To the archangels and the fiery seedOf mad Prometheus, fighting gods for men,And heaven for earth, this greeting:I led you once, I taught you, am the sireOf hosts of you, but fellow to you all.And when I fell, was chained upon this bedBy adamantine sickness, then I layAnd had you in my thought hour after hour,Day after day, and saw you in dreams by nightStill fighting, bleeding, caring for the fallen,Or objurgating heaven for the curseIt sheds on men, or arming for the frayWith steel of resisting thought; and so the senseOf my responsibility has weighedUpon me as my night has deftly dawnedTo something clearer than the soul you knew,Who led you once, with breath of iron horns,Called to you: Charge! there is the trench of greed!Avenge the poor! bring justice! purge the stateOf fraud! And so I lay and thought of youStill guarding the old lines, fighting the old fights,While I was changed, was not your leader now,Cared no more for your battles, save as strifeThat leads up higher, for upon my wallI woke to see these words: He only winsHis freedom and existence who each dayConquers them newly. How can I tell youWhat has come over me?You walk through galleries,Devour the pictures in the different rooms,Then gaze about you where you stand at lastAmid supernal canvases of light.Try to recall the pictures you have studied,What you have seen has helped you to perceiveThe final beauties, but is blurred in mind,It has been lived, has lost its vital power,Is not the sovereign moment.Climb a mountainThe whole day through, and at the time of starsStand on a peak and search infinity!You have forgot the valleys, save perhapsThe torment of the flies of which you’re freedIn these cool heights.So age cannot recallThe thrill and intimate complexitiesThat made the thought of youth. A sickness comes:One has been metamorphosed, cannot liveThe old emotions, habits, old delights.And as for that we change each day and allOur yesterdays are chrysalises whenceWe crawled to what we are. In short, archangels,I have become another soul. Now listen:I have seen things I cannot tell you of.I have gained understandings past my powerTo give you clearly; yet upon me restsThe teasing call to tell you, here I lieRevolving this new task of leadership.How shall I make you see I have not failed you?Not really played a treasonous soul to you?Not scorned the cause I gave you, kept you in?Or damned you for, or made you suffer for?I railed at heaven, I instructed youTo rail as well. How can you understandI now accept the fate? Will you despise meFor saying this? Or will you say diseaseHas weakened me, cooled off the fire of soulAnd damped my courage? Then go on your wayTo find a worthier leader?So to doubtI taught you once, but now my mind believes.And to deny the order of the worldI gave you words, now I affirm the plan.To fight against the gods in man’s behalf,I made my leadership. Now I perceiveThe cause of gods and men made one. You seeIt is not individual gain that countsIn these external benefits of freedomAnd satisfaction of material wants,That counts so much, I say, as inner chainsStruck from the wrists, and inner scales peeled offFrom inner eyes. I grant the human cause,And say this,—Can I make you understand?To give you proof my heart is with you yetLet me reveal my sacrifice.SupposeYou’ve found a truth that others knew before you,Seen, let us say, the cat, as single taxersAre wont to say? You hunt up some adherentWho’s labored with you, tell him, “I’m convinced,I see the cat at last.” You want to shareYour joy with some one, want his dragging hopeTo hear you have arrived. And so with meI hungered to communicate my visionTo some one who had seen it, and who knewIts meaning, what it meant to me.But thenYou archangels and hot Promethean seedEach time I thought of making the confessionTo some delighted spirit, ranged yourselvesIn thought around my sick bed, with contempt,Or pained compassion written on your brows,And words like these: He has deserted us,He has surrendered, cringed before the gods.And so my sacrifice is this: You’ll beThe first to know my second birth, you canIn such case never charge it up to fear,Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spiritThat lost the human touch through the effectsOf some delirium. What mind so clear,Or will so strong to die with this denialFor your sakes? For it may be best for youTo live the rebel out of you. And ifYou thought—at least I fear it—if you thoughtI had gone over to the hosts you hate,As you are now, through weakness, made my peaceWith heaven, as you’d call it, just to saveMy wretched self, you’d have a mad regret,A fine disgust to work through, added laborTo all you must achieve. That’s why I die,And seal this message. Break it on the dayThey make me ashes!
To the archangels and the fiery seedOf mad Prometheus, fighting gods for men,And heaven for earth, this greeting:I led you once, I taught you, am the sireOf hosts of you, but fellow to you all.And when I fell, was chained upon this bedBy adamantine sickness, then I layAnd had you in my thought hour after hour,Day after day, and saw you in dreams by nightStill fighting, bleeding, caring for the fallen,Or objurgating heaven for the curseIt sheds on men, or arming for the frayWith steel of resisting thought; and so the senseOf my responsibility has weighedUpon me as my night has deftly dawnedTo something clearer than the soul you knew,Who led you once, with breath of iron horns,Called to you: Charge! there is the trench of greed!Avenge the poor! bring justice! purge the stateOf fraud! And so I lay and thought of youStill guarding the old lines, fighting the old fights,While I was changed, was not your leader now,Cared no more for your battles, save as strifeThat leads up higher, for upon my wallI woke to see these words: He only winsHis freedom and existence who each dayConquers them newly. How can I tell youWhat has come over me?You walk through galleries,Devour the pictures in the different rooms,Then gaze about you where you stand at lastAmid supernal canvases of light.Try to recall the pictures you have studied,What you have seen has helped you to perceiveThe final beauties, but is blurred in mind,It has been lived, has lost its vital power,Is not the sovereign moment.Climb a mountainThe whole day through, and at the time of starsStand on a peak and search infinity!You have forgot the valleys, save perhapsThe torment of the flies of which you’re freedIn these cool heights.So age cannot recallThe thrill and intimate complexitiesThat made the thought of youth. A sickness comes:One has been metamorphosed, cannot liveThe old emotions, habits, old delights.And as for that we change each day and allOur yesterdays are chrysalises whenceWe crawled to what we are. In short, archangels,I have become another soul. Now listen:I have seen things I cannot tell you of.I have gained understandings past my powerTo give you clearly; yet upon me restsThe teasing call to tell you, here I lieRevolving this new task of leadership.How shall I make you see I have not failed you?Not really played a treasonous soul to you?Not scorned the cause I gave you, kept you in?Or damned you for, or made you suffer for?I railed at heaven, I instructed youTo rail as well. How can you understandI now accept the fate? Will you despise meFor saying this? Or will you say diseaseHas weakened me, cooled off the fire of soulAnd damped my courage? Then go on your wayTo find a worthier leader?So to doubtI taught you once, but now my mind believes.And to deny the order of the worldI gave you words, now I affirm the plan.To fight against the gods in man’s behalf,I made my leadership. Now I perceiveThe cause of gods and men made one. You seeIt is not individual gain that countsIn these external benefits of freedomAnd satisfaction of material wants,That counts so much, I say, as inner chainsStruck from the wrists, and inner scales peeled offFrom inner eyes. I grant the human cause,And say this,—Can I make you understand?To give you proof my heart is with you yetLet me reveal my sacrifice.SupposeYou’ve found a truth that others knew before you,Seen, let us say, the cat, as single taxersAre wont to say? You hunt up some adherentWho’s labored with you, tell him, “I’m convinced,I see the cat at last.” You want to shareYour joy with some one, want his dragging hopeTo hear you have arrived. And so with meI hungered to communicate my visionTo some one who had seen it, and who knewIts meaning, what it meant to me.But thenYou archangels and hot Promethean seedEach time I thought of making the confessionTo some delighted spirit, ranged yourselvesIn thought around my sick bed, with contempt,Or pained compassion written on your brows,And words like these: He has deserted us,He has surrendered, cringed before the gods.And so my sacrifice is this: You’ll beThe first to know my second birth, you canIn such case never charge it up to fear,Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spiritThat lost the human touch through the effectsOf some delirium. What mind so clear,Or will so strong to die with this denialFor your sakes? For it may be best for youTo live the rebel out of you. And ifYou thought—at least I fear it—if you thoughtI had gone over to the hosts you hate,As you are now, through weakness, made my peaceWith heaven, as you’d call it, just to saveMy wretched self, you’d have a mad regret,A fine disgust to work through, added laborTo all you must achieve. That’s why I die,And seal this message. Break it on the dayThey make me ashes!
To the archangels and the fiery seedOf mad Prometheus, fighting gods for men,And heaven for earth, this greeting:I led you once, I taught you, am the sireOf hosts of you, but fellow to you all.And when I fell, was chained upon this bedBy adamantine sickness, then I layAnd had you in my thought hour after hour,Day after day, and saw you in dreams by nightStill fighting, bleeding, caring for the fallen,Or objurgating heaven for the curseIt sheds on men, or arming for the frayWith steel of resisting thought; and so the senseOf my responsibility has weighedUpon me as my night has deftly dawnedTo something clearer than the soul you knew,Who led you once, with breath of iron horns,Called to you: Charge! there is the trench of greed!Avenge the poor! bring justice! purge the stateOf fraud! And so I lay and thought of youStill guarding the old lines, fighting the old fights,While I was changed, was not your leader now,Cared no more for your battles, save as strifeThat leads up higher, for upon my wallI woke to see these words: He only winsHis freedom and existence who each dayConquers them newly. How can I tell youWhat has come over me?
You walk through galleries,Devour the pictures in the different rooms,Then gaze about you where you stand at lastAmid supernal canvases of light.Try to recall the pictures you have studied,What you have seen has helped you to perceiveThe final beauties, but is blurred in mind,It has been lived, has lost its vital power,Is not the sovereign moment.
Climb a mountainThe whole day through, and at the time of starsStand on a peak and search infinity!You have forgot the valleys, save perhapsThe torment of the flies of which you’re freedIn these cool heights.
So age cannot recallThe thrill and intimate complexitiesThat made the thought of youth. A sickness comes:One has been metamorphosed, cannot liveThe old emotions, habits, old delights.And as for that we change each day and allOur yesterdays are chrysalises whenceWe crawled to what we are. In short, archangels,I have become another soul. Now listen:
I have seen things I cannot tell you of.I have gained understandings past my powerTo give you clearly; yet upon me restsThe teasing call to tell you, here I lieRevolving this new task of leadership.How shall I make you see I have not failed you?Not really played a treasonous soul to you?Not scorned the cause I gave you, kept you in?Or damned you for, or made you suffer for?I railed at heaven, I instructed youTo rail as well. How can you understandI now accept the fate? Will you despise meFor saying this? Or will you say diseaseHas weakened me, cooled off the fire of soulAnd damped my courage? Then go on your wayTo find a worthier leader?
So to doubtI taught you once, but now my mind believes.And to deny the order of the worldI gave you words, now I affirm the plan.To fight against the gods in man’s behalf,I made my leadership. Now I perceiveThe cause of gods and men made one. You seeIt is not individual gain that countsIn these external benefits of freedomAnd satisfaction of material wants,That counts so much, I say, as inner chainsStruck from the wrists, and inner scales peeled offFrom inner eyes. I grant the human cause,And say this,—Can I make you understand?To give you proof my heart is with you yetLet me reveal my sacrifice.
SupposeYou’ve found a truth that others knew before you,Seen, let us say, the cat, as single taxersAre wont to say? You hunt up some adherentWho’s labored with you, tell him, “I’m convinced,I see the cat at last.” You want to shareYour joy with some one, want his dragging hopeTo hear you have arrived. And so with meI hungered to communicate my visionTo some one who had seen it, and who knewIts meaning, what it meant to me.
But thenYou archangels and hot Promethean seedEach time I thought of making the confessionTo some delighted spirit, ranged yourselvesIn thought around my sick bed, with contempt,Or pained compassion written on your brows,And words like these: He has deserted us,He has surrendered, cringed before the gods.And so my sacrifice is this: You’ll beThe first to know my second birth, you canIn such case never charge it up to fear,Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spiritThat lost the human touch through the effectsOf some delirium. What mind so clear,Or will so strong to die with this denialFor your sakes? For it may be best for youTo live the rebel out of you. And ifYou thought—at least I fear it—if you thoughtI had gone over to the hosts you hate,As you are now, through weakness, made my peaceWith heaven, as you’d call it, just to saveMy wretched self, you’d have a mad regret,A fine disgust to work through, added laborTo all you must achieve. That’s why I die,And seal this message. Break it on the dayThey make me ashes!
Sealed in a cocoon-cradle of white silk,Locked fast in sleep;Or bound for years as a chrysalid, while the neapCreative tides rise to the spring and sloughThe torn strands and the golden pupa stuff,You tear wings free for the connubial flight—Break suddenly the embryo trance, drift off,Whole troops of you in a looped and colorful clutterWobbling like leaves in a fresh wind’s delight.And over clover meadows in a flutter,Or through sweet scented hollows,You seek the expectant mate,And the mad moment where life turns to death,And both become one essence and one breath,One undivided fate.Together you flyDrunken with life, yet mad to die,Since soul achievement is death after all,All rivals for the wedding festival.Yet only one of you can win the prize;The rest shall sink exhausted in defeat,While the triumphant bridegroom diesIn his own rapture and creative fire—All perish in the flame of their desire.For none of you is given strength to liveBeyond the quest, or the hymeneal kiss;The disappointed perishOne wins his joy, but may not keep or cherishThe moment which contains it, sudden doomFalls on the winner of his blissAnd on the wings that quiver their frustration.Bombyx! to have more life than is enoughTo win the mate, achieve the one success,And on that life to mount and half surveyThe universe—Build cities with it, letter precious scrolls,Plan for the race to be and have the visionTo labor for of ages half elysian,Is that a benediction or a curse?Is it a good or evil to have strengthTo soar beyond the sun, or planets evenIf none of us at lengthReach heaven?If none of our infatuate soulsSip the bright fire of God?If it be all a flying in a dream,A lying down at last in deeper night,To enrich the prodigal sod,To breed new wingsFor the same flight?
Sealed in a cocoon-cradle of white silk,Locked fast in sleep;Or bound for years as a chrysalid, while the neapCreative tides rise to the spring and sloughThe torn strands and the golden pupa stuff,You tear wings free for the connubial flight—Break suddenly the embryo trance, drift off,Whole troops of you in a looped and colorful clutterWobbling like leaves in a fresh wind’s delight.And over clover meadows in a flutter,Or through sweet scented hollows,You seek the expectant mate,And the mad moment where life turns to death,And both become one essence and one breath,One undivided fate.Together you flyDrunken with life, yet mad to die,Since soul achievement is death after all,All rivals for the wedding festival.Yet only one of you can win the prize;The rest shall sink exhausted in defeat,While the triumphant bridegroom diesIn his own rapture and creative fire—All perish in the flame of their desire.For none of you is given strength to liveBeyond the quest, or the hymeneal kiss;The disappointed perishOne wins his joy, but may not keep or cherishThe moment which contains it, sudden doomFalls on the winner of his blissAnd on the wings that quiver their frustration.Bombyx! to have more life than is enoughTo win the mate, achieve the one success,And on that life to mount and half surveyThe universe—Build cities with it, letter precious scrolls,Plan for the race to be and have the visionTo labor for of ages half elysian,Is that a benediction or a curse?Is it a good or evil to have strengthTo soar beyond the sun, or planets evenIf none of us at lengthReach heaven?If none of our infatuate soulsSip the bright fire of God?If it be all a flying in a dream,A lying down at last in deeper night,To enrich the prodigal sod,To breed new wingsFor the same flight?
Sealed in a cocoon-cradle of white silk,Locked fast in sleep;Or bound for years as a chrysalid, while the neapCreative tides rise to the spring and sloughThe torn strands and the golden pupa stuff,You tear wings free for the connubial flight—Break suddenly the embryo trance, drift off,Whole troops of you in a looped and colorful clutterWobbling like leaves in a fresh wind’s delight.And over clover meadows in a flutter,Or through sweet scented hollows,You seek the expectant mate,And the mad moment where life turns to death,And both become one essence and one breath,One undivided fate.
Together you flyDrunken with life, yet mad to die,Since soul achievement is death after all,All rivals for the wedding festival.Yet only one of you can win the prize;The rest shall sink exhausted in defeat,While the triumphant bridegroom diesIn his own rapture and creative fire—All perish in the flame of their desire.
For none of you is given strength to liveBeyond the quest, or the hymeneal kiss;The disappointed perishOne wins his joy, but may not keep or cherishThe moment which contains it, sudden doomFalls on the winner of his blissAnd on the wings that quiver their frustration.
Bombyx! to have more life than is enoughTo win the mate, achieve the one success,And on that life to mount and half surveyThe universe—Build cities with it, letter precious scrolls,Plan for the race to be and have the visionTo labor for of ages half elysian,Is that a benediction or a curse?Is it a good or evil to have strengthTo soar beyond the sun, or planets evenIf none of us at lengthReach heaven?If none of our infatuate soulsSip the bright fire of God?If it be all a flying in a dream,A lying down at last in deeper night,To enrich the prodigal sod,To breed new wingsFor the same flight?
Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered isfinished.May the grace of Diana be with you in strength undiminished.Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were wrought in with stipples.The Ephesian goddess is nature and these are her bountiful nipples.So then do I fear for my trade? No, never! It’s past my conceiving.There’ll be work for the artist while gods change to win our believing.Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry and tell us and show us—Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never was known in Corinth or Troas.They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble a story that palters.Well, I whistle and hammer the silver, a maker of statues and altars.Who says I am wroth lest in Samothrace, Lystra and DelosThe craft of the maker of images fail through the speech of these fellows?And the temple of Artemis perish? Oh, well, however they hate usCan they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch Herostratus?But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty and wonder—Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and roaring of thunder!Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar is older!If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes of her temples’ beholder!For centuries gone—when these Jews prayed to serpents of bronze and calves that were goldenIn Ephesus, Arcady, Athens, our reverent love was beholdenTo the goddess of prophecy, music, the lyre, of light, inspiration,Who guarded and watches the city and lays the foundationOf nations and laws. What works we have done, yea still we would heed her—And look at your barbarous ark in your temple of jewels and cedar!What is our pollution, our idols, our sacrificed things which are strangled?I ask you already divided in turbulent parties who wrangledConcerning salvation of God to the faith of the uncircumcisionIn Cyprus and Paphos, where poets of love keep the Hellenic vision.I am filled with my loathing! Oh keep me a Greek though you make me a whoreson,When the worship of beauty is dead you may pare off my foreskin.When the symbol is dead which I mould to Diana our goddessI’ll retire to the country of Nod, no matter where Nod is.It will live when your temples are built, if any are builded,And Jesus in silver is nailed on a cross which is gilded.And touching this thing is it different to worship a man or abstraction?Or an idol of silver or stone?—go talk to your spirit’s distraction!Areopagus listened to Paul, I am told, for Athens is spendingHer time, as of old, in weighing new things and attending.They heard him in silence! Let his arguments pass uncorrected—Why, Plato had told us of Er from the dead resurrected!Now, mark me! For showing the wisdom, compassion of poets and sagesThat silence like lightning will aureole Paul to the end of the ages.Oh Athens, who set up that shrine, do you think it was just superstitionWhich carved for all passers to see that profoundest inscription:To the unknown God? Do you think it was cowardice even?Make altars and gods as you will, unknown is the planeted heaven.And we who are richest in gods—have exhausted all thought in creatingBoth symbols and shapes for interpreted loving and hatingStill sense the Unknown, though in blindness, in love as in dutyWould worship it most—the Unknown is the ultimate beauty.Yes, Athens who set up the altar and chiseled the worshipful lettersTo the Unknown God—what ignorance fastened with fettersDid you loosen, oh wonder of Tarsus, how help their unknowingWho told them he dwelt not in temples, nor needed the flowingOf prayers from men’s hearts—the Giver of life and of all things, and seeingHe is lord of the heavens, in whom we are living and having our being.So quoting our poet who centuries since with the monarch GonatasLived and wrote the Phaenomena, known to the Greeks as Aratus.And yet Hyacinthus I pity this Paul for profoundest compassionOf Jesus before him. This sky and this earth I can fashionThrough mystical wonder or fear to the Sphinx or the Minotaur dreaded.There’s Persephone dying and rising, and Cerberus the dog many-headed.We have thought it all through! Yet I say if a virtue ElysianResides in the doctrine I’ll leave off the goddess Ephesian;Sell my tools, shut my shop, worship God in a way that is safer,Make the Unknown the known! Have they shown you a magical wafer?
Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered isfinished.May the grace of Diana be with you in strength undiminished.Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were wrought in with stipples.The Ephesian goddess is nature and these are her bountiful nipples.So then do I fear for my trade? No, never! It’s past my conceiving.There’ll be work for the artist while gods change to win our believing.Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry and tell us and show us—Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never was known in Corinth or Troas.They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble a story that palters.Well, I whistle and hammer the silver, a maker of statues and altars.Who says I am wroth lest in Samothrace, Lystra and DelosThe craft of the maker of images fail through the speech of these fellows?And the temple of Artemis perish? Oh, well, however they hate usCan they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch Herostratus?But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty and wonder—Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and roaring of thunder!Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar is older!If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes of her temples’ beholder!For centuries gone—when these Jews prayed to serpents of bronze and calves that were goldenIn Ephesus, Arcady, Athens, our reverent love was beholdenTo the goddess of prophecy, music, the lyre, of light, inspiration,Who guarded and watches the city and lays the foundationOf nations and laws. What works we have done, yea still we would heed her—And look at your barbarous ark in your temple of jewels and cedar!What is our pollution, our idols, our sacrificed things which are strangled?I ask you already divided in turbulent parties who wrangledConcerning salvation of God to the faith of the uncircumcisionIn Cyprus and Paphos, where poets of love keep the Hellenic vision.I am filled with my loathing! Oh keep me a Greek though you make me a whoreson,When the worship of beauty is dead you may pare off my foreskin.When the symbol is dead which I mould to Diana our goddessI’ll retire to the country of Nod, no matter where Nod is.It will live when your temples are built, if any are builded,And Jesus in silver is nailed on a cross which is gilded.And touching this thing is it different to worship a man or abstraction?Or an idol of silver or stone?—go talk to your spirit’s distraction!Areopagus listened to Paul, I am told, for Athens is spendingHer time, as of old, in weighing new things and attending.They heard him in silence! Let his arguments pass uncorrected—Why, Plato had told us of Er from the dead resurrected!Now, mark me! For showing the wisdom, compassion of poets and sagesThat silence like lightning will aureole Paul to the end of the ages.Oh Athens, who set up that shrine, do you think it was just superstitionWhich carved for all passers to see that profoundest inscription:To the unknown God? Do you think it was cowardice even?Make altars and gods as you will, unknown is the planeted heaven.And we who are richest in gods—have exhausted all thought in creatingBoth symbols and shapes for interpreted loving and hatingStill sense the Unknown, though in blindness, in love as in dutyWould worship it most—the Unknown is the ultimate beauty.Yes, Athens who set up the altar and chiseled the worshipful lettersTo the Unknown God—what ignorance fastened with fettersDid you loosen, oh wonder of Tarsus, how help their unknowingWho told them he dwelt not in temples, nor needed the flowingOf prayers from men’s hearts—the Giver of life and of all things, and seeingHe is lord of the heavens, in whom we are living and having our being.So quoting our poet who centuries since with the monarch GonatasLived and wrote the Phaenomena, known to the Greeks as Aratus.And yet Hyacinthus I pity this Paul for profoundest compassionOf Jesus before him. This sky and this earth I can fashionThrough mystical wonder or fear to the Sphinx or the Minotaur dreaded.There’s Persephone dying and rising, and Cerberus the dog many-headed.We have thought it all through! Yet I say if a virtue ElysianResides in the doctrine I’ll leave off the goddess Ephesian;Sell my tools, shut my shop, worship God in a way that is safer,Make the Unknown the known! Have they shown you a magical wafer?
Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered isfinished.May the grace of Diana be with you in strength undiminished.
Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were wrought in with stipples.The Ephesian goddess is nature and these are her bountiful nipples.
So then do I fear for my trade? No, never! It’s past my conceiving.There’ll be work for the artist while gods change to win our believing.
Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry and tell us and show us—Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never was known in Corinth or Troas.
They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble a story that palters.Well, I whistle and hammer the silver, a maker of statues and altars.
Who says I am wroth lest in Samothrace, Lystra and DelosThe craft of the maker of images fail through the speech of these fellows?
And the temple of Artemis perish? Oh, well, however they hate usCan they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch Herostratus?
But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty and wonder—Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and roaring of thunder!
Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar is older!If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes of her temples’ beholder!
For centuries gone—when these Jews prayed to serpents of bronze and calves that were goldenIn Ephesus, Arcady, Athens, our reverent love was beholden
To the goddess of prophecy, music, the lyre, of light, inspiration,Who guarded and watches the city and lays the foundationOf nations and laws. What works we have done, yea still we would heed her—And look at your barbarous ark in your temple of jewels and cedar!
What is our pollution, our idols, our sacrificed things which are strangled?I ask you already divided in turbulent parties who wrangled
Concerning salvation of God to the faith of the uncircumcisionIn Cyprus and Paphos, where poets of love keep the Hellenic vision.
I am filled with my loathing! Oh keep me a Greek though you make me a whoreson,When the worship of beauty is dead you may pare off my foreskin.
When the symbol is dead which I mould to Diana our goddessI’ll retire to the country of Nod, no matter where Nod is.
It will live when your temples are built, if any are builded,And Jesus in silver is nailed on a cross which is gilded.
And touching this thing is it different to worship a man or abstraction?Or an idol of silver or stone?—go talk to your spirit’s distraction!
Areopagus listened to Paul, I am told, for Athens is spendingHer time, as of old, in weighing new things and attending.
They heard him in silence! Let his arguments pass uncorrected—Why, Plato had told us of Er from the dead resurrected!
Now, mark me! For showing the wisdom, compassion of poets and sagesThat silence like lightning will aureole Paul to the end of the ages.
Oh Athens, who set up that shrine, do you think it was just superstitionWhich carved for all passers to see that profoundest inscription:
To the unknown God? Do you think it was cowardice even?Make altars and gods as you will, unknown is the planeted heaven.
And we who are richest in gods—have exhausted all thought in creatingBoth symbols and shapes for interpreted loving and hating
Still sense the Unknown, though in blindness, in love as in dutyWould worship it most—the Unknown is the ultimate beauty.
Yes, Athens who set up the altar and chiseled the worshipful lettersTo the Unknown God—what ignorance fastened with fetters
Did you loosen, oh wonder of Tarsus, how help their unknowingWho told them he dwelt not in temples, nor needed the flowing
Of prayers from men’s hearts—the Giver of life and of all things, and seeingHe is lord of the heavens, in whom we are living and having our being.
So quoting our poet who centuries since with the monarch GonatasLived and wrote the Phaenomena, known to the Greeks as Aratus.
And yet Hyacinthus I pity this Paul for profoundest compassionOf Jesus before him. This sky and this earth I can fashion
Through mystical wonder or fear to the Sphinx or the Minotaur dreaded.There’s Persephone dying and rising, and Cerberus the dog many-headed.
We have thought it all through! Yet I say if a virtue ElysianResides in the doctrine I’ll leave off the goddess Ephesian;
Sell my tools, shut my shop, worship God in a way that is safer,Make the Unknown the known! Have they shown you a magical wafer?
There was slight rain that afternoon,And tempest in the apple trees;But as the sun went down the moonSailed swiftly to a western breeze.Day kindled something in your blood,Your fancies roved with dove and hawk;There was no promise in your moodNor soft assurance in your talk.I felt you might mislead my trustAnd slight a love too surely yours;You were so wild, I felt you mustBe kindred to the woods and moors.But when we passed the orchard throughThe dusk had crept into the sky;Your eyes betrayed a dream which grewUntil I thought I heard you sigh.You were an ardent star that waitedFor night to be yourself and showHow surely afternoon had fatedA love that nothing could forego.
There was slight rain that afternoon,And tempest in the apple trees;But as the sun went down the moonSailed swiftly to a western breeze.Day kindled something in your blood,Your fancies roved with dove and hawk;There was no promise in your moodNor soft assurance in your talk.I felt you might mislead my trustAnd slight a love too surely yours;You were so wild, I felt you mustBe kindred to the woods and moors.But when we passed the orchard throughThe dusk had crept into the sky;Your eyes betrayed a dream which grewUntil I thought I heard you sigh.You were an ardent star that waitedFor night to be yourself and showHow surely afternoon had fatedA love that nothing could forego.
There was slight rain that afternoon,And tempest in the apple trees;But as the sun went down the moonSailed swiftly to a western breeze.
Day kindled something in your blood,Your fancies roved with dove and hawk;There was no promise in your moodNor soft assurance in your talk.
I felt you might mislead my trustAnd slight a love too surely yours;You were so wild, I felt you mustBe kindred to the woods and moors.
But when we passed the orchard throughThe dusk had crept into the sky;Your eyes betrayed a dream which grewUntil I thought I heard you sigh.
You were an ardent star that waitedFor night to be yourself and showHow surely afternoon had fatedA love that nothing could forego.
The sky was full of clouds at restLike dolphins in a waste of blue.We tramped along a country roadInto the village, I and you.The dogwood bloomed along the fences.We heard the songs of larks and thrushes.The country door-yards teemed with huesOf lilac trees and almond bushes.The long blaze of the setting sunShone in your eyes and analyzedTheir little rifts of gray and brown,And left your secret undisguised.And I was silent thinking overThe old threads raveled from your heart.I hear you clearer now than then:“How can we part? How can we part?”
The sky was full of clouds at restLike dolphins in a waste of blue.We tramped along a country roadInto the village, I and you.The dogwood bloomed along the fences.We heard the songs of larks and thrushes.The country door-yards teemed with huesOf lilac trees and almond bushes.The long blaze of the setting sunShone in your eyes and analyzedTheir little rifts of gray and brown,And left your secret undisguised.And I was silent thinking overThe old threads raveled from your heart.I hear you clearer now than then:“How can we part? How can we part?”
The sky was full of clouds at restLike dolphins in a waste of blue.We tramped along a country roadInto the village, I and you.
The dogwood bloomed along the fences.We heard the songs of larks and thrushes.The country door-yards teemed with huesOf lilac trees and almond bushes.
The long blaze of the setting sunShone in your eyes and analyzedTheir little rifts of gray and brown,And left your secret undisguised.
And I was silent thinking overThe old threads raveled from your heart.I hear you clearer now than then:“How can we part? How can we part?”
Shadows upon the wallAnd the ghost of a past on the floor,Here where the hours made carnivalIn the days that are no more.And the chamber is cold and bare,And the wax from the taper drips;But I bury my face in your hair,And swoon at the touch of your lips.We went from the house to the wood,But never a word we spoke;And an eerie wind like our moodRustled the leaves of the oak.Dead leaves, tremulous, crisp,That breathed a forgotten tune;A cloud the shape of a wispBlotted the soaring moon.Silent we walked the path,And then the wild farewell;I saw your form like a wraithFade in the forest’s dell.If joy would never depart,If we could but still the pain—Dear, I awoke with a pang in my heartAnd heard the sound of the rain.
Shadows upon the wallAnd the ghost of a past on the floor,Here where the hours made carnivalIn the days that are no more.And the chamber is cold and bare,And the wax from the taper drips;But I bury my face in your hair,And swoon at the touch of your lips.We went from the house to the wood,But never a word we spoke;And an eerie wind like our moodRustled the leaves of the oak.Dead leaves, tremulous, crisp,That breathed a forgotten tune;A cloud the shape of a wispBlotted the soaring moon.Silent we walked the path,And then the wild farewell;I saw your form like a wraithFade in the forest’s dell.If joy would never depart,If we could but still the pain—Dear, I awoke with a pang in my heartAnd heard the sound of the rain.
Shadows upon the wallAnd the ghost of a past on the floor,Here where the hours made carnivalIn the days that are no more.
And the chamber is cold and bare,And the wax from the taper drips;But I bury my face in your hair,And swoon at the touch of your lips.
We went from the house to the wood,But never a word we spoke;And an eerie wind like our moodRustled the leaves of the oak.
Dead leaves, tremulous, crisp,That breathed a forgotten tune;A cloud the shape of a wispBlotted the soaring moon.
Silent we walked the path,And then the wild farewell;I saw your form like a wraithFade in the forest’s dell.
If joy would never depart,If we could but still the pain—Dear, I awoke with a pang in my heartAnd heard the sound of the rain.
Michigan Avenue streams with people—Ten years alter the avenue.It’s April again, and there are dolphinClouds at rest in a waste of blue.A girl goes by with a spray of lilacsPinned at her breast, and quick as thoughtCountry fences, dogwood blossomsOver the granite scene are wrought.You come in my mind! It’s spoiled by the glimpseOf a monster diamond that glints and glows;A black-eyed Gadarene goes pastInsolent, heavy, and hooked of nose.I scan his face that runs with fat,And the fleshly sag of his under lip;Then back to the diamond again, the handHolds your arm with a master grip!
Michigan Avenue streams with people—Ten years alter the avenue.It’s April again, and there are dolphinClouds at rest in a waste of blue.A girl goes by with a spray of lilacsPinned at her breast, and quick as thoughtCountry fences, dogwood blossomsOver the granite scene are wrought.You come in my mind! It’s spoiled by the glimpseOf a monster diamond that glints and glows;A black-eyed Gadarene goes pastInsolent, heavy, and hooked of nose.I scan his face that runs with fat,And the fleshly sag of his under lip;Then back to the diamond again, the handHolds your arm with a master grip!
Michigan Avenue streams with people—Ten years alter the avenue.It’s April again, and there are dolphinClouds at rest in a waste of blue.
A girl goes by with a spray of lilacsPinned at her breast, and quick as thoughtCountry fences, dogwood blossomsOver the granite scene are wrought.
You come in my mind! It’s spoiled by the glimpseOf a monster diamond that glints and glows;A black-eyed Gadarene goes pastInsolent, heavy, and hooked of nose.
I scan his face that runs with fat,And the fleshly sag of his under lip;Then back to the diamond again, the handHolds your arm with a master grip!
Jack o’ Lantern tall shouldered,One eye set higher than the other,Mouth cut like a scallop in a pie,Aslant showing powerful teeth.Swaying above the heads of others.Jubilant with fixed eyes, scarcely sparkling.Moving about rhythmically, exploding in laughter.Touching fingers together back and forth,Or toying with a handkerchief.And the eyes burn like a flame at the end of a funnel.And the ruddy face glows like a pumpkinOn Halloween!Or else a gargoyle of bronzeTurning suddenly to lifeAnd slipping suddenly down corners of stoneTo eat you:Full of questions, objections,Distinctions, instances.Contemptuous, ironical, remote,Cloudy, irreverent, ferocious,Fearless, grim, compassionate, yet hateful,Old, yet young, wise but virginal.To whom everything is new and strange:Whence he stares and wonders,Laughs, mocks, curses.Disordered, yet with a passion for orderAnd classification—hence the habitualFolding into squares of a handkerchief.Or else a well cultivated and fruitful valley,But behind it unexplored fastnesses,Gorges, precipices, and heightsOver which thunder clouds hang,From which lightning falls,Stirring up terrible shapes of preyThat slink about in the blackness.The silence of him is terrifyingAs if you sat before the sphinx.The look of his eyes makes tubes of the airThrough which you are magnified and analyzed.He needs nothing of you and wants nothing.He is alone, but content,Self-mastered and beyond friendship,You could not hurt him.If he would allow himself to have a friendHe could part from that friend foreverAnd in a moment be lost in wonderStaring at a carved rooster on a doorstep,Or at an Italian womanGiving suck to a childOn a seat in Washington Square.Soul enwrapped demi-urgeWalking the earth,Stalking Life!
Jack o’ Lantern tall shouldered,One eye set higher than the other,Mouth cut like a scallop in a pie,Aslant showing powerful teeth.Swaying above the heads of others.Jubilant with fixed eyes, scarcely sparkling.Moving about rhythmically, exploding in laughter.Touching fingers together back and forth,Or toying with a handkerchief.And the eyes burn like a flame at the end of a funnel.And the ruddy face glows like a pumpkinOn Halloween!Or else a gargoyle of bronzeTurning suddenly to lifeAnd slipping suddenly down corners of stoneTo eat you:Full of questions, objections,Distinctions, instances.Contemptuous, ironical, remote,Cloudy, irreverent, ferocious,Fearless, grim, compassionate, yet hateful,Old, yet young, wise but virginal.To whom everything is new and strange:Whence he stares and wonders,Laughs, mocks, curses.Disordered, yet with a passion for orderAnd classification—hence the habitualFolding into squares of a handkerchief.Or else a well cultivated and fruitful valley,But behind it unexplored fastnesses,Gorges, precipices, and heightsOver which thunder clouds hang,From which lightning falls,Stirring up terrible shapes of preyThat slink about in the blackness.The silence of him is terrifyingAs if you sat before the sphinx.The look of his eyes makes tubes of the airThrough which you are magnified and analyzed.He needs nothing of you and wants nothing.He is alone, but content,Self-mastered and beyond friendship,You could not hurt him.If he would allow himself to have a friendHe could part from that friend foreverAnd in a moment be lost in wonderStaring at a carved rooster on a doorstep,Or at an Italian womanGiving suck to a childOn a seat in Washington Square.Soul enwrapped demi-urgeWalking the earth,Stalking Life!
Jack o’ Lantern tall shouldered,One eye set higher than the other,Mouth cut like a scallop in a pie,Aslant showing powerful teeth.Swaying above the heads of others.Jubilant with fixed eyes, scarcely sparkling.Moving about rhythmically, exploding in laughter.Touching fingers together back and forth,Or toying with a handkerchief.And the eyes burn like a flame at the end of a funnel.And the ruddy face glows like a pumpkinOn Halloween!
Or else a gargoyle of bronzeTurning suddenly to lifeAnd slipping suddenly down corners of stoneTo eat you:Full of questions, objections,Distinctions, instances.Contemptuous, ironical, remote,Cloudy, irreverent, ferocious,Fearless, grim, compassionate, yet hateful,Old, yet young, wise but virginal.To whom everything is new and strange:Whence he stares and wonders,Laughs, mocks, curses.Disordered, yet with a passion for orderAnd classification—hence the habitualFolding into squares of a handkerchief.
Or else a well cultivated and fruitful valley,But behind it unexplored fastnesses,Gorges, precipices, and heightsOver which thunder clouds hang,From which lightning falls,Stirring up terrible shapes of preyThat slink about in the blackness.The silence of him is terrifyingAs if you sat before the sphinx.The look of his eyes makes tubes of the airThrough which you are magnified and analyzed.He needs nothing of you and wants nothing.He is alone, but content,Self-mastered and beyond friendship,You could not hurt him.If he would allow himself to have a friendHe could part from that friend foreverAnd in a moment be lost in wonderStaring at a carved rooster on a doorstep,Or at an Italian womanGiving suck to a childOn a seat in Washington Square.
Soul enwrapped demi-urgeWalking the earth,Stalking Life!
Astronomer and biologistAnd chemical analyst and microscopist,Observer of men’s involuted shellsWhere they conceal their hate and even their loveUnder insipid ooze or nacreous stuff.Tracer of criss-cross steps made when great hellsKept lime as soft as waxWhich thereupon took the imprint of the airFrom gnat-like wings of joy or shadowy care.He makes hard secrets stand in the cul de sac’sEntrance and face him till he lays all bareThat eyes hold or heart of blood contains,And curious traits in diverse curious brains,And starved desires in hearts and hopes forgotUnder the sifting ashes of one’s lot.X-ray photographer who flashesWhat’s in you out of you with sudden crashesOf wit or oratory in a flood.He samples and tests the book’s, also your blood.Shows what you are and whence you came,And who your kindred are, and what your flameIn heat and color is. Poet and wag,Prophet, magician taking from a bagEggs, rabbits, silver globes; the old engram!Scoffer with reverence, visioned, quick to damn,Yet laugh at, looking keenly through the sham.Confessing his own sins, devoid of shame.He knows himself and laughs,Or blames himself as he would others blame.A naughty boy who kicks away the staffWhich poor decrepits walk by, nearly blind,Then hurrying up with varied thought to findMedicinal clay with which dim eyes to heal.What is the human secret but Proteus’?And who can catch the old man but his kind?He was Poseidon’s herdsman, knew the streamsOf early being, sea-filled ponds and sluices,Where life took birth through elemental dreams.And Proteus glanced with lightning and divinedThe cause of Bacchus’ madness. But at noonHe counted his sea-calves and ocean-sheepOn Carpathos where waters made a tuneFollowing the Orphic sun out of the deep—Then in his cave he hid him, turned to sleep....So runs our life to change! and who can catchThe Protean thought must watch,And be adept at wrestling, in the chase.And know the god whatever be his face,Through roar of water where the porpoisesAnd extravagant dolphins play, in silencesOf noon or midnight. So John Cowper PowysYou stand before us gesturing, shoulder bentA little like King Richard, frizzed of hair,Rolling your eye for secrets, for the word.The thresher of your mind is eloquentWith hulls and flakes of words, until at lastThe kernel itself pops out, not long deferred....Here is our wrestler then,Hunter of secrets of creative souls.Eluded he may be, he tries again.His hand slips clutching at the irised shoalsOf rapturous thought. And at times his eyesAre blinded by a light, or a disguise.But finally both eye and handObey the infallible senses’ brave command—He catches Proteus then, and with a shout,The god shouts too, and we who watch the boutJoin in the panic of their merriment!
Astronomer and biologistAnd chemical analyst and microscopist,Observer of men’s involuted shellsWhere they conceal their hate and even their loveUnder insipid ooze or nacreous stuff.Tracer of criss-cross steps made when great hellsKept lime as soft as waxWhich thereupon took the imprint of the airFrom gnat-like wings of joy or shadowy care.He makes hard secrets stand in the cul de sac’sEntrance and face him till he lays all bareThat eyes hold or heart of blood contains,And curious traits in diverse curious brains,And starved desires in hearts and hopes forgotUnder the sifting ashes of one’s lot.X-ray photographer who flashesWhat’s in you out of you with sudden crashesOf wit or oratory in a flood.He samples and tests the book’s, also your blood.Shows what you are and whence you came,And who your kindred are, and what your flameIn heat and color is. Poet and wag,Prophet, magician taking from a bagEggs, rabbits, silver globes; the old engram!Scoffer with reverence, visioned, quick to damn,Yet laugh at, looking keenly through the sham.Confessing his own sins, devoid of shame.He knows himself and laughs,Or blames himself as he would others blame.A naughty boy who kicks away the staffWhich poor decrepits walk by, nearly blind,Then hurrying up with varied thought to findMedicinal clay with which dim eyes to heal.What is the human secret but Proteus’?And who can catch the old man but his kind?He was Poseidon’s herdsman, knew the streamsOf early being, sea-filled ponds and sluices,Where life took birth through elemental dreams.And Proteus glanced with lightning and divinedThe cause of Bacchus’ madness. But at noonHe counted his sea-calves and ocean-sheepOn Carpathos where waters made a tuneFollowing the Orphic sun out of the deep—Then in his cave he hid him, turned to sleep....So runs our life to change! and who can catchThe Protean thought must watch,And be adept at wrestling, in the chase.And know the god whatever be his face,Through roar of water where the porpoisesAnd extravagant dolphins play, in silencesOf noon or midnight. So John Cowper PowysYou stand before us gesturing, shoulder bentA little like King Richard, frizzed of hair,Rolling your eye for secrets, for the word.The thresher of your mind is eloquentWith hulls and flakes of words, until at lastThe kernel itself pops out, not long deferred....Here is our wrestler then,Hunter of secrets of creative souls.Eluded he may be, he tries again.His hand slips clutching at the irised shoalsOf rapturous thought. And at times his eyesAre blinded by a light, or a disguise.But finally both eye and handObey the infallible senses’ brave command—He catches Proteus then, and with a shout,The god shouts too, and we who watch the boutJoin in the panic of their merriment!
Astronomer and biologistAnd chemical analyst and microscopist,Observer of men’s involuted shellsWhere they conceal their hate and even their loveUnder insipid ooze or nacreous stuff.Tracer of criss-cross steps made when great hellsKept lime as soft as waxWhich thereupon took the imprint of the airFrom gnat-like wings of joy or shadowy care.He makes hard secrets stand in the cul de sac’sEntrance and face him till he lays all bareThat eyes hold or heart of blood contains,And curious traits in diverse curious brains,And starved desires in hearts and hopes forgotUnder the sifting ashes of one’s lot.
X-ray photographer who flashesWhat’s in you out of you with sudden crashesOf wit or oratory in a flood.He samples and tests the book’s, also your blood.Shows what you are and whence you came,And who your kindred are, and what your flameIn heat and color is. Poet and wag,Prophet, magician taking from a bagEggs, rabbits, silver globes; the old engram!Scoffer with reverence, visioned, quick to damn,Yet laugh at, looking keenly through the sham.Confessing his own sins, devoid of shame.He knows himself and laughs,Or blames himself as he would others blame.A naughty boy who kicks away the staffWhich poor decrepits walk by, nearly blind,Then hurrying up with varied thought to findMedicinal clay with which dim eyes to heal.
What is the human secret but Proteus’?And who can catch the old man but his kind?He was Poseidon’s herdsman, knew the streamsOf early being, sea-filled ponds and sluices,Where life took birth through elemental dreams.And Proteus glanced with lightning and divinedThe cause of Bacchus’ madness. But at noonHe counted his sea-calves and ocean-sheepOn Carpathos where waters made a tuneFollowing the Orphic sun out of the deep—Then in his cave he hid him, turned to sleep....
So runs our life to change! and who can catchThe Protean thought must watch,And be adept at wrestling, in the chase.And know the god whatever be his face,Through roar of water where the porpoisesAnd extravagant dolphins play, in silencesOf noon or midnight. So John Cowper PowysYou stand before us gesturing, shoulder bentA little like King Richard, frizzed of hair,Rolling your eye for secrets, for the word.The thresher of your mind is eloquentWith hulls and flakes of words, until at lastThe kernel itself pops out, not long deferred....
Here is our wrestler then,Hunter of secrets of creative souls.Eluded he may be, he tries again.His hand slips clutching at the irised shoalsOf rapturous thought. And at times his eyesAre blinded by a light, or a disguise.But finally both eye and handObey the infallible senses’ brave command—He catches Proteus then, and with a shout,The god shouts too, and we who watch the boutJoin in the panic of their merriment!
She was a woman who even as a childHungered for gifts with hunger passionateAnd in her childhood made a hard fateFor a father who had failed and who was wildWith a kind of laughing despair,That comes of having failed.She had plain dresses, only a little strandOf coral beads, and ribbons for her hairBestowed by grandmama. And on her handA ring of beads that maddened her and paledBeside the gold rings other girls could show.So she grew up out of this woeOf wanting and not having things.And round this nucleus of desireHer nature wound itself into a spire,As a vine climbs up and clingsTill it becomes the tree;So she became all fireFor the world’s glittering glory.Then in the process of her being’s storyShe married a man of riches and took overDresses and jewels, houses, with her lover.And learned the ways of Paris and New York,And how to sit, or look, or use one’s fork.And how to speak in French, and how to dress.And how to find and use the lovelinessThat gold brings. And she lived where thought is whiteWith its great longing for the infinite,Where pale youths dream and write,And starve and lie awake at night;Where sculpture, music and where painting isOn priceless canvases.But none of this saw sheIn feeding her desire with jollityIn the cafés and in society;Wherever the denials of her youthCould be made whole, or leveled upWith idle splendor or the champagne cup.That was her dream of making her life truth,Till she devoured her husband like a leman—She was at last one of this kind of women.Then as a widow she came journeying backWith trunks and maids upon a New Year’s dayOver her childhood’s disappointed track.Her father meanwhile had gone on the wayWhich was his at the start.His life was like a bruise which does not smartNow that it has grown hard.And he was stoical like one who hugsHis inner self until sensation dies,Or dulls his fears or sorrows with strong drugs.There was a light of hardness in his eyesThrough which no one could see his secret pain.Failure had made him so—he could explainTo no one how he had been caught in life;Sometimes it seemed himself, sometimes his wife,And he had thought of it so much he lostPerspective of himself, therefore he keptGreat silence, speaking little, even thenBut trivial things. He trod his path and slept,And rose to tread the path and slept again.He was resolved to pay the bitter costAnd not cry out—his thinking stood on guardTo this end chiefly.With impassive heartHe wrote his daughter on a postal cardTo come, if it should please her, and be homeOn Christmas, if she could, on New Year’s dayIf she preferred, but anyway to come.If a ghost could patch its tombWith a trowel from time to time,If it had a little lime,So as to stop the cracks and growing rifts,That would be like this man who hated giftsBecause he scarce could give them, and had patchedWith hardness where his heart had brokenIn years gone for the holidays when sheCried in such ignorance of his poverty.Now with walled feelings he could sit unspokenOf what he felt, regretted, or had lost—He was that kind of ghost.So when the daughter came he only hadHer mother and the dinner, greetings glad,And certain pride because her life had matchedWith childhood’s hopes—but still he had no giftsFor Christmas or for New Year’s, and the daughterWept when she found it so,—’twas always so,—It made her youthful bitterness alive.And so she spilled her waterOut of a trembling hand at dinner and aroseAnd left the table. But with specs on noseSelf-mastered, not revealingWhat was his feeling,The father ate the dinner alone, while motherWas comforting the daughter.“He might have given me a dollar, a little book,A handkerchief, or any otherLittle thing, he always acted so.”The mother tried to soothe her daughter’s woe.But while they were together, the father tookHis steps up town and when the two came backThey found him gone and the room growing blackFrom falling night....But later he came inAnd sat by the fire all silent. This had beenHis New Year’s day! And later his wife cameAnd sat across him silent in her blameOf him and of his life.She said at last:“Blanche is heart sick.”“Well, I am sixty-five,”He answered her, “and never while I’m aliveWill I remember Christmas or a New Year’s day.I’m glad so many of such days are past,They have been always this way. We had dinnerAnd ourselves for her and she brought herselfAnd nothing else. This is the way to win herAdmiration, yet this thing of givingDollars or books, wins only a little thrillOf tickled pride or egotism, stillI might have done it, just to have the peaceOf her self-satisfaction.”Said the wife:“You might find happiness in her happiness.The only thing you understand in livingIs how to stand your misery, one can guessThe working of your thought.”Ere she could ceaseThe daughter entered like the devil’s elf,And saw her father bent before the fire,And saw the back of his head which spoke to herOf hardness, or of something that she hatedWhich moved her pity and her hate at once.And then the mother said: “You two are fatedTo be as blind as two cliffs to each other.You need I think a spiritual re-birth,Something that you could have upon this earth.For I can see a book or handkerchiefWould give one happiness and one reliefFrom hardness which is girding in your soul.That would be rich return for small outlay,God give us all another New Year’s day.”
She was a woman who even as a childHungered for gifts with hunger passionateAnd in her childhood made a hard fateFor a father who had failed and who was wildWith a kind of laughing despair,That comes of having failed.She had plain dresses, only a little strandOf coral beads, and ribbons for her hairBestowed by grandmama. And on her handA ring of beads that maddened her and paledBeside the gold rings other girls could show.So she grew up out of this woeOf wanting and not having things.And round this nucleus of desireHer nature wound itself into a spire,As a vine climbs up and clingsTill it becomes the tree;So she became all fireFor the world’s glittering glory.Then in the process of her being’s storyShe married a man of riches and took overDresses and jewels, houses, with her lover.And learned the ways of Paris and New York,And how to sit, or look, or use one’s fork.And how to speak in French, and how to dress.And how to find and use the lovelinessThat gold brings. And she lived where thought is whiteWith its great longing for the infinite,Where pale youths dream and write,And starve and lie awake at night;Where sculpture, music and where painting isOn priceless canvases.But none of this saw sheIn feeding her desire with jollityIn the cafés and in society;Wherever the denials of her youthCould be made whole, or leveled upWith idle splendor or the champagne cup.That was her dream of making her life truth,Till she devoured her husband like a leman—She was at last one of this kind of women.Then as a widow she came journeying backWith trunks and maids upon a New Year’s dayOver her childhood’s disappointed track.Her father meanwhile had gone on the wayWhich was his at the start.His life was like a bruise which does not smartNow that it has grown hard.And he was stoical like one who hugsHis inner self until sensation dies,Or dulls his fears or sorrows with strong drugs.There was a light of hardness in his eyesThrough which no one could see his secret pain.Failure had made him so—he could explainTo no one how he had been caught in life;Sometimes it seemed himself, sometimes his wife,And he had thought of it so much he lostPerspective of himself, therefore he keptGreat silence, speaking little, even thenBut trivial things. He trod his path and slept,And rose to tread the path and slept again.He was resolved to pay the bitter costAnd not cry out—his thinking stood on guardTo this end chiefly.With impassive heartHe wrote his daughter on a postal cardTo come, if it should please her, and be homeOn Christmas, if she could, on New Year’s dayIf she preferred, but anyway to come.If a ghost could patch its tombWith a trowel from time to time,If it had a little lime,So as to stop the cracks and growing rifts,That would be like this man who hated giftsBecause he scarce could give them, and had patchedWith hardness where his heart had brokenIn years gone for the holidays when sheCried in such ignorance of his poverty.Now with walled feelings he could sit unspokenOf what he felt, regretted, or had lost—He was that kind of ghost.So when the daughter came he only hadHer mother and the dinner, greetings glad,And certain pride because her life had matchedWith childhood’s hopes—but still he had no giftsFor Christmas or for New Year’s, and the daughterWept when she found it so,—’twas always so,—It made her youthful bitterness alive.And so she spilled her waterOut of a trembling hand at dinner and aroseAnd left the table. But with specs on noseSelf-mastered, not revealingWhat was his feeling,The father ate the dinner alone, while motherWas comforting the daughter.“He might have given me a dollar, a little book,A handkerchief, or any otherLittle thing, he always acted so.”The mother tried to soothe her daughter’s woe.But while they were together, the father tookHis steps up town and when the two came backThey found him gone and the room growing blackFrom falling night....But later he came inAnd sat by the fire all silent. This had beenHis New Year’s day! And later his wife cameAnd sat across him silent in her blameOf him and of his life.She said at last:“Blanche is heart sick.”“Well, I am sixty-five,”He answered her, “and never while I’m aliveWill I remember Christmas or a New Year’s day.I’m glad so many of such days are past,They have been always this way. We had dinnerAnd ourselves for her and she brought herselfAnd nothing else. This is the way to win herAdmiration, yet this thing of givingDollars or books, wins only a little thrillOf tickled pride or egotism, stillI might have done it, just to have the peaceOf her self-satisfaction.”Said the wife:“You might find happiness in her happiness.The only thing you understand in livingIs how to stand your misery, one can guessThe working of your thought.”Ere she could ceaseThe daughter entered like the devil’s elf,And saw her father bent before the fire,And saw the back of his head which spoke to herOf hardness, or of something that she hatedWhich moved her pity and her hate at once.And then the mother said: “You two are fatedTo be as blind as two cliffs to each other.You need I think a spiritual re-birth,Something that you could have upon this earth.For I can see a book or handkerchiefWould give one happiness and one reliefFrom hardness which is girding in your soul.That would be rich return for small outlay,God give us all another New Year’s day.”
She was a woman who even as a childHungered for gifts with hunger passionateAnd in her childhood made a hard fateFor a father who had failed and who was wildWith a kind of laughing despair,That comes of having failed.She had plain dresses, only a little strandOf coral beads, and ribbons for her hairBestowed by grandmama. And on her handA ring of beads that maddened her and paledBeside the gold rings other girls could show.So she grew up out of this woeOf wanting and not having things.And round this nucleus of desireHer nature wound itself into a spire,As a vine climbs up and clingsTill it becomes the tree;So she became all fireFor the world’s glittering glory.
Then in the process of her being’s storyShe married a man of riches and took overDresses and jewels, houses, with her lover.And learned the ways of Paris and New York,And how to sit, or look, or use one’s fork.And how to speak in French, and how to dress.And how to find and use the lovelinessThat gold brings. And she lived where thought is whiteWith its great longing for the infinite,Where pale youths dream and write,And starve and lie awake at night;Where sculpture, music and where painting isOn priceless canvases.But none of this saw sheIn feeding her desire with jollityIn the cafés and in society;Wherever the denials of her youthCould be made whole, or leveled upWith idle splendor or the champagne cup.That was her dream of making her life truth,Till she devoured her husband like a leman—She was at last one of this kind of women.Then as a widow she came journeying backWith trunks and maids upon a New Year’s dayOver her childhood’s disappointed track.
Her father meanwhile had gone on the wayWhich was his at the start.His life was like a bruise which does not smartNow that it has grown hard.And he was stoical like one who hugsHis inner self until sensation dies,Or dulls his fears or sorrows with strong drugs.There was a light of hardness in his eyesThrough which no one could see his secret pain.Failure had made him so—he could explainTo no one how he had been caught in life;Sometimes it seemed himself, sometimes his wife,And he had thought of it so much he lostPerspective of himself, therefore he keptGreat silence, speaking little, even thenBut trivial things. He trod his path and slept,And rose to tread the path and slept again.He was resolved to pay the bitter costAnd not cry out—his thinking stood on guardTo this end chiefly.
With impassive heartHe wrote his daughter on a postal cardTo come, if it should please her, and be homeOn Christmas, if she could, on New Year’s dayIf she preferred, but anyway to come.
If a ghost could patch its tombWith a trowel from time to time,If it had a little lime,So as to stop the cracks and growing rifts,That would be like this man who hated giftsBecause he scarce could give them, and had patchedWith hardness where his heart had brokenIn years gone for the holidays when sheCried in such ignorance of his poverty.Now with walled feelings he could sit unspokenOf what he felt, regretted, or had lost—He was that kind of ghost.So when the daughter came he only hadHer mother and the dinner, greetings glad,And certain pride because her life had matchedWith childhood’s hopes—but still he had no giftsFor Christmas or for New Year’s, and the daughterWept when she found it so,—’twas always so,—It made her youthful bitterness alive.And so she spilled her waterOut of a trembling hand at dinner and aroseAnd left the table. But with specs on noseSelf-mastered, not revealingWhat was his feeling,The father ate the dinner alone, while motherWas comforting the daughter.
“He might have given me a dollar, a little book,A handkerchief, or any otherLittle thing, he always acted so.”The mother tried to soothe her daughter’s woe.But while they were together, the father tookHis steps up town and when the two came backThey found him gone and the room growing blackFrom falling night....
But later he came inAnd sat by the fire all silent. This had beenHis New Year’s day! And later his wife cameAnd sat across him silent in her blameOf him and of his life.
She said at last:“Blanche is heart sick.”
“Well, I am sixty-five,”He answered her, “and never while I’m aliveWill I remember Christmas or a New Year’s day.I’m glad so many of such days are past,They have been always this way. We had dinnerAnd ourselves for her and she brought herselfAnd nothing else. This is the way to win herAdmiration, yet this thing of givingDollars or books, wins only a little thrillOf tickled pride or egotism, stillI might have done it, just to have the peaceOf her self-satisfaction.”
Said the wife:“You might find happiness in her happiness.The only thing you understand in livingIs how to stand your misery, one can guessThe working of your thought.”
Ere she could ceaseThe daughter entered like the devil’s elf,And saw her father bent before the fire,And saw the back of his head which spoke to herOf hardness, or of something that she hatedWhich moved her pity and her hate at once.
And then the mother said: “You two are fatedTo be as blind as two cliffs to each other.You need I think a spiritual re-birth,Something that you could have upon this earth.For I can see a book or handkerchiefWould give one happiness and one reliefFrom hardness which is girding in your soul.That would be rich return for small outlay,God give us all another New Year’s day.”
You used to play at being blind—Now you are blind—you used to say:“Play I am blind and help me findWhere the gate opens on the way.”I laughed at you, we laughed togetherWhen you were playing blind, your staffMy walking cane of varnished leather—Now you are blind and still you laugh.You sit beneath the reading lampWith long lashed eyelids closed and paleAnd make me read you Riley’s Tramp,And Grimm and many a fairy tale.Sometimes I stop—you see I chokeBefore the tale is done by half—One’s eyes blur from tobacco smoke—I cannot laugh now when you laugh.
You used to play at being blind—Now you are blind—you used to say:“Play I am blind and help me findWhere the gate opens on the way.”I laughed at you, we laughed togetherWhen you were playing blind, your staffMy walking cane of varnished leather—Now you are blind and still you laugh.You sit beneath the reading lampWith long lashed eyelids closed and paleAnd make me read you Riley’s Tramp,And Grimm and many a fairy tale.Sometimes I stop—you see I chokeBefore the tale is done by half—One’s eyes blur from tobacco smoke—I cannot laugh now when you laugh.
You used to play at being blind—Now you are blind—you used to say:“Play I am blind and help me findWhere the gate opens on the way.”
I laughed at you, we laughed togetherWhen you were playing blind, your staffMy walking cane of varnished leather—Now you are blind and still you laugh.
You sit beneath the reading lampWith long lashed eyelids closed and paleAnd make me read you Riley’s Tramp,And Grimm and many a fairy tale.
Sometimes I stop—you see I chokeBefore the tale is done by half—One’s eyes blur from tobacco smoke—I cannot laugh now when you laugh.
If I could only see you again—If I could only see you again!How can it beI shall never see you again?For the world has shown it can roll on its wayAnd blot you out forever—And I shall never see you again!I thrill as one who slips on the edge of a gulfWhen I think I shall never see you again!As a dead leaf is hurtled over the tops of trees;As a dead leaf is dizzily driven through woodland valleysI am driven and tossed in the storms of living.But as the dead leaf escapes the breeze’s fingers,And sinks till it nestles motionless under a rockSo in quiet moments I dreamOf you,I dream of all that you were—And I shall never see you again!There never was any one like you!There never yet was such joy in a heart,Such strength to live whatever the fate,Such love to love,Such thought to see how life is good,Such maternal passion,Such breasts eager to nurse child after child—And I shall never see you again!Your breasts were made to suckle conquerors,Warriors, prophets,Invincible soulsLoving life, and loving death at last.And now your breasts are dust,You are all dust,You are lost save for my memory.And this morning I wokeAs a leaf might wake in its sheltered placeUnder the rockStirred by a breath of April.And I lived again the last time I saw you—The last visit!You were almost ninety then.But there was the old zest in your heartTo do all things and have all thingsUnchanged, as I had known themAs a boy.You gave me the same room,Nothing was changed,Not a chair, a curtain, a picture.And you came up-stairs before it was dayAnd lighted a fire in the little stoveTo have the room warm for me to dress in—There never was love like yours!And I went down to the kitchen and found youFrying batter cakes, and laughing,And bringing back my boyhood daysWith the old stories.And how you kissed me, and hugged meWith your withered arms!And then you sat down with me,And ate with me as of old,And brought out priceless jars of thingsWhich you had made and saved for me!The breath of memory stirs meUnder the rock.I must have the madness of life to drive me,To toss meInto forgetfulness of my loss of you—For I shall never see you again!
If I could only see you again—If I could only see you again!How can it beI shall never see you again?For the world has shown it can roll on its wayAnd blot you out forever—And I shall never see you again!I thrill as one who slips on the edge of a gulfWhen I think I shall never see you again!As a dead leaf is hurtled over the tops of trees;As a dead leaf is dizzily driven through woodland valleysI am driven and tossed in the storms of living.But as the dead leaf escapes the breeze’s fingers,And sinks till it nestles motionless under a rockSo in quiet moments I dreamOf you,I dream of all that you were—And I shall never see you again!There never was any one like you!There never yet was such joy in a heart,Such strength to live whatever the fate,Such love to love,Such thought to see how life is good,Such maternal passion,Such breasts eager to nurse child after child—And I shall never see you again!Your breasts were made to suckle conquerors,Warriors, prophets,Invincible soulsLoving life, and loving death at last.And now your breasts are dust,You are all dust,You are lost save for my memory.And this morning I wokeAs a leaf might wake in its sheltered placeUnder the rockStirred by a breath of April.And I lived again the last time I saw you—The last visit!You were almost ninety then.But there was the old zest in your heartTo do all things and have all thingsUnchanged, as I had known themAs a boy.You gave me the same room,Nothing was changed,Not a chair, a curtain, a picture.And you came up-stairs before it was dayAnd lighted a fire in the little stoveTo have the room warm for me to dress in—There never was love like yours!And I went down to the kitchen and found youFrying batter cakes, and laughing,And bringing back my boyhood daysWith the old stories.And how you kissed me, and hugged meWith your withered arms!And then you sat down with me,And ate with me as of old,And brought out priceless jars of thingsWhich you had made and saved for me!The breath of memory stirs meUnder the rock.I must have the madness of life to drive me,To toss meInto forgetfulness of my loss of you—For I shall never see you again!
If I could only see you again—If I could only see you again!How can it beI shall never see you again?For the world has shown it can roll on its wayAnd blot you out forever—And I shall never see you again!I thrill as one who slips on the edge of a gulfWhen I think I shall never see you again!
As a dead leaf is hurtled over the tops of trees;As a dead leaf is dizzily driven through woodland valleysI am driven and tossed in the storms of living.But as the dead leaf escapes the breeze’s fingers,And sinks till it nestles motionless under a rockSo in quiet moments I dreamOf you,I dream of all that you were—And I shall never see you again!
There never was any one like you!There never yet was such joy in a heart,Such strength to live whatever the fate,Such love to love,Such thought to see how life is good,Such maternal passion,Such breasts eager to nurse child after child—And I shall never see you again!
Your breasts were made to suckle conquerors,Warriors, prophets,Invincible soulsLoving life, and loving death at last.And now your breasts are dust,You are all dust,You are lost save for my memory.
And this morning I wokeAs a leaf might wake in its sheltered placeUnder the rockStirred by a breath of April.And I lived again the last time I saw you—The last visit!You were almost ninety then.But there was the old zest in your heartTo do all things and have all thingsUnchanged, as I had known themAs a boy.You gave me the same room,Nothing was changed,Not a chair, a curtain, a picture.And you came up-stairs before it was dayAnd lighted a fire in the little stoveTo have the room warm for me to dress in—There never was love like yours!
And I went down to the kitchen and found youFrying batter cakes, and laughing,And bringing back my boyhood daysWith the old stories.And how you kissed me, and hugged meWith your withered arms!And then you sat down with me,And ate with me as of old,And brought out priceless jars of thingsWhich you had made and saved for me!
The breath of memory stirs meUnder the rock.I must have the madness of life to drive me,To toss meInto forgetfulness of my loss of you—For I shall never see you again!