Great snail whose lofty horns are knobbed with gold;Long javelin of red-wood lying straightUpon the changing indigos which unfoldIn blues and chrysophrases from the gateOf this our city sea-ward, till the gullBecomes a gnat where lights annihilateThe wings’ last beat! Or are you like a hullPompeiian red upon the Nile’s slate green?Or are you like these clouds which fancifulHalf open eyes make giant fish serene,And motionless as rifts of carbunclesSunk in a waste of faience sky, betweenSuch terrifying turquoise? Darkness dullsThe torches of your towers struck to flameBy sun-set, and you mass amid the hullsOf shadows on the water, then reclaimThis blackness with a thousand eyes of light!Peiræus made with hands, which over-cameThe waters, where no point of land gave mightTo walls and slips, no Peiraic promontoryInspired our Hippodamus in his flightSea-ward with docks, parades, an auditoryFor music and a dancing floor for youths,But only the sea tempted. Telling the storyThat grows within the loop, its dens and booths,And palaces of trade, is to omitThe city’s lofty genius and the truthsThrough which she works at best, against the witOf creatures who would sell her body, takeThe money of the sale as perquisiteFor grossness in luxurious life. AwakeThemistocles of us and carve the dreamOf Burnham into stone! Along this lakeSuch as no city looks on, to redeemIts shores from shrieks and crashes, refuse, smokeHis architectural vision sketched the schemeOf harbors, islands, boulevards—he spokeFor these, the concourse, stadium and a tombFor that dull infamy of filth whose cloakIs law, hiding the greedy hands that doomTo long delay with bribery. He is goneThese several years into the narrow roomWhere beauty is no more of walk or lawn,Or arch or peristyle, but still he says:“Work quickly into form what I have drawn,And give Chicago of these middle daysThe glory which it merits: To this PierMake wide the marble way, build new the quaysGive to the swimmers depths made fresh and clear,Lay out the flowering gardens, founts and poolsSuch as Versailles knows. The river steerUnder the arches of two decked bascules.”Look at the photographs of seventy-six,Whoever you are who mocks or ridiculesThis city, then imagine stones and bricksWhich from such lowness rose, in fifty yearsBy so much grown miraculous to transfixThe future’s wonder as ours is for piersLike this, Chicago! O ye men who wieldSmall strength or great or none, too apt at sneersFor men who did too little, you must yieldYour names for judgment soon, have you done moreTo make this city great than Marshall Field?While you were railing, idling, on this shoreHands silent, out of sight were plunged in toil.You woke one morning to the waters’ roarAnd saw these gilded turrets flash and spoilThe sun-light of the spring. What have you sownOf truth or beauty in this eager soilTo make your living felt, your labor known?Sometimes I see silk banners in the sky,And hear the sound of silver trumpets blown,And bells high turreted. And passing byThis firmament of rolling blue great throngsStream in an air of brilliant sun where IA century gone am of it, when my songsAre but a record of a day that died,And saw the end of desecrating wrongs.How sweet bells are borne on the evening tideHigh up where heaven is flushed and the moon’s sphereLooks down on temples, arches, where the wideEternal waters thunder round the Pier!
Great snail whose lofty horns are knobbed with gold;Long javelin of red-wood lying straightUpon the changing indigos which unfoldIn blues and chrysophrases from the gateOf this our city sea-ward, till the gullBecomes a gnat where lights annihilateThe wings’ last beat! Or are you like a hullPompeiian red upon the Nile’s slate green?Or are you like these clouds which fancifulHalf open eyes make giant fish serene,And motionless as rifts of carbunclesSunk in a waste of faience sky, betweenSuch terrifying turquoise? Darkness dullsThe torches of your towers struck to flameBy sun-set, and you mass amid the hullsOf shadows on the water, then reclaimThis blackness with a thousand eyes of light!Peiræus made with hands, which over-cameThe waters, where no point of land gave mightTo walls and slips, no Peiraic promontoryInspired our Hippodamus in his flightSea-ward with docks, parades, an auditoryFor music and a dancing floor for youths,But only the sea tempted. Telling the storyThat grows within the loop, its dens and booths,And palaces of trade, is to omitThe city’s lofty genius and the truthsThrough which she works at best, against the witOf creatures who would sell her body, takeThe money of the sale as perquisiteFor grossness in luxurious life. AwakeThemistocles of us and carve the dreamOf Burnham into stone! Along this lakeSuch as no city looks on, to redeemIts shores from shrieks and crashes, refuse, smokeHis architectural vision sketched the schemeOf harbors, islands, boulevards—he spokeFor these, the concourse, stadium and a tombFor that dull infamy of filth whose cloakIs law, hiding the greedy hands that doomTo long delay with bribery. He is goneThese several years into the narrow roomWhere beauty is no more of walk or lawn,Or arch or peristyle, but still he says:“Work quickly into form what I have drawn,And give Chicago of these middle daysThe glory which it merits: To this PierMake wide the marble way, build new the quaysGive to the swimmers depths made fresh and clear,Lay out the flowering gardens, founts and poolsSuch as Versailles knows. The river steerUnder the arches of two decked bascules.”Look at the photographs of seventy-six,Whoever you are who mocks or ridiculesThis city, then imagine stones and bricksWhich from such lowness rose, in fifty yearsBy so much grown miraculous to transfixThe future’s wonder as ours is for piersLike this, Chicago! O ye men who wieldSmall strength or great or none, too apt at sneersFor men who did too little, you must yieldYour names for judgment soon, have you done moreTo make this city great than Marshall Field?While you were railing, idling, on this shoreHands silent, out of sight were plunged in toil.You woke one morning to the waters’ roarAnd saw these gilded turrets flash and spoilThe sun-light of the spring. What have you sownOf truth or beauty in this eager soilTo make your living felt, your labor known?Sometimes I see silk banners in the sky,And hear the sound of silver trumpets blown,And bells high turreted. And passing byThis firmament of rolling blue great throngsStream in an air of brilliant sun where IA century gone am of it, when my songsAre but a record of a day that died,And saw the end of desecrating wrongs.How sweet bells are borne on the evening tideHigh up where heaven is flushed and the moon’s sphereLooks down on temples, arches, where the wideEternal waters thunder round the Pier!
Great snail whose lofty horns are knobbed with gold;Long javelin of red-wood lying straightUpon the changing indigos which unfoldIn blues and chrysophrases from the gateOf this our city sea-ward, till the gullBecomes a gnat where lights annihilateThe wings’ last beat! Or are you like a hullPompeiian red upon the Nile’s slate green?Or are you like these clouds which fancifulHalf open eyes make giant fish serene,And motionless as rifts of carbunclesSunk in a waste of faience sky, betweenSuch terrifying turquoise? Darkness dullsThe torches of your towers struck to flameBy sun-set, and you mass amid the hullsOf shadows on the water, then reclaimThis blackness with a thousand eyes of light!Peiræus made with hands, which over-cameThe waters, where no point of land gave mightTo walls and slips, no Peiraic promontoryInspired our Hippodamus in his flightSea-ward with docks, parades, an auditoryFor music and a dancing floor for youths,But only the sea tempted. Telling the storyThat grows within the loop, its dens and booths,And palaces of trade, is to omitThe city’s lofty genius and the truthsThrough which she works at best, against the witOf creatures who would sell her body, takeThe money of the sale as perquisiteFor grossness in luxurious life. AwakeThemistocles of us and carve the dreamOf Burnham into stone! Along this lakeSuch as no city looks on, to redeemIts shores from shrieks and crashes, refuse, smokeHis architectural vision sketched the schemeOf harbors, islands, boulevards—he spokeFor these, the concourse, stadium and a tombFor that dull infamy of filth whose cloakIs law, hiding the greedy hands that doomTo long delay with bribery. He is goneThese several years into the narrow roomWhere beauty is no more of walk or lawn,Or arch or peristyle, but still he says:“Work quickly into form what I have drawn,And give Chicago of these middle daysThe glory which it merits: To this PierMake wide the marble way, build new the quaysGive to the swimmers depths made fresh and clear,Lay out the flowering gardens, founts and poolsSuch as Versailles knows. The river steerUnder the arches of two decked bascules.”Look at the photographs of seventy-six,Whoever you are who mocks or ridiculesThis city, then imagine stones and bricksWhich from such lowness rose, in fifty yearsBy so much grown miraculous to transfixThe future’s wonder as ours is for piersLike this, Chicago! O ye men who wieldSmall strength or great or none, too apt at sneersFor men who did too little, you must yieldYour names for judgment soon, have you done moreTo make this city great than Marshall Field?While you were railing, idling, on this shoreHands silent, out of sight were plunged in toil.You woke one morning to the waters’ roarAnd saw these gilded turrets flash and spoilThe sun-light of the spring. What have you sownOf truth or beauty in this eager soilTo make your living felt, your labor known?Sometimes I see silk banners in the sky,And hear the sound of silver trumpets blown,And bells high turreted. And passing byThis firmament of rolling blue great throngsStream in an air of brilliant sun where IA century gone am of it, when my songsAre but a record of a day that died,And saw the end of desecrating wrongs.How sweet bells are borne on the evening tideHigh up where heaven is flushed and the moon’s sphereLooks down on temples, arches, where the wideEternal waters thunder round the Pier!
Since our talk at Christiana I have readAll you referred me to concerning Lincoln:His speeches and the story of the struggleWhich ended in your war, not civil reallyBut waged between two nations—but no matter!To me whose life is closing, and whose lifeWas spent in struggle, much of misery,In friendship with De Tocqueville then at oddsWith him and his philosophy, who knewBismarck, who saw the wars of Europe, sawGreat men come up and fall, and systems change,Who probed into the Renaissance and masteredReligions and philosophies and wroteConcerning racial inequalities—To me I say this crisis of your timeAnd country seems remote as it might beAlmost in far Australia, trivialIn substance and effect, or world result.And now your letter and these documentsConcerning Douglas yield but scanty gold.Perhaps I’ve reached an age where I cannotDigest new matter, or resolve its worth,Extract its bearing and significance.But since you ask me I am writing youWhat I’ve arrived at.From the photographsAnd the descriptions of your Illinois,Where Lincoln spent his youth, I almost sicken:Small muddy rivers flanked by bottom landsSo fat of fertile stuff the grossest weedsThrive thriftier than in Egypt, round their rootsRepulsive serpents crawl, the air is fullOf loathsome insects, and along these banksAn agued people live who have no lifeExcept hard toil, whose pleasures are the danceWhere violent liquor takes the gun or knife;Who have no inspiration save the orgyOf the religious meeting, where the cultOf savage dreams is almost theirs. The townsPlaces of filth, of maddening quietude;Streets mired with mud, board sidewalks where the men,Like chickens with the cholera, stand and squeakFoul or half-idiot things; near by the churches,Mere arch-ways to the grave-yard. Nothing hereOf conscious plan to lift the spirit up.All is defeat of liberty in spiteOf certain strong men, certain splendid breeds,The pioneers who made your state; no beautySave as a soul delves in a master book.And out of this your Lincoln came, not poorAs Burns was in a land of storied towers,But poor as a degenerate breed is poorSunk down in squalor.Yet he seems a manOf master qualities. The muddy streets,And melancholy of a pastoral town,And sights of people sick, the stifling weedsWhich grew about him left his spirit clean,Save for an ache that all his youth was spentIn such surroundings.And observe the man!Do poverty and life among such peopleMake him a libertarian? Let us see.At twenty years he is a centralist,Stands for the bank which Andrew Jackson fought,And lauds protection, thinks of WashingtonMuch more than Springfield. That is right I say—But call him not a democrat.Look here!This master book of Stephens which you sent meAccuses Lincoln of imperial deeds,And breach of laws, and rightly so, in truth.That makes me love him, but the end he soughtIs something else. At first that was the Union,Straight through it was the Union, but at lastThe strain of Christian softness always hisWhich filled him full of hate for slaveryCropped out in freedom for your negro slaves,Which was an act of war, and so confessed,Not propped by law, but only by a will.Thus he became a man who broke all lawTo have his law. He killed a million menFor what he called the Union, what he thoughtWas truth of Christian brotherhood. I sayHe killed a million men, for it is trueYour war had never come, had he believedAll government must rest in men’s consent.What have we but a soul imperial?A brother to me, standing for the strong,For master races, blindly at the workOf biologic mount? The cells of himThat make him saint for radicals and dreamersAre but somatic, but the sperm of himWill propagate great rulers.See his face!Its tragic pathos fools the idealist—But study it. First, then, observe the eyes,And tell me how within their gaze eventsOr men could lose their true proportions! HereNo visions swarm, no dreams with flashing wingsThrow light upon them. No, they only lookAcross a boundless prairie, that is all.And in that brow and nose we see a strengthSlow, steady, wary, cautious—why this manIs your conservative, perhaps your best,Which is one reason why he loved the Union,And even said at last that governmentOf the people meant the Union—how absurd!—Would perish, if it perished, clearly false!And if ’twere true would be the better. ReadMy Renaissance, and other books, you’ll seeHow I’d protect the master spirits, keepThe master races pure; how I detestThe brotherhood of man, how I have shownThe falseness of these Galilean dreams,These syrups strained in secret, used to drugThe strong and make them equal with the weak.Such things are of the mind which weaves in space,—A penalty of thought. Come back to earth,Live close to nature. Do not sap a roseTo nourish cabbages, and call it truth!Well, then, your negro’s freed! But what of that?You do not want him for a friend or spouse.I would not see him whipped, or made a bond.But tell me what you’re thinking of who sayHis freedom is a gain for liberty?To buy men’s labor is to buy their bodies.Your country now has entered on a courseOf buying labor, wait and see what comes!I see processions filing through your land.They carry banners bearing Lincoln’s face.And there are hordes who think the kingdom’s coming:As Lincoln freed the slaves, one will ariseTo free all men! The signs before the warAre come again, portentous stars appearWhich prophesied the war! All revolutionsAre so announced, the world is rising higherThrough ordered revolutions, preordained!Well, certain men look at these mad processionsFrom well-protected windows, with a smile—They are your millionaires, they think they knowThe soul of Lincoln better than the crowdsThat carry banners with his picture on them.Yes, all they have they owe to Lincoln, theyGrew strong through Lincoln.But are you contentTo have your negroes free, and millionairesIn mastership of your republic? WhereAre men to overlord your millionaires? You knowOut of the eater comes forth meat, who willExhaust the strength of those whose strength was gainedFrom blood of boys shed on the battle field?What can you do to have a RenaissanceThat with a terrible light will drive to covertOwls, bats, and mousing hawks, that neither knowWhat life is, whence they come, nor what they are,Who live by superstition, codes of slaves,Fear truth, are weak, and only hunger know—You must have such a Renaissance or dieWhile slipping smugly, self sufficientlyAlong a way unvisioned, while you playThe hypocrite as it was never playedIn any place, in any time on earth!These things I see. But let me in conclusionPoint to your Lincoln as a man who makesFor power and beauty in your country, call itRepublic if you will, the name is nothing.I say the vitalest force is love, not hate.I say that all great souls are lovers, but of what?Why, what great Goethe loved! Your master menShould learn of Goethe, hold the crowd through him.And Lincoln was a lover, but of what?Well not the cesspool of the black man’s slavery.He loved the mathematics of high truths,And heightened spirituality, that’s the reasonOnly a man like me can know him, that’sThe reason that your crude American thoughtMisses the man.
Since our talk at Christiana I have readAll you referred me to concerning Lincoln:His speeches and the story of the struggleWhich ended in your war, not civil reallyBut waged between two nations—but no matter!To me whose life is closing, and whose lifeWas spent in struggle, much of misery,In friendship with De Tocqueville then at oddsWith him and his philosophy, who knewBismarck, who saw the wars of Europe, sawGreat men come up and fall, and systems change,Who probed into the Renaissance and masteredReligions and philosophies and wroteConcerning racial inequalities—To me I say this crisis of your timeAnd country seems remote as it might beAlmost in far Australia, trivialIn substance and effect, or world result.And now your letter and these documentsConcerning Douglas yield but scanty gold.Perhaps I’ve reached an age where I cannotDigest new matter, or resolve its worth,Extract its bearing and significance.But since you ask me I am writing youWhat I’ve arrived at.From the photographsAnd the descriptions of your Illinois,Where Lincoln spent his youth, I almost sicken:Small muddy rivers flanked by bottom landsSo fat of fertile stuff the grossest weedsThrive thriftier than in Egypt, round their rootsRepulsive serpents crawl, the air is fullOf loathsome insects, and along these banksAn agued people live who have no lifeExcept hard toil, whose pleasures are the danceWhere violent liquor takes the gun or knife;Who have no inspiration save the orgyOf the religious meeting, where the cultOf savage dreams is almost theirs. The townsPlaces of filth, of maddening quietude;Streets mired with mud, board sidewalks where the men,Like chickens with the cholera, stand and squeakFoul or half-idiot things; near by the churches,Mere arch-ways to the grave-yard. Nothing hereOf conscious plan to lift the spirit up.All is defeat of liberty in spiteOf certain strong men, certain splendid breeds,The pioneers who made your state; no beautySave as a soul delves in a master book.And out of this your Lincoln came, not poorAs Burns was in a land of storied towers,But poor as a degenerate breed is poorSunk down in squalor.Yet he seems a manOf master qualities. The muddy streets,And melancholy of a pastoral town,And sights of people sick, the stifling weedsWhich grew about him left his spirit clean,Save for an ache that all his youth was spentIn such surroundings.And observe the man!Do poverty and life among such peopleMake him a libertarian? Let us see.At twenty years he is a centralist,Stands for the bank which Andrew Jackson fought,And lauds protection, thinks of WashingtonMuch more than Springfield. That is right I say—But call him not a democrat.Look here!This master book of Stephens which you sent meAccuses Lincoln of imperial deeds,And breach of laws, and rightly so, in truth.That makes me love him, but the end he soughtIs something else. At first that was the Union,Straight through it was the Union, but at lastThe strain of Christian softness always hisWhich filled him full of hate for slaveryCropped out in freedom for your negro slaves,Which was an act of war, and so confessed,Not propped by law, but only by a will.Thus he became a man who broke all lawTo have his law. He killed a million menFor what he called the Union, what he thoughtWas truth of Christian brotherhood. I sayHe killed a million men, for it is trueYour war had never come, had he believedAll government must rest in men’s consent.What have we but a soul imperial?A brother to me, standing for the strong,For master races, blindly at the workOf biologic mount? The cells of himThat make him saint for radicals and dreamersAre but somatic, but the sperm of himWill propagate great rulers.See his face!Its tragic pathos fools the idealist—But study it. First, then, observe the eyes,And tell me how within their gaze eventsOr men could lose their true proportions! HereNo visions swarm, no dreams with flashing wingsThrow light upon them. No, they only lookAcross a boundless prairie, that is all.And in that brow and nose we see a strengthSlow, steady, wary, cautious—why this manIs your conservative, perhaps your best,Which is one reason why he loved the Union,And even said at last that governmentOf the people meant the Union—how absurd!—Would perish, if it perished, clearly false!And if ’twere true would be the better. ReadMy Renaissance, and other books, you’ll seeHow I’d protect the master spirits, keepThe master races pure; how I detestThe brotherhood of man, how I have shownThe falseness of these Galilean dreams,These syrups strained in secret, used to drugThe strong and make them equal with the weak.Such things are of the mind which weaves in space,—A penalty of thought. Come back to earth,Live close to nature. Do not sap a roseTo nourish cabbages, and call it truth!Well, then, your negro’s freed! But what of that?You do not want him for a friend or spouse.I would not see him whipped, or made a bond.But tell me what you’re thinking of who sayHis freedom is a gain for liberty?To buy men’s labor is to buy their bodies.Your country now has entered on a courseOf buying labor, wait and see what comes!I see processions filing through your land.They carry banners bearing Lincoln’s face.And there are hordes who think the kingdom’s coming:As Lincoln freed the slaves, one will ariseTo free all men! The signs before the warAre come again, portentous stars appearWhich prophesied the war! All revolutionsAre so announced, the world is rising higherThrough ordered revolutions, preordained!Well, certain men look at these mad processionsFrom well-protected windows, with a smile—They are your millionaires, they think they knowThe soul of Lincoln better than the crowdsThat carry banners with his picture on them.Yes, all they have they owe to Lincoln, theyGrew strong through Lincoln.But are you contentTo have your negroes free, and millionairesIn mastership of your republic? WhereAre men to overlord your millionaires? You knowOut of the eater comes forth meat, who willExhaust the strength of those whose strength was gainedFrom blood of boys shed on the battle field?What can you do to have a RenaissanceThat with a terrible light will drive to covertOwls, bats, and mousing hawks, that neither knowWhat life is, whence they come, nor what they are,Who live by superstition, codes of slaves,Fear truth, are weak, and only hunger know—You must have such a Renaissance or dieWhile slipping smugly, self sufficientlyAlong a way unvisioned, while you playThe hypocrite as it was never playedIn any place, in any time on earth!These things I see. But let me in conclusionPoint to your Lincoln as a man who makesFor power and beauty in your country, call itRepublic if you will, the name is nothing.I say the vitalest force is love, not hate.I say that all great souls are lovers, but of what?Why, what great Goethe loved! Your master menShould learn of Goethe, hold the crowd through him.And Lincoln was a lover, but of what?Well not the cesspool of the black man’s slavery.He loved the mathematics of high truths,And heightened spirituality, that’s the reasonOnly a man like me can know him, that’sThe reason that your crude American thoughtMisses the man.
Since our talk at Christiana I have readAll you referred me to concerning Lincoln:His speeches and the story of the struggleWhich ended in your war, not civil reallyBut waged between two nations—but no matter!To me whose life is closing, and whose lifeWas spent in struggle, much of misery,In friendship with De Tocqueville then at oddsWith him and his philosophy, who knewBismarck, who saw the wars of Europe, sawGreat men come up and fall, and systems change,Who probed into the Renaissance and masteredReligions and philosophies and wroteConcerning racial inequalities—To me I say this crisis of your timeAnd country seems remote as it might beAlmost in far Australia, trivialIn substance and effect, or world result.And now your letter and these documentsConcerning Douglas yield but scanty gold.Perhaps I’ve reached an age where I cannotDigest new matter, or resolve its worth,Extract its bearing and significance.But since you ask me I am writing youWhat I’ve arrived at.
From the photographsAnd the descriptions of your Illinois,Where Lincoln spent his youth, I almost sicken:Small muddy rivers flanked by bottom landsSo fat of fertile stuff the grossest weedsThrive thriftier than in Egypt, round their rootsRepulsive serpents crawl, the air is fullOf loathsome insects, and along these banksAn agued people live who have no lifeExcept hard toil, whose pleasures are the danceWhere violent liquor takes the gun or knife;Who have no inspiration save the orgyOf the religious meeting, where the cultOf savage dreams is almost theirs. The townsPlaces of filth, of maddening quietude;Streets mired with mud, board sidewalks where the men,Like chickens with the cholera, stand and squeakFoul or half-idiot things; near by the churches,Mere arch-ways to the grave-yard. Nothing hereOf conscious plan to lift the spirit up.All is defeat of liberty in spiteOf certain strong men, certain splendid breeds,The pioneers who made your state; no beautySave as a soul delves in a master book.And out of this your Lincoln came, not poorAs Burns was in a land of storied towers,But poor as a degenerate breed is poorSunk down in squalor.
Yet he seems a manOf master qualities. The muddy streets,And melancholy of a pastoral town,And sights of people sick, the stifling weedsWhich grew about him left his spirit clean,Save for an ache that all his youth was spentIn such surroundings.
And observe the man!Do poverty and life among such peopleMake him a libertarian? Let us see.At twenty years he is a centralist,Stands for the bank which Andrew Jackson fought,And lauds protection, thinks of WashingtonMuch more than Springfield. That is right I say—But call him not a democrat.
Look here!This master book of Stephens which you sent meAccuses Lincoln of imperial deeds,And breach of laws, and rightly so, in truth.That makes me love him, but the end he soughtIs something else. At first that was the Union,Straight through it was the Union, but at lastThe strain of Christian softness always hisWhich filled him full of hate for slaveryCropped out in freedom for your negro slaves,Which was an act of war, and so confessed,Not propped by law, but only by a will.Thus he became a man who broke all lawTo have his law. He killed a million menFor what he called the Union, what he thoughtWas truth of Christian brotherhood. I sayHe killed a million men, for it is trueYour war had never come, had he believedAll government must rest in men’s consent.What have we but a soul imperial?A brother to me, standing for the strong,For master races, blindly at the workOf biologic mount? The cells of himThat make him saint for radicals and dreamersAre but somatic, but the sperm of himWill propagate great rulers.
See his face!Its tragic pathos fools the idealist—But study it. First, then, observe the eyes,And tell me how within their gaze eventsOr men could lose their true proportions! HereNo visions swarm, no dreams with flashing wingsThrow light upon them. No, they only lookAcross a boundless prairie, that is all.And in that brow and nose we see a strengthSlow, steady, wary, cautious—why this manIs your conservative, perhaps your best,Which is one reason why he loved the Union,And even said at last that governmentOf the people meant the Union—how absurd!—Would perish, if it perished, clearly false!And if ’twere true would be the better. ReadMy Renaissance, and other books, you’ll seeHow I’d protect the master spirits, keepThe master races pure; how I detestThe brotherhood of man, how I have shownThe falseness of these Galilean dreams,These syrups strained in secret, used to drugThe strong and make them equal with the weak.Such things are of the mind which weaves in space,—A penalty of thought. Come back to earth,Live close to nature. Do not sap a roseTo nourish cabbages, and call it truth!
Well, then, your negro’s freed! But what of that?You do not want him for a friend or spouse.I would not see him whipped, or made a bond.But tell me what you’re thinking of who sayHis freedom is a gain for liberty?To buy men’s labor is to buy their bodies.Your country now has entered on a courseOf buying labor, wait and see what comes!I see processions filing through your land.They carry banners bearing Lincoln’s face.And there are hordes who think the kingdom’s coming:As Lincoln freed the slaves, one will ariseTo free all men! The signs before the warAre come again, portentous stars appearWhich prophesied the war! All revolutionsAre so announced, the world is rising higherThrough ordered revolutions, preordained!Well, certain men look at these mad processionsFrom well-protected windows, with a smile—They are your millionaires, they think they knowThe soul of Lincoln better than the crowdsThat carry banners with his picture on them.Yes, all they have they owe to Lincoln, theyGrew strong through Lincoln.
But are you contentTo have your negroes free, and millionairesIn mastership of your republic? WhereAre men to overlord your millionaires? You knowOut of the eater comes forth meat, who willExhaust the strength of those whose strength was gainedFrom blood of boys shed on the battle field?What can you do to have a RenaissanceThat with a terrible light will drive to covertOwls, bats, and mousing hawks, that neither knowWhat life is, whence they come, nor what they are,Who live by superstition, codes of slaves,Fear truth, are weak, and only hunger know—You must have such a Renaissance or dieWhile slipping smugly, self sufficientlyAlong a way unvisioned, while you playThe hypocrite as it was never playedIn any place, in any time on earth!These things I see. But let me in conclusionPoint to your Lincoln as a man who makesFor power and beauty in your country, call itRepublic if you will, the name is nothing.I say the vitalest force is love, not hate.I say that all great souls are lovers, but of what?Why, what great Goethe loved! Your master menShould learn of Goethe, hold the crowd through him.And Lincoln was a lover, but of what?Well not the cesspool of the black man’s slavery.He loved the mathematics of high truths,And heightened spirituality, that’s the reasonOnly a man like me can know him, that’sThe reason that your crude American thoughtMisses the man.
I had a paying little refineryAnd all was well with me, and thenThe Trust edged up to me and wiped me out.So much for northern tariff, freedomOf niggers and New England rule.Praise God for sponging slavery from the Slate!Well, then I was without a cent again,What should I do? I wanted first a change,And rest in the use of other faculties,So I went out and took a farm.One thing leads to another. I wake up one morningAnd find a man from IllinoisBecome my neighbor on the adjoining farm.It’s your John Cogdall, once of Petersburg,County of Menard, in Illinois,Precinct Indian Point, he said to me.We’re friends at once, and visit back and forth.Two months ago I saw upon his tableA copy of thePetersburg Observer—John likes to hear the home-town news—I pick it up and scan it through to seeWhat a country paper is in Illinois.And there I read this notice of “Old Piery,”Real name Cordelia Stacke, dead thirty years,Whose money in the county treasuryIs to be made escheat. So here I amManeuvering for this money, rather shabbyIf I was not so devilish poor and pressed;If letting Menard County have the prizeWould profit any one, when I can proveOld Piery was my great aunt,Her father and my grandfather brothers,When I can prove that I’m her only heir.Yes, but not as pure of blood.Her father was a judge in South Carolina,Her mother was a belle of New Orleans,My father told me so. Cordelia Stacke,“Old Piery,” as you called her, was a storyWe heard as children sitting on his knee.I know to prove my name is Stacke,And then because her name was StackeWon’t draw this money from your treasury,But waitGo to your vault and get that ring she wore,Slipped from her dead hand when you found her bodyDead for a week amid her rags and stuff.Go get that ring, Mr. Treasurer of Menard,If I don’t describe itDown to the finest point,Just as I heard my father sayThe night she disappeared she wore a ringOf such and such, I’ll go back to my farmIn Mississippi. But I’ll do much moreI’ll trace her from Columbia to Old Salem;I’ll show her crazed brain luring her alongTo find the spot where Lincoln kept the storeTwo miles from where we sit.She must have walkedAcross Virginia, West Virginia,Ohio, Indiana, or perhapsShe footed it through Tennessee, Kentucky.I talked this morning with your county judge.He said she came here late in ’65Or early ’66,Was seen by farmers near the Salem Mill,A loitering, mumbling woman,Not old, but looking old, and aging fastAs she became a figure in your streetsAnd alleys with a gunny-sack on back,Wherein she stuffed old bottles, paper, thingsShe picked industriously and stored away.Would buy a bit of cold food at the baker’s.Sometimes would sit on door steps eating cake,Which friendly hands had given her, then departAnd say, “God rest your souls!” Attended massOn Sunday mornings, knew no oneAnd had no friends.In ’69 was found incompetent,And placed in charge of a conservator.Then as she was not dangerous went aheadAt picking rags,Until in ’97 passed away.Such was the life and death of a fine girl,The daughter of a judge in South CarolinaAnd a belle of New Orleans.And after life at best knew life at worst,Beginning in a southern capitolWhere she knew riches, admiration, place,She ended up in Petersburg, Illinois,A little croaking, mad but harmless waif,A withered leaf stirred by the Lincoln storm.And here’s my guess:The fancy of her madness brought her hereTo see the country whereThe man who was a laborer, kept a store,Could rise therefrom,And bring such desolation to the South,Such sorrow to herself, that is my guess.The name’s Cordelia Stacke inside this ringYou tell me. She’s the same no doubt.We all lived in Columbia when the troopsOf Sherman whirled upon us to the sea.I was a year old then. We were burned out,Lost everything.The troops came howling, plundering,And tossing combustible chemicals.They butchered just for sport our cattle;Split chests and cabinets with savage axes;Walked with their hob-nailed boots on our pianos;Ran bayonets through pictures;Rode horses in our parlors;Broke open trunks and safes;Searched cellars, opened graves for hoarded gold,And yelled “You dirty rebels now we’ve got you.”They filled their bellies up with wine and whisky,And drunken, howling through Columbia’s streetsThey carried vases, goblets, silver, gold,And rolled about with pockets full of loot,And then at last they stuck the torch to usAnd made a bon-fire of our city.Cordelia had a lover who was killedAt Antietam fighting, not for niggers,But fighting back the fools who had been crazedBy preachers, poets, Garrisons and WhittiersWho thought they worked for freedom, but insteadWorked for New England’s tariff—look at meHow could the trust destroy me if the tariffPut no bricks in the bully’s boxing gloves?Well, then, Cordelia lost her lover,And when the troops came was a novitiateNun at the convent. And the soldiers cameTo say the convent would be spared. But whenThe flames arose, she ran into the cityTo be beside her father and her mother.And she arrivedJust as the soldiers entered the house for loot.Her mother was in bed half dead from fright,Not well at best.The soldiers broke the bedroom door,And howled for treasure. When the mother saidThere was no treasure, then they took herAnd flung her from the bed, ripped up the matress,Raked pictures from the walls, and smashed the mirrors,Tore closets open, then went to the cellarLeaving the mother lying on the floor,Who lay as dead.They drank what wine they found,Then seized the father, hung him to a treeTo make him tell where he kept money hidden.The mother died in two days from the fright.The father was not killed, they took him down,And went their way carousing, yelling out“You dirty rebels now we’ve got you fair.”Cordelia thought no doubt that both were dead.A passerby beheld her on the lawnHer hair let down and plucking at her dress.But who could stop to help her in that hellOf a city burning and the howls and shouts,And falling walls?Cordelia disappeared and from that nightWas never seen or heard of. To his deathHer father thought she met a terrible fate:Was raped and slaughtered.So you seeAll of this put together tells the storyOf this poor creature whom you called “Old Piery.”But let me add Cordelia had a horseShe called “Old Piery”—that fits in my proof.That’s why she named herself “Old Piery” here,And gave your boys and girls a mocking nameTo hail her with as she went up your alleys;With which to rap the windows of her room,Where bottles, cans, waste rags, and copper things,Old hoops of iron, staves, old boots and shoes,Springs, wheels of clocks, and locks of broken guns,Old boards and boxes, stacks of paper wasteStuffed up the place, and where unknown to allPaper and silver money hid in cracksBetween the leaves of fouled and rain-soaked books,Or packed in jars were kept by her. You seeHer mind was turned to treasure, hiding itAgainst the soldiers maybe, in this landWhere Lincoln was a laborer, farmer, keptA store at Salem.Well I sayGod rest her soul, as she was used to say.I want to raise a stone to mark her grave,And carve her name below a broken heart.For listen now: the ring Cordelia woreWas just a little band of gold and setWith a cornelian heart—am I not right?I knew I was.
I had a paying little refineryAnd all was well with me, and thenThe Trust edged up to me and wiped me out.So much for northern tariff, freedomOf niggers and New England rule.Praise God for sponging slavery from the Slate!Well, then I was without a cent again,What should I do? I wanted first a change,And rest in the use of other faculties,So I went out and took a farm.One thing leads to another. I wake up one morningAnd find a man from IllinoisBecome my neighbor on the adjoining farm.It’s your John Cogdall, once of Petersburg,County of Menard, in Illinois,Precinct Indian Point, he said to me.We’re friends at once, and visit back and forth.Two months ago I saw upon his tableA copy of thePetersburg Observer—John likes to hear the home-town news—I pick it up and scan it through to seeWhat a country paper is in Illinois.And there I read this notice of “Old Piery,”Real name Cordelia Stacke, dead thirty years,Whose money in the county treasuryIs to be made escheat. So here I amManeuvering for this money, rather shabbyIf I was not so devilish poor and pressed;If letting Menard County have the prizeWould profit any one, when I can proveOld Piery was my great aunt,Her father and my grandfather brothers,When I can prove that I’m her only heir.Yes, but not as pure of blood.Her father was a judge in South Carolina,Her mother was a belle of New Orleans,My father told me so. Cordelia Stacke,“Old Piery,” as you called her, was a storyWe heard as children sitting on his knee.I know to prove my name is Stacke,And then because her name was StackeWon’t draw this money from your treasury,But waitGo to your vault and get that ring she wore,Slipped from her dead hand when you found her bodyDead for a week amid her rags and stuff.Go get that ring, Mr. Treasurer of Menard,If I don’t describe itDown to the finest point,Just as I heard my father sayThe night she disappeared she wore a ringOf such and such, I’ll go back to my farmIn Mississippi. But I’ll do much moreI’ll trace her from Columbia to Old Salem;I’ll show her crazed brain luring her alongTo find the spot where Lincoln kept the storeTwo miles from where we sit.She must have walkedAcross Virginia, West Virginia,Ohio, Indiana, or perhapsShe footed it through Tennessee, Kentucky.I talked this morning with your county judge.He said she came here late in ’65Or early ’66,Was seen by farmers near the Salem Mill,A loitering, mumbling woman,Not old, but looking old, and aging fastAs she became a figure in your streetsAnd alleys with a gunny-sack on back,Wherein she stuffed old bottles, paper, thingsShe picked industriously and stored away.Would buy a bit of cold food at the baker’s.Sometimes would sit on door steps eating cake,Which friendly hands had given her, then departAnd say, “God rest your souls!” Attended massOn Sunday mornings, knew no oneAnd had no friends.In ’69 was found incompetent,And placed in charge of a conservator.Then as she was not dangerous went aheadAt picking rags,Until in ’97 passed away.Such was the life and death of a fine girl,The daughter of a judge in South CarolinaAnd a belle of New Orleans.And after life at best knew life at worst,Beginning in a southern capitolWhere she knew riches, admiration, place,She ended up in Petersburg, Illinois,A little croaking, mad but harmless waif,A withered leaf stirred by the Lincoln storm.And here’s my guess:The fancy of her madness brought her hereTo see the country whereThe man who was a laborer, kept a store,Could rise therefrom,And bring such desolation to the South,Such sorrow to herself, that is my guess.The name’s Cordelia Stacke inside this ringYou tell me. She’s the same no doubt.We all lived in Columbia when the troopsOf Sherman whirled upon us to the sea.I was a year old then. We were burned out,Lost everything.The troops came howling, plundering,And tossing combustible chemicals.They butchered just for sport our cattle;Split chests and cabinets with savage axes;Walked with their hob-nailed boots on our pianos;Ran bayonets through pictures;Rode horses in our parlors;Broke open trunks and safes;Searched cellars, opened graves for hoarded gold,And yelled “You dirty rebels now we’ve got you.”They filled their bellies up with wine and whisky,And drunken, howling through Columbia’s streetsThey carried vases, goblets, silver, gold,And rolled about with pockets full of loot,And then at last they stuck the torch to usAnd made a bon-fire of our city.Cordelia had a lover who was killedAt Antietam fighting, not for niggers,But fighting back the fools who had been crazedBy preachers, poets, Garrisons and WhittiersWho thought they worked for freedom, but insteadWorked for New England’s tariff—look at meHow could the trust destroy me if the tariffPut no bricks in the bully’s boxing gloves?Well, then, Cordelia lost her lover,And when the troops came was a novitiateNun at the convent. And the soldiers cameTo say the convent would be spared. But whenThe flames arose, she ran into the cityTo be beside her father and her mother.And she arrivedJust as the soldiers entered the house for loot.Her mother was in bed half dead from fright,Not well at best.The soldiers broke the bedroom door,And howled for treasure. When the mother saidThere was no treasure, then they took herAnd flung her from the bed, ripped up the matress,Raked pictures from the walls, and smashed the mirrors,Tore closets open, then went to the cellarLeaving the mother lying on the floor,Who lay as dead.They drank what wine they found,Then seized the father, hung him to a treeTo make him tell where he kept money hidden.The mother died in two days from the fright.The father was not killed, they took him down,And went their way carousing, yelling out“You dirty rebels now we’ve got you fair.”Cordelia thought no doubt that both were dead.A passerby beheld her on the lawnHer hair let down and plucking at her dress.But who could stop to help her in that hellOf a city burning and the howls and shouts,And falling walls?Cordelia disappeared and from that nightWas never seen or heard of. To his deathHer father thought she met a terrible fate:Was raped and slaughtered.So you seeAll of this put together tells the storyOf this poor creature whom you called “Old Piery.”But let me add Cordelia had a horseShe called “Old Piery”—that fits in my proof.That’s why she named herself “Old Piery” here,And gave your boys and girls a mocking nameTo hail her with as she went up your alleys;With which to rap the windows of her room,Where bottles, cans, waste rags, and copper things,Old hoops of iron, staves, old boots and shoes,Springs, wheels of clocks, and locks of broken guns,Old boards and boxes, stacks of paper wasteStuffed up the place, and where unknown to allPaper and silver money hid in cracksBetween the leaves of fouled and rain-soaked books,Or packed in jars were kept by her. You seeHer mind was turned to treasure, hiding itAgainst the soldiers maybe, in this landWhere Lincoln was a laborer, farmer, keptA store at Salem.Well I sayGod rest her soul, as she was used to say.I want to raise a stone to mark her grave,And carve her name below a broken heart.For listen now: the ring Cordelia woreWas just a little band of gold and setWith a cornelian heart—am I not right?I knew I was.
I had a paying little refineryAnd all was well with me, and thenThe Trust edged up to me and wiped me out.So much for northern tariff, freedomOf niggers and New England rule.Praise God for sponging slavery from the Slate!Well, then I was without a cent again,What should I do? I wanted first a change,And rest in the use of other faculties,So I went out and took a farm.One thing leads to another. I wake up one morningAnd find a man from IllinoisBecome my neighbor on the adjoining farm.It’s your John Cogdall, once of Petersburg,County of Menard, in Illinois,Precinct Indian Point, he said to me.We’re friends at once, and visit back and forth.Two months ago I saw upon his tableA copy of thePetersburg Observer—John likes to hear the home-town news—I pick it up and scan it through to seeWhat a country paper is in Illinois.And there I read this notice of “Old Piery,”Real name Cordelia Stacke, dead thirty years,Whose money in the county treasuryIs to be made escheat. So here I amManeuvering for this money, rather shabbyIf I was not so devilish poor and pressed;If letting Menard County have the prizeWould profit any one, when I can proveOld Piery was my great aunt,Her father and my grandfather brothers,When I can prove that I’m her only heir.
Yes, but not as pure of blood.Her father was a judge in South Carolina,Her mother was a belle of New Orleans,My father told me so. Cordelia Stacke,“Old Piery,” as you called her, was a storyWe heard as children sitting on his knee.I know to prove my name is Stacke,And then because her name was StackeWon’t draw this money from your treasury,But waitGo to your vault and get that ring she wore,Slipped from her dead hand when you found her bodyDead for a week amid her rags and stuff.Go get that ring, Mr. Treasurer of Menard,If I don’t describe itDown to the finest point,Just as I heard my father sayThe night she disappeared she wore a ringOf such and such, I’ll go back to my farmIn Mississippi. But I’ll do much moreI’ll trace her from Columbia to Old Salem;I’ll show her crazed brain luring her alongTo find the spot where Lincoln kept the storeTwo miles from where we sit.She must have walkedAcross Virginia, West Virginia,Ohio, Indiana, or perhapsShe footed it through Tennessee, Kentucky.
I talked this morning with your county judge.He said she came here late in ’65Or early ’66,Was seen by farmers near the Salem Mill,A loitering, mumbling woman,Not old, but looking old, and aging fastAs she became a figure in your streetsAnd alleys with a gunny-sack on back,Wherein she stuffed old bottles, paper, thingsShe picked industriously and stored away.Would buy a bit of cold food at the baker’s.Sometimes would sit on door steps eating cake,Which friendly hands had given her, then departAnd say, “God rest your souls!” Attended massOn Sunday mornings, knew no oneAnd had no friends.In ’69 was found incompetent,And placed in charge of a conservator.Then as she was not dangerous went aheadAt picking rags,Until in ’97 passed away.
Such was the life and death of a fine girl,The daughter of a judge in South CarolinaAnd a belle of New Orleans.And after life at best knew life at worst,Beginning in a southern capitolWhere she knew riches, admiration, place,She ended up in Petersburg, Illinois,A little croaking, mad but harmless waif,A withered leaf stirred by the Lincoln storm.And here’s my guess:The fancy of her madness brought her hereTo see the country whereThe man who was a laborer, kept a store,Could rise therefrom,And bring such desolation to the South,Such sorrow to herself, that is my guess.
The name’s Cordelia Stacke inside this ringYou tell me. She’s the same no doubt.We all lived in Columbia when the troopsOf Sherman whirled upon us to the sea.I was a year old then. We were burned out,Lost everything.The troops came howling, plundering,And tossing combustible chemicals.They butchered just for sport our cattle;Split chests and cabinets with savage axes;Walked with their hob-nailed boots on our pianos;Ran bayonets through pictures;Rode horses in our parlors;Broke open trunks and safes;Searched cellars, opened graves for hoarded gold,And yelled “You dirty rebels now we’ve got you.”They filled their bellies up with wine and whisky,And drunken, howling through Columbia’s streetsThey carried vases, goblets, silver, gold,And rolled about with pockets full of loot,And then at last they stuck the torch to usAnd made a bon-fire of our city.
Cordelia had a lover who was killedAt Antietam fighting, not for niggers,But fighting back the fools who had been crazedBy preachers, poets, Garrisons and WhittiersWho thought they worked for freedom, but insteadWorked for New England’s tariff—look at meHow could the trust destroy me if the tariffPut no bricks in the bully’s boxing gloves?Well, then, Cordelia lost her lover,And when the troops came was a novitiateNun at the convent. And the soldiers cameTo say the convent would be spared. But whenThe flames arose, she ran into the cityTo be beside her father and her mother.And she arrivedJust as the soldiers entered the house for loot.Her mother was in bed half dead from fright,Not well at best.The soldiers broke the bedroom door,And howled for treasure. When the mother saidThere was no treasure, then they took herAnd flung her from the bed, ripped up the matress,Raked pictures from the walls, and smashed the mirrors,Tore closets open, then went to the cellarLeaving the mother lying on the floor,Who lay as dead.They drank what wine they found,Then seized the father, hung him to a treeTo make him tell where he kept money hidden.The mother died in two days from the fright.The father was not killed, they took him down,And went their way carousing, yelling out“You dirty rebels now we’ve got you fair.”Cordelia thought no doubt that both were dead.A passerby beheld her on the lawnHer hair let down and plucking at her dress.But who could stop to help her in that hellOf a city burning and the howls and shouts,And falling walls?Cordelia disappeared and from that nightWas never seen or heard of. To his deathHer father thought she met a terrible fate:Was raped and slaughtered.
So you seeAll of this put together tells the storyOf this poor creature whom you called “Old Piery.”But let me add Cordelia had a horseShe called “Old Piery”—that fits in my proof.That’s why she named herself “Old Piery” here,And gave your boys and girls a mocking nameTo hail her with as she went up your alleys;With which to rap the windows of her room,Where bottles, cans, waste rags, and copper things,Old hoops of iron, staves, old boots and shoes,Springs, wheels of clocks, and locks of broken guns,Old boards and boxes, stacks of paper wasteStuffed up the place, and where unknown to allPaper and silver money hid in cracksBetween the leaves of fouled and rain-soaked books,Or packed in jars were kept by her. You seeHer mind was turned to treasure, hiding itAgainst the soldiers maybe, in this landWhere Lincoln was a laborer, farmer, keptA store at Salem.
Well I sayGod rest her soul, as she was used to say.I want to raise a stone to mark her grave,And carve her name below a broken heart.For listen now: the ring Cordelia woreWas just a little band of gold and setWith a cornelian heart—am I not right?I knew I was.
He calls himself an American citizen—And yet among such various breeds of menWho’ll call him typical? At any rateHis faults or virtues one may predicateSomewhat as follows: He is sent to schoolLittle or much, where he imbibes the ruleOf safety first and comfort; in his youthHe joins the church and ends the quest of truth.Beyond the pages of theologyHe does not turn, he does not seem to seeHow hunger makes these Occidental creedsSweet foliage on which the stomach feeds.Like those thick tussock moths upon the boleOf a great beech tree, feed the human soulAnd it will use the food for gold and power!So men have used Christ Jesus’ tender flower,And garnered it for porridge, opiates,And made it flesh of customs laws and statesWhere life repeats itself after a planAnd breeds the typical American—As he regards himself.Our man maturesAnd enters business, following the luresOf great increase in business, more receipts—Upon this object center all his wits.And greater crops make needful larger barns,Vainly the parable of Jesus warns.His soul is now required, is taken awayFrom living waters, in a little dayThrift, labor dooms him, leaves him banquetingWhere nothing nourishes, they are the stingWhich deadens him and casts him down at lastFly blown or numb or lifeless in this vastSurrounding air of Vital Power, where GodLike the great sun, invites the wayside clodTo live at full.In time our hero wedsA woman like himself, and little headsSoon run about a house or pleasant yard.He must work now to keep them—have regardTo the community, its thoughts and ways.What church is here? He finds it best to praiseIts pastor and its flock, his children sendTo Sunday school, if never he attendIts services. What politics obtain?He must support the tussock leaf campaignsIf he would eat himself. ’Tis best to joinThe party which controls the greater coin.And so what is his party’s interestIn business? There must his soul investIts treasure till the two are wholly one.Like the poor prostitute he is undoneIn virtue not alone, but he has madeHimself a cog-wheel in the filthy tradeOf justice courts, police and graft in wineBondsmen and lawyers with a strength malignMoving the silken vestured marionetteTo laugh, entice and play the sad coquette.Yet if for bread you are compelled to askThe giver may impose an evil task,Or terms of life. Would you retain a roof,Mix with the crowd, nor dare to stand aloof.Our hero sees this, wears a hopeful smileTo cover up his spattered soul, and whileDigesting wounded truth, hiding his thought,His own opinions, for his soul is caughtAmid the idiot hands that strike and press—One may glide through who learns to say yes, yes,While in heart-sickness whispering to himself:I do this for the children, and for pelfTo keep the house and yard, the cupboard full.Some time I hope to free myself and pullMy legs out of this social muck and mire.First money is, then freedom his desire,But often neither comes. If he win wealthHe has become lead-poisoned, for by stealthThe virus of the colors which he usedTo paint his life is spread and interfusedIn every vein. By ways complaisantOur hero has got gold from ignorantVulgarian nondescripts, has entertainedThe odorous cormorants, and has profanedHis household gods to keep them safe and wholeUpon the altar—winning what a goal!For meantime in this living he has schooledHis children in the precepts which have ruledHis days from the beginning. They are bredHis out-look to repeat, and even to treadThe way he went amid the tangled woodIn their own time and chosen neighborhood.What has our hero done? Why nothing moreThan feed upon the beech leaves, gather storeFor children moths to feed on, and get strengthTo climb the branches and on leaves at lengthTo feed of their own will.Is this a man?Is this your typical American?
He calls himself an American citizen—And yet among such various breeds of menWho’ll call him typical? At any rateHis faults or virtues one may predicateSomewhat as follows: He is sent to schoolLittle or much, where he imbibes the ruleOf safety first and comfort; in his youthHe joins the church and ends the quest of truth.Beyond the pages of theologyHe does not turn, he does not seem to seeHow hunger makes these Occidental creedsSweet foliage on which the stomach feeds.Like those thick tussock moths upon the boleOf a great beech tree, feed the human soulAnd it will use the food for gold and power!So men have used Christ Jesus’ tender flower,And garnered it for porridge, opiates,And made it flesh of customs laws and statesWhere life repeats itself after a planAnd breeds the typical American—As he regards himself.Our man maturesAnd enters business, following the luresOf great increase in business, more receipts—Upon this object center all his wits.And greater crops make needful larger barns,Vainly the parable of Jesus warns.His soul is now required, is taken awayFrom living waters, in a little dayThrift, labor dooms him, leaves him banquetingWhere nothing nourishes, they are the stingWhich deadens him and casts him down at lastFly blown or numb or lifeless in this vastSurrounding air of Vital Power, where GodLike the great sun, invites the wayside clodTo live at full.In time our hero wedsA woman like himself, and little headsSoon run about a house or pleasant yard.He must work now to keep them—have regardTo the community, its thoughts and ways.What church is here? He finds it best to praiseIts pastor and its flock, his children sendTo Sunday school, if never he attendIts services. What politics obtain?He must support the tussock leaf campaignsIf he would eat himself. ’Tis best to joinThe party which controls the greater coin.And so what is his party’s interestIn business? There must his soul investIts treasure till the two are wholly one.Like the poor prostitute he is undoneIn virtue not alone, but he has madeHimself a cog-wheel in the filthy tradeOf justice courts, police and graft in wineBondsmen and lawyers with a strength malignMoving the silken vestured marionetteTo laugh, entice and play the sad coquette.Yet if for bread you are compelled to askThe giver may impose an evil task,Or terms of life. Would you retain a roof,Mix with the crowd, nor dare to stand aloof.Our hero sees this, wears a hopeful smileTo cover up his spattered soul, and whileDigesting wounded truth, hiding his thought,His own opinions, for his soul is caughtAmid the idiot hands that strike and press—One may glide through who learns to say yes, yes,While in heart-sickness whispering to himself:I do this for the children, and for pelfTo keep the house and yard, the cupboard full.Some time I hope to free myself and pullMy legs out of this social muck and mire.First money is, then freedom his desire,But often neither comes. If he win wealthHe has become lead-poisoned, for by stealthThe virus of the colors which he usedTo paint his life is spread and interfusedIn every vein. By ways complaisantOur hero has got gold from ignorantVulgarian nondescripts, has entertainedThe odorous cormorants, and has profanedHis household gods to keep them safe and wholeUpon the altar—winning what a goal!For meantime in this living he has schooledHis children in the precepts which have ruledHis days from the beginning. They are bredHis out-look to repeat, and even to treadThe way he went amid the tangled woodIn their own time and chosen neighborhood.What has our hero done? Why nothing moreThan feed upon the beech leaves, gather storeFor children moths to feed on, and get strengthTo climb the branches and on leaves at lengthTo feed of their own will.Is this a man?Is this your typical American?
He calls himself an American citizen—And yet among such various breeds of menWho’ll call him typical? At any rateHis faults or virtues one may predicateSomewhat as follows: He is sent to schoolLittle or much, where he imbibes the ruleOf safety first and comfort; in his youthHe joins the church and ends the quest of truth.Beyond the pages of theologyHe does not turn, he does not seem to seeHow hunger makes these Occidental creedsSweet foliage on which the stomach feeds.Like those thick tussock moths upon the boleOf a great beech tree, feed the human soulAnd it will use the food for gold and power!So men have used Christ Jesus’ tender flower,And garnered it for porridge, opiates,And made it flesh of customs laws and statesWhere life repeats itself after a planAnd breeds the typical American—As he regards himself.
Our man maturesAnd enters business, following the luresOf great increase in business, more receipts—Upon this object center all his wits.And greater crops make needful larger barns,Vainly the parable of Jesus warns.His soul is now required, is taken awayFrom living waters, in a little dayThrift, labor dooms him, leaves him banquetingWhere nothing nourishes, they are the stingWhich deadens him and casts him down at lastFly blown or numb or lifeless in this vastSurrounding air of Vital Power, where GodLike the great sun, invites the wayside clodTo live at full.
In time our hero wedsA woman like himself, and little headsSoon run about a house or pleasant yard.He must work now to keep them—have regardTo the community, its thoughts and ways.What church is here? He finds it best to praiseIts pastor and its flock, his children sendTo Sunday school, if never he attendIts services. What politics obtain?He must support the tussock leaf campaignsIf he would eat himself. ’Tis best to joinThe party which controls the greater coin.And so what is his party’s interestIn business? There must his soul investIts treasure till the two are wholly one.Like the poor prostitute he is undoneIn virtue not alone, but he has madeHimself a cog-wheel in the filthy tradeOf justice courts, police and graft in wineBondsmen and lawyers with a strength malignMoving the silken vestured marionetteTo laugh, entice and play the sad coquette.Yet if for bread you are compelled to askThe giver may impose an evil task,Or terms of life. Would you retain a roof,Mix with the crowd, nor dare to stand aloof.Our hero sees this, wears a hopeful smileTo cover up his spattered soul, and whileDigesting wounded truth, hiding his thought,His own opinions, for his soul is caughtAmid the idiot hands that strike and press—One may glide through who learns to say yes, yes,While in heart-sickness whispering to himself:I do this for the children, and for pelfTo keep the house and yard, the cupboard full.Some time I hope to free myself and pullMy legs out of this social muck and mire.First money is, then freedom his desire,But often neither comes. If he win wealthHe has become lead-poisoned, for by stealthThe virus of the colors which he usedTo paint his life is spread and interfusedIn every vein. By ways complaisantOur hero has got gold from ignorantVulgarian nondescripts, has entertainedThe odorous cormorants, and has profanedHis household gods to keep them safe and wholeUpon the altar—winning what a goal!For meantime in this living he has schooledHis children in the precepts which have ruledHis days from the beginning. They are bredHis out-look to repeat, and even to treadThe way he went amid the tangled woodIn their own time and chosen neighborhood.What has our hero done? Why nothing moreThan feed upon the beech leaves, gather storeFor children moths to feed on, and get strengthTo climb the branches and on leaves at lengthTo feed of their own will.
Is this a man?Is this your typical American?
Come! United States of America,And you one hundred million souls, O Republic,Throw out your chests, lift up your heads,And walk with a soldier’s stride.Quit burning up for money alone.Quit slouching and dawdling,And dreaming and moralising.Quit idling about the streets, like the boyIn the village, who pines for the city.Root out the sinister secret societies,And the clans that stick together for office,And the good men who care nothing for liberty,But would run you, O Republic, as a household is run.It is time, Republic, to get some class,It is time to harden your muscles,And to clear your eyes in the cold water of Reality,And to tighten your nerves.It is time to think what Nature means,And to consult Nature,When your soul, as you call it, calls to youTo follow principle!It is time to snuff out the A. D. Bloods.It is time to lift yourself, O Republic,From the street corners of Spoon River.Do you wish to survive,And to count in the years to come?Then do what the plow-boys did in sixty-one,Who left the fields for the camp,And tightened their nerves and hardened their armsTill the day they left the camp for the fieldsThe bravest, readiest, clearest-eyedStraight-walking men in the world,And symbolical of a RepublicThat is worthy the name!If you, Republic, had kept the faithOf a culture all your own,And a spiritual independence,And a freedom large and new.If you had not set up a Federal judge in China,And scrambled for place in the Orient,And stolen the Philippine Islands,And mixed in the business of Europe,Three thousand miles of water east,And seven thousand westHad kept your hands untainted, freeFor a culture all your own!But while you were fumbling, and while you were dreamingAs the boy in the village dreams of the cityYou were doing something worse:You were imitating!You came to the city and aped the swells,And tried to enter their set!You strained your Fate to their fate,And borrowed the mood to live their life!And here you are in the game, Republic,But not prepared to play!But you did it.And the water east and water westAre no longer your safeguard:They are now your danger and difficulty!And you must live the life you started to imitateIn spite of these perilous waters.For they keep you now from being neutral—For you are not neutral, Republic,You only pretend to be.You are not free, independent, brave,You are shackled, cowardlyFor what could happen to you overnightIn the Orient,If you stood with your shoulders up,And were Neutral!Suppose you do it, Republic.Get some class,Throw out your chest, lift up your head,Be a ruler in the world,And not a hermit in regimentals with a flint-lock.Colossus with one foot in Europe,And one in China,Quit looking between your legs for the re-appearanceOf the star of Bethlehem—Stand up and be a man!
Come! United States of America,And you one hundred million souls, O Republic,Throw out your chests, lift up your heads,And walk with a soldier’s stride.Quit burning up for money alone.Quit slouching and dawdling,And dreaming and moralising.Quit idling about the streets, like the boyIn the village, who pines for the city.Root out the sinister secret societies,And the clans that stick together for office,And the good men who care nothing for liberty,But would run you, O Republic, as a household is run.It is time, Republic, to get some class,It is time to harden your muscles,And to clear your eyes in the cold water of Reality,And to tighten your nerves.It is time to think what Nature means,And to consult Nature,When your soul, as you call it, calls to youTo follow principle!It is time to snuff out the A. D. Bloods.It is time to lift yourself, O Republic,From the street corners of Spoon River.Do you wish to survive,And to count in the years to come?Then do what the plow-boys did in sixty-one,Who left the fields for the camp,And tightened their nerves and hardened their armsTill the day they left the camp for the fieldsThe bravest, readiest, clearest-eyedStraight-walking men in the world,And symbolical of a RepublicThat is worthy the name!If you, Republic, had kept the faithOf a culture all your own,And a spiritual independence,And a freedom large and new.If you had not set up a Federal judge in China,And scrambled for place in the Orient,And stolen the Philippine Islands,And mixed in the business of Europe,Three thousand miles of water east,And seven thousand westHad kept your hands untainted, freeFor a culture all your own!But while you were fumbling, and while you were dreamingAs the boy in the village dreams of the cityYou were doing something worse:You were imitating!You came to the city and aped the swells,And tried to enter their set!You strained your Fate to their fate,And borrowed the mood to live their life!And here you are in the game, Republic,But not prepared to play!But you did it.And the water east and water westAre no longer your safeguard:They are now your danger and difficulty!And you must live the life you started to imitateIn spite of these perilous waters.For they keep you now from being neutral—For you are not neutral, Republic,You only pretend to be.You are not free, independent, brave,You are shackled, cowardlyFor what could happen to you overnightIn the Orient,If you stood with your shoulders up,And were Neutral!Suppose you do it, Republic.Get some class,Throw out your chest, lift up your head,Be a ruler in the world,And not a hermit in regimentals with a flint-lock.Colossus with one foot in Europe,And one in China,Quit looking between your legs for the re-appearanceOf the star of Bethlehem—Stand up and be a man!
Come! United States of America,And you one hundred million souls, O Republic,Throw out your chests, lift up your heads,And walk with a soldier’s stride.Quit burning up for money alone.Quit slouching and dawdling,And dreaming and moralising.Quit idling about the streets, like the boyIn the village, who pines for the city.Root out the sinister secret societies,And the clans that stick together for office,And the good men who care nothing for liberty,But would run you, O Republic, as a household is run.It is time, Republic, to get some class,It is time to harden your muscles,And to clear your eyes in the cold water of Reality,And to tighten your nerves.It is time to think what Nature means,And to consult Nature,When your soul, as you call it, calls to youTo follow principle!It is time to snuff out the A. D. Bloods.It is time to lift yourself, O Republic,From the street corners of Spoon River.
Do you wish to survive,And to count in the years to come?Then do what the plow-boys did in sixty-one,Who left the fields for the camp,And tightened their nerves and hardened their armsTill the day they left the camp for the fieldsThe bravest, readiest, clearest-eyedStraight-walking men in the world,And symbolical of a RepublicThat is worthy the name!
If you, Republic, had kept the faithOf a culture all your own,And a spiritual independence,And a freedom large and new.If you had not set up a Federal judge in China,And scrambled for place in the Orient,And stolen the Philippine Islands,And mixed in the business of Europe,Three thousand miles of water east,And seven thousand westHad kept your hands untainted, freeFor a culture all your own!But while you were fumbling, and while you were dreamingAs the boy in the village dreams of the cityYou were doing something worse:You were imitating!You came to the city and aped the swells,And tried to enter their set!You strained your Fate to their fate,And borrowed the mood to live their life!And here you are in the game, Republic,But not prepared to play!
But you did it.And the water east and water westAre no longer your safeguard:They are now your danger and difficulty!And you must live the life you started to imitateIn spite of these perilous waters.For they keep you now from being neutral—For you are not neutral, Republic,You only pretend to be.You are not free, independent, brave,You are shackled, cowardlyFor what could happen to you overnightIn the Orient,If you stood with your shoulders up,And were Neutral!
Suppose you do it, Republic.Get some class,Throw out your chest, lift up your head,Be a ruler in the world,And not a hermit in regimentals with a flint-lock.Colossus with one foot in Europe,And one in China,Quit looking between your legs for the re-appearanceOf the star of Bethlehem—Stand up and be a man!
Past midnight! Vastly overheadA wash of stars—the town’s asleep!And through the pine trees of the deadThe rising winds of morning creep.Dim, mid the hillside’s shadow grassI count the marble slabs. How vainMy throbbing life that waits to passInto the great world on the train!The city’s vision fades from mind.I only see the hill and sky;And on the mist that rides the windA tottering pageant meets my eye.The cock crows faintly, far away;A troop of age and grief appears.Ye shadows of a distant day.What do ye, pioneers?There shines the engine’s comet light.Ye shadows of a century set,Haste to the hillside and the night—I am not of you yet!
Past midnight! Vastly overheadA wash of stars—the town’s asleep!And through the pine trees of the deadThe rising winds of morning creep.Dim, mid the hillside’s shadow grassI count the marble slabs. How vainMy throbbing life that waits to passInto the great world on the train!The city’s vision fades from mind.I only see the hill and sky;And on the mist that rides the windA tottering pageant meets my eye.The cock crows faintly, far away;A troop of age and grief appears.Ye shadows of a distant day.What do ye, pioneers?There shines the engine’s comet light.Ye shadows of a century set,Haste to the hillside and the night—I am not of you yet!
Past midnight! Vastly overheadA wash of stars—the town’s asleep!And through the pine trees of the deadThe rising winds of morning creep.
Dim, mid the hillside’s shadow grassI count the marble slabs. How vainMy throbbing life that waits to passInto the great world on the train!
The city’s vision fades from mind.I only see the hill and sky;And on the mist that rides the windA tottering pageant meets my eye.
The cock crows faintly, far away;A troop of age and grief appears.Ye shadows of a distant day.What do ye, pioneers?
There shines the engine’s comet light.Ye shadows of a century set,Haste to the hillside and the night—I am not of you yet!
To the lovers of Liberty everywhere,But chiefly to the youth of AmericaWho did not know Robert G. Ingersoll,Remember that he helped to make you free!He was a leader in a war of guns for freedom,But a general in the war of ideas for freedom!He braved the misunderstanding of friends,He faced the enmity of the powerful small of soul,And the insidious power of the churches;He put aside worldly honours,And the sovereignty of place,He stripped off the armor of institutional friendshipsTo dedicate his soulTo the terrible deities of Truth and Beauty!And he went down into age and into the shadowWith love of men for a staff,And the light of his soul for a light—And with these alone!O you martyrs trading martyrdom for heaven,And self-denial for eternal riches,How does your work and your death compareWith a man’s for whom the weal of the race,And the cause of humanity here and now were enoughTo give life meaning and death as well?—I have not seen such faith in Israel!
To the lovers of Liberty everywhere,But chiefly to the youth of AmericaWho did not know Robert G. Ingersoll,Remember that he helped to make you free!He was a leader in a war of guns for freedom,But a general in the war of ideas for freedom!He braved the misunderstanding of friends,He faced the enmity of the powerful small of soul,And the insidious power of the churches;He put aside worldly honours,And the sovereignty of place,He stripped off the armor of institutional friendshipsTo dedicate his soulTo the terrible deities of Truth and Beauty!And he went down into age and into the shadowWith love of men for a staff,And the light of his soul for a light—And with these alone!O you martyrs trading martyrdom for heaven,And self-denial for eternal riches,How does your work and your death compareWith a man’s for whom the weal of the race,And the cause of humanity here and now were enoughTo give life meaning and death as well?—I have not seen such faith in Israel!
To the lovers of Liberty everywhere,But chiefly to the youth of AmericaWho did not know Robert G. Ingersoll,Remember that he helped to make you free!He was a leader in a war of guns for freedom,But a general in the war of ideas for freedom!He braved the misunderstanding of friends,He faced the enmity of the powerful small of soul,And the insidious power of the churches;He put aside worldly honours,And the sovereignty of place,He stripped off the armor of institutional friendshipsTo dedicate his soulTo the terrible deities of Truth and Beauty!And he went down into age and into the shadowWith love of men for a staff,And the light of his soul for a light—And with these alone!O you martyrs trading martyrdom for heaven,And self-denial for eternal riches,How does your work and your death compareWith a man’s for whom the weal of the race,And the cause of humanity here and now were enoughTo give life meaning and death as well?—I have not seen such faith in Israel!