she heard them, "you are not so eager<br /> + To see our brother as we see him now;<br /> + Neither is He who gave him back to us.<br /> + I was to be the simple one, as always,<br /> + And this was all for me." She stared again<br /> + Over among the trees where Lazarus,<br /> + Who seemed to be a man who was not there,<br /> + Might have been one more shadow among shadows,<br /> + If she had not remembered. Then she felt<br /> + The cool calm hands of Mary on her face,<br /> + And shivered, wondering if such hands were real.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "The Master loved you as He loved us all,<br /> + Martha; and you are saying only things<br /> + That children say when they have had no sleep.<br /> + Try somehow now to rest a little while;<br /> + You know that I am here, and that our friends<br /> + Are coming if I call."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Martha at last<br /> + Arose, and went with Mary to the door,<br /> + Where they stood looking off at the same place,<br /> + And at the same shape that was always there<br /> + As if it would not ever move or speak,<br /> + And always would be there. "Mary, go now,<br /> + Before the dark that will be coming hides him.<br /> + I am afraid of him out there alone,<br /> + Unless I see him; and I have forgotten<br /> + What sleep is. Go now — make him look at you —<br /> + And I shall hear him if he stirs or whispers.<br /> + Go! — or I'll scream and bring all Bethany<br /> + To come and make him speak. Make him say once<br /> + That he is glad, and God may say the rest.<br /> + Though He say I shall sleep, and sleep for ever,<br /> + I shall not care for that . . . Go!"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Mary, moving<br /> + Almost as if an angry child had pushed her,<br /> + Went forward a few steps; and having waited<br /> + As long as Martha's eyes would look at hers,<br /> + Went forward a few more, and a few more;<br /> + And so, until she came to Lazarus,<br /> + Who crouched with his face hidden in his hands,<br /> + Like one that had no face. Before she spoke,<br /> + Feeling her sister's eyes that were behind her<br /> + As if the door where Martha stood were now<br /> + As far from her as Egypt, Mary turned<br /> + Once more to see that she was there. Then, softly,<br /> + Fearing him not so much as wondering<br /> + What his first word might be, said, "Lazarus,<br /> + Forgive us if we seemed afraid of you;"<br /> + And having spoken, pitied her poor speech<br /> + That had so little seeming gladness in it,<br /> + So little comfort, and so little love.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + There was no sign from him that he had heard,<br /> + Or that he knew that she was there, or cared<br /> + Whether she spoke to him again or died<br /> + There at his feet. "We love you, Lazarus,<br /> + And we are not afraid. The Master said<br /> + We need not be afraid. Will you not say<br /> + To me that you are glad? Look, Lazarus!<br /> + Look at my face, and see me. This is Mary."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + She found his hands and held them. They were cool,<br /> + Like hers, but they were not so calm as hers.<br /> + Through the white robes in which his friends had wrapped him<br /> + When he had groped out of that awful sleep,<br /> + She felt him trembling and she was afraid.<br /> + At last he sighed; and she prayed hungrily<br /> + To God that she might have again the voice<br /> + Of Lazarus, whose hands were giving her now<br /> + The recognition of a living pressure<br /> + That was almost a language. When he spoke,<br /> + Only one word that she had waited for<br /> + Came from his lips, and that word was her name.<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "I heard them saying, Mary, that He wept<br /> + Before I woke." The words were low and shaken,<br /> + Yet Mary knew that he who uttered them<br /> + Was Lazarus; and that would be enough<br /> + Until there should be more . . . "Who made Him come,<br /> + That He should weep for me? . . . Was it you, Mary?"<br /> + The questions held in his incredulous eyes<br /> + Were more than she would see. She looked away;<br /> + But she had felt them and should feel for ever,<br /> + She thought, their cold and lonely desperation<br /> + That had the bitterness of all cold things<br /> + That were not cruel. "I should have wept," he said,<br /> + "If I had been the Master. . . ."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Now she could feel<br /> + His hands above her hair — the same black hair<br /> + That once he made a jest of, praising it,<br /> + While Martha's busy eyes had left their work<br /> + To flash with laughing envy. Nothing of that<br /> + Was to be theirs again; and such a thought<br /> + Was like the flying by of a quick bird<br /> + Seen through a shadowy doorway in the twilight.<br /> + For now she felt his hands upon her head,<br /> + Like weights of kindness: "I forgive you, Mary. . . .<br /> + You did not know — Martha could not have known —<br /> + Only the Master knew. . . . Where is He now?<br /> + Yes, I remember. They came after Him.<br /> + May the good God forgive Him. . . . I forgive Him.<br /> + I must; and I may know only from Him<br /> + The burden of all this. . . . Martha was here —<br /> + But I was not yet here. She was afraid. . . .<br /> + Why did He do it, Mary? Was it — you?<br /> + Was it for you? . . . Where are the friends I saw?<br /> + Yes, I remember. They all went away.<br /> + I made them go away. . . . Where is He now? . . .<br /> + What do I see down there? Do I see Martha —<br /> + Down by the door? . . . I must have time for this."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Lazarus looked about him fearfully,<br /> + And then again at Mary, who discovered<br /> + Awakening apprehension in his eyes,<br /> + And shivered at his feet. All she had feared<br /> + Was here; and only in the slow reproach<br /> + Of his forgiveness lived his gratitude.<br /> + Why had he asked if it was all for her<br /> + That he was here? And what had Martha meant?<br /> + Why had the Master waited? What was coming<br /> + To Lazarus, and to them, that had not come?<br /> + What had the Master seen before He came,<br /> + That He had come so late?<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Where is He, Mary?"<br /> + Lazarus asked again. "Where did He go?"<br /> + Once more he gazed about him, and once more<br /> + At Mary for an answer. "Have they found Him?<br /> + Or did He go away because He wished<br /> + Never to look into my eyes again? . . .<br /> + That, I could understand. . . . Where is He, Mary?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "I do not know," she said. "Yet in my heart<br /> + I know that He is living, as you are living —<br /> + Living, and here. He is not far from us.<br /> + He will come back to us and find us all —<br /> + Lazarus, Martha, Mary — everything —<br /> + All as it was before. Martha said that.<br /> + And He said we were not to be afraid."<br /> + Lazarus closed his eyes while on his face<br /> + A tortured adumbration of a smile<br /> + Flickered an instant. "All as it was before,"<br /> + He murmured wearily. "Martha said that;<br /> + And He said you were not to be afraid . . .<br /> + Not you . . . Not you . . . Why should you be afraid?<br /> + Give all your little fears, and Martha's with them,<br /> + To me; and I will add them unto mine,<br /> + Like a few rain-drops to Gennesaret."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "If you had frightened me in other ways,<br /> + Not willing it," Mary said, "I should have known<br /> + You still for Lazarus. But who is this?<br /> + Tell me again that you are Lazarus;<br /> + And tell me if the Master gave to you<br /> + No sign of a new joy that shall be coming<br /> + To this house that He loved. Are you afraid?<br /> + Are you afraid, who have felt everything —<br /> + And seen . . . ?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + But Lazarus only shook his head,<br /> + Staring with his bewildered shining eyes<br /> + Hard into Mary's face. "I do not know,<br /> + Mary," he said, after a long time.<br /> + "When I came back, I knew the Master's eyes<br /> + Were looking into mine. I looked at His,<br /> + And there was more in them than I could see.<br /> + At first I could see nothing but His eyes;<br /> + Nothing else anywhere was to be seen —<br /> + Only His eyes. And they looked into mine —<br /> + Long into mine, Mary, as if He knew."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + Mary began to be afraid of words<br /> + As she had never been afraid before<br /> + Of loneliness or darkness, or of death,<br /> + But now she must have more of them or die:<br /> + "He cannot know that there is worse than death,"<br /> + She said. "And you . . ."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "Yes, there is worse than death."<br /> + Said Lazarus; "and that was what He knew;<br /> + And that is what it was that I could see<br /> + This morning in his eyes. I was afraid,<br /> + But not as you are. There is worse than death,<br /> + Mary; and there is nothing that is good<br /> + For you in dying while you are still here.<br /> + Mary, never go back to that again.<br /> + You would not hear me if I told you more,<br /> + For I should say it only in a language<br /> + That you are not to learn by going back.<br /> + To be a child again is to go forward —<br /> + And that is much to know. Many grow old,<br /> + And fade, and go away, not knowing how much<br /> + That is to know. Mary, the night is coming,<br /> + And there will soon be darkness all around you.<br /> + Let us go down where Martha waits for us,<br /> + And let there be light shining in this house."<br /> +</p> + +<p> + He rose, but Mary would not let him go:<br /> + "Martha, when she came back from here, said only<br /> + That she heard nothing. And have you no more<br /> + For Mary now than you had then for Martha?<br /> + Is Nothing, Lazarus, all you have for me?<br /> + Was Nothing all you found where you have been?<br /> + If that be so, what is there worse than that —<br /> + Or better — if that be so? And why should you,<br /> + With even our love, go the same dark road over?"<br /> +</p> + +<p> + "I could not answer that, if that were so,"<br /> + Said Lazarus, — "not even if I were God.<br /> + Why should He care whether I came or stayed,<br /> + If that were so? Why should the Master weep —<br /> + For me, or for the world, — or save Himself<br /> + Longer for nothing? And if that were so,<br /> + Why should a few years' more mortality<br /> + Make Him a fugitive where flight were needless,<br /> + Had He but held his peace and given his nod<br /> + To an old Law that would be new as any?<br /> + I cannot say the answer to all that;<br /> + Though I may say that He is not afraid,<br /> + And that it is not for the joy there is<br /> + In serving an eternal Ignorance<br /> + Of our futility that He is here.<br /> + Is that what you and Martha mean by Nothing?<br /> + Is that what you are fearing? If that be so,<br /> + There are more weeds than lentils in your garden.<br /> + And one whose weeds are laughing at his harvest<br /> + May as well have no garden; for not there<br /> + Shall he be gleaning the few bits and orts<br /> + Of life that are to save him. For my part,<br /> + I am again with you, here among shadows<br /> + That will not always be so dark as this;<br /> + Though now I see there's yet an evil in me<br /> + That made me let you be afraid of me.<br /> + No, I was not afraid — not even of life.<br /> + I thought I was . . . I must have time for this;<br /> + And all the time there is will not be long.<br /> + I cannot tell you what the Master saw<br /> + This morning in my eyes. I do not know.<br /> + I cannot yet say how far I have gone,<br /> + Or why it is that I am here again,<br /> + Or where the old road leads. I do not know.<br /> + I know that when I did come back, I saw<br /> + His eyes again among the trees and faces —<br /> + Only His eyes; and they looked into mine —<br /> + Long into mine — long, long, as if He knew."<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1040 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + |