The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Great Valley

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Great ValleyThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Great ValleyAuthor: Edgar Lee MastersRelease date: January 25, 2018 [eBook #56436]Most recently updated: January 24, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif, Larry B. Harrison, Bryan Ness andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Archive/CanadianLibraries)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT VALLEY ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Great ValleyAuthor: Edgar Lee MastersRelease date: January 25, 2018 [eBook #56436]Most recently updated: January 24, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chuck Greif, Larry B. Harrison, Bryan Ness andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Archive/CanadianLibraries)

Title: The Great Valley

Author: Edgar Lee Masters

Release date: January 25, 2018 [eBook #56436]Most recently updated: January 24, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif, Larry B. Harrison, Bryan Ness andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Archive/CanadianLibraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT VALLEY ***

THE GREAT VALLEY

colophonTHE MACMILLAN COMPANYNEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLASATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCOMACMILLAN & CO.,LimitedLONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTAMELBOURNETHE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA,Ltd.TORONTO

ByEDGAR LEE MASTERSAUTHOR OF “SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY”,“SONGS AND SATIRES,” ETC.New YorkTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY1916All rights reserved

Copyright, 1916,ByTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY.———Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1916.Reprinted November, 1916.Norwood PressJ. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.TO THE MEMORYOFSQUIRE DAVISandLUCINDA MASTERSWHO, CLOSE TO NATURE, ONE IN DEEP RELIGIOUS FAITH, THE OTHERIN PANTHEISTIC RAPTURE AND HEROISM, LIVED NEARLY AHUNDRED YEARS IN THIS LAND OF ILLINOISI INSCRIBETHE GREAT VALLEYIN ADMIRATION OF THEIR GREAT STRENGTH, MASTERYOF LIFE, HOPEFULNESS, CLEAR ANDBEAUTIFUL DEMOCRACYEdgar Lee Masters

Here the old Fort stoodWhen the river bent southward.Now because the world pours itself into ChicagoThe Lake runs into the riverPast docks and switch-yards,And under bridges of iron.Sand dunes stretched along the lake for miles.There was a great forest in the Loop.Now Michigan Avenue liesBetween miles of lights,And the Rialto blazesWhere the wolf howled.In the loneliness of the log-cabin,Across the river,The fur-trader played his fiddleWhen the snow layAbout the camp of the PottawatomiesIn the great forest.Now to the music of the Kangaroo Hop,And Ragging the Scale,And La Seduccion,The boys and girls are dancingIn a cafe near Lake Street.The world is theirs now.There is neither a past nor a to-morrow,Save of dancing.Nor do they know that behind themIn the seed not yet sownThere are eyes which will open upon Chicago,And feet which will blossom for the dance,And hands which will reach upAnd push them into the silenceOf the old fiddler.They threw a flagOver the coffin of Lieutenant FarnumAnd buried him back of the FortIn ground where nowThe spice mills stand.And his little squaw with a babySat on the porch grievingWhile the band played.Then hands pushing the worldBuried a million soldiers and afterwardPale multitudes swept through the Court-houseTo gaze for the last timeUpon the shrunken face of Lincoln.And the fort at thirty-fifth street vanished.And where the Little Giant livedThey made a parkAnd put his statueUpon a column of marble.Now the glare of the steel mills at South ChicagoLights the bronze brow of Douglas.It is his great sorrowHaunting the Lake at mid-night.When the South was beatenThey were playingJohn Brown’s body lies mouldering in the Grave,And Babylon is Fallen and Wake Nicodemus.Now the boys and girls are dancingTo the Merry Whirl and Hello FriscoWhere they waltzed in crinolineWhen the Union was saved.There was the Marble TerraceGlory of the seventies!They wrecked it,And brought colors and figuresFrom later Athens and PompeiiAnd put them on walls.And beneath panels of red and gold,And shimmering tesseræ,And tragic masks and comic masks,And wreaths and bucrania,Upon mosaic floorsRed lipped women are dancingWith dark men.Some sit at tables drinking and watching,Amorous in an air of French perfumes.Like ships at mid-nightThe kingdoms of the worldKnow not whither they go nor to what port.Nor do you, embryo hands,In the seed not yet sownKnow of the wars to come.They may fill the sky with armored dragonsAnd the waters with iron monsters;They may build arsenalsWhere now upon marble floorsThe boys and girlsAre dancing the Alabama Jubilee,The processional of time is a falling streamThrough which you thrust your hand.And between the dancers and the silence foreverThere shall be the liversGazing upon the torches they have lighted,And watching their own which are failing,And crying for oil,And finding it not!

Here the old Fort stoodWhen the river bent southward.Now because the world pours itself into ChicagoThe Lake runs into the riverPast docks and switch-yards,And under bridges of iron.

Sand dunes stretched along the lake for miles.There was a great forest in the Loop.Now Michigan Avenue liesBetween miles of lights,And the Rialto blazesWhere the wolf howled.

In the loneliness of the log-cabin,Across the river,The fur-trader played his fiddleWhen the snow layAbout the camp of the PottawatomiesIn the great forest.Now to the music of the Kangaroo Hop,And Ragging the Scale,And La Seduccion,The boys and girls are dancingIn a cafe near Lake Street.

The world is theirs now.There is neither a past nor a to-morrow,Save of dancing.Nor do they know that behind themIn the seed not yet sownThere are eyes which will open upon Chicago,And feet which will blossom for the dance,And hands which will reach upAnd push them into the silenceOf the old fiddler.

They threw a flagOver the coffin of Lieutenant FarnumAnd buried him back of the FortIn ground where nowThe spice mills stand.And his little squaw with a babySat on the porch grievingWhile the band played.Then hands pushing the worldBuried a million soldiers and afterwardPale multitudes swept through the Court-houseTo gaze for the last timeUpon the shrunken face of Lincoln.

And the fort at thirty-fifth street vanished.And where the Little Giant livedThey made a parkAnd put his statueUpon a column of marble.Now the glare of the steel mills at South ChicagoLights the bronze brow of Douglas.It is his great sorrowHaunting the Lake at mid-night.

When the South was beatenThey were playingJohn Brown’s body lies mouldering in the Grave,And Babylon is Fallen and Wake Nicodemus.Now the boys and girls are dancingTo the Merry Whirl and Hello FriscoWhere they waltzed in crinolineWhen the Union was saved.

There was the Marble TerraceGlory of the seventies!They wrecked it,And brought colors and figuresFrom later Athens and PompeiiAnd put them on walls.And beneath panels of red and gold,And shimmering tesseræ,And tragic masks and comic masks,And wreaths and bucrania,Upon mosaic floorsRed lipped women are dancingWith dark men.Some sit at tables drinking and watching,Amorous in an air of French perfumes.

Like ships at mid-nightThe kingdoms of the worldKnow not whither they go nor to what port.Nor do you, embryo hands,In the seed not yet sownKnow of the wars to come.

They may fill the sky with armored dragonsAnd the waters with iron monsters;They may build arsenalsWhere now upon marble floorsThe boys and girlsAre dancing the Alabama Jubilee,The processional of time is a falling streamThrough which you thrust your hand.And between the dancers and the silence foreverThere shall be the liversGazing upon the torches they have lighted,And watching their own which are failing,And crying for oil,And finding it not!

(Captain John Whistler built Fort Dearborn in 1803. His son, George Washington, who was an engineer and built a railroad in Russia for the Czar in 1842, was the father of the artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler.)

Throw logs upon the fire! Relieve the guardAt the main gate and wicket gate! LieutenantSend two men ’round the palisades, perhapsThey’ll find some thirsty Indians loiteringWho may think there is whiskey to be hadAfter the wedding. Get my sealing wax!Now let me see “November, eighteen four:Dear Jacob: On this afternoon my daughterWas married to James Abbott, it’s the firstWedding of white people in Chicago—That’s what we call Fort Dearborn now and then.They left at once on horseback for Detroit.”The “Tracy” will sail in to-morrow likely.“To Jacob Kingsbury”—that’s well addressed.Don’t fail to give this letter to the captain,That it may reach Detroit ere they do.I wonder how James Abbott and my SarahWill fare three hundred miles of sand and marsh,And tangled forest in this hard November?More logs upon the fire! The mist comes down!The lake roars like a wind, and not a starLights up the blackness. They have almost reachedThe Calumet by now. Good luck James Abbott!I’m glad my Sarah wed so brave a man,And one so strong of arm.It’s eighteen four,It’s almost eighteen five. It’s twenty yearsSince I was captured when Burgoyne was whippedAt Saratoga. Why, it’s almost twentySince I became an American soldier. NowHere am I builder of this frontier fort,And its commander! Aged now forty-nine.But in my time a British soldier first,Now an American; first residentOf Ireland, then England, Maryland,Now living here. I see the wild geese flyTo distant shores from distant shores and wonderHow they endure such strangeness. But what’s thatTo man’s adventures, change of home, what’s thatTo my unsettled life? Why there’s La Salle:They say La Salle in sixteen seventy-oneWas here, and now it’s almost eighteen five.And what’s your wild geese to La Salle! He’s bornAt Rouen, sails the seas, and travels overSome several thousand miles through Canada.Is here exploring portages and rivers.Ends up at last down by the Rio Grande,And dies almost alone half way aroundThe world from where he started. There’s a man!May some one say of me: There was a man!...I’m lonely without Sarah, without James.Tom bring my pipe and that tobacco bag.Here place my note to Jacob KingsburyThere on the shelf—remember, to the captainWhen the “Tracy” comes. Draw, boys, up to the fireI’ll tell you what a wondrous dream I had,And woke with on my Sarah’s wedding day....I had an uncle back in IrelandWho failed at everything except his Latin.He could spout Virgil till your head would ache.And when I was a boy he used to rollThe Latin out, translating as he went:The ghost of Hector comes before Æneas,And warns him to leave Troy. His mother VenusTells him to settle in another land!The Delphic oracle misunderstood,Æneas goes to Crete. He finds at lastHis ships are fired by the Trojan women,Great conflagration! Down he goes to hell,And then the Sibyl shows him what’s to be:What race of heroes shall descend from him,And how a city’s walls he shall up-buildIn founding Rome....So last night in my dreamThis uncle came to me and said to me:“‘Aeneas’ Whistler you shall found a city.You’ve built Fort Dearborn, that is the beginning.Imperial Rome could be put in a cornerOf this, the city which you’ll found. Fear notThe wooden horse, but have a care for cows:I see ships burning on your muddy Tiber,And toppling walls.” I dreamed I felt the heat.But then a voice said “Where’s your little boyGeorge Washington?”—come sit on father’s knee,And hear about my dream—there little boy!Well, as I said, I felt the heat and thenI felt the cruelest cold and then the voice:“You cannot come to Russia with your boy,He’ll make his way.” I woke up with these words,And found the covers off and I was cold.And then no sooner did I fall asleepThan this old uncle re-appeared and said:“A race of heroes shall descend from you,Here shall a city stand greater than Rome.”With that he seemed to alter to a witch,A woman’s form, the voice of him changed too,And said: “I’m Mother Shipton, Captain Whistler.“Men through the mountains then shall ride,“Nor horse nor ass be by their side”—Think, gentlemen, what it would be to rideIn carriages propelled by steam! And thenThis dream became a wonder in a wonderOf populous streets, of flying things, of spiresOf driven mist that looked like fiddle stringsFrom tree to tree. Of smoke-stacks over-toppingThe tallest pine; of bridges built of levers,And such a haze of smoke, and cloud like shapesPassing along like etchings one by one:Cathedrals, masts as thick as hazel thickets,And buildings great as hills, and miles of lights.Till by some miracle the sun had moved,And rose not in the east but in the south.And shone along the shore line of the Lake,As he shines o’er the Lake when he arises,And makes an avenue of gold, no lessThis yellow sand took glory of his light.And where he shone it seemed an avenue,And over it, where now the dunes stretch south,Along the level shore of sand, there stoodThese giant masses, etchings as it were!And Mother Shipton said: “This is your city.“A race of heroes shall descend from you;“Your son George Washington shall do great deeds.“And if he had a son what would you name him?”Well, as I went to sleep with thoughts of SarahAnd praises for James Abbott, it was naturalThat I should say “I’d name him after James.”“Well done” said Mother Shipton and then vanished....I woke to find the sun-light in my room,And from my barracks window saw the LakeStirred up to waves slate-colored by the wind;Some Indians loitering about the fort.They knew this was James Abbott’s wedding day,And Sarah’s day of leaving.Soldiers! Comrades!What is most real, our waking hours, our dreams?Where was I in this sleep? What are our dreamsBut lands which lie below our hour’s horizon,Yet still are seen in a reflecting sky,And which through earth and heaven draw us on?Look at me now! Consider of yourselves:Housed, fed, yet lonely, in this futile taskBy this great water, in this waste of grass,Close to this patch of forest, on this riverWhere wolves howl, and the Indian waits his chance—Consider of your misery, your senseOf worthless living, living to no end:I tell you no man lives but to some end.He may live only to increase the massWherewith Fate is borne-down, or just to swellThe needed multitude when the hero passes,To give the hero heart! But every manWalks, though in blindness, to some destinyOf human growth, who only helps to fill,And helps that way alone, the empty FateThat waits for lives to give it Life.And lookHere are we housed and fed, here is a fireAnd here a bed. A hundred years agoMarquette, La Salle, scarce housed and poorly fedGave health and life itself to find the wayThrough icy marshes, treacherous swamps and forestsFor this Fort Dearborn, where to-night we sitWarming ourselves against a roaring hearth.And what’s our part? It is not less than theirs.And what’s the part of those to come? Not lessThan ours has been! And what’s the life of man?To live up to the God in him, to obeyThe Voice which says: You shall not live and rest.Nor sleep, nor mad delight nor senses fed,Nor memory dulled, nor tortured hearing stoppedTo drown my Voice shall leave you to forgetLife’s impulse at the heart of Life, to striveFor men to be, for cities, nobler statesMoving foreshadowed in your dreams at night,And realized some hundred years to come.When this Fort Dearborn, you and all of you,And I who sit with pipe and son on knee,Regretting a dear daughter, who this hourIs somewhere in the darkness (like our soulsWhich move in darkness, listening to the beatOf our mysterious hearts, or with closed eyesSensing a central Purpose) shall be dust—Our triumphs, sorrows, even our names forgotten.And all we knew lost in the wreck and wasteAnd change of things. And even what we didFor cities, nobler states, and greater menForgotten too. It matters not. We workFor cities, nobler states and greater men,Or else we die in Life which is the deathWhich soldiers must not die!

It’s eighteen four,It’s almost eighteen five. It’s twenty yearsSince I was captured when Burgoyne was whippedAt Saratoga. Why, it’s almost twentySince I became an American soldier. NowHere am I builder of this frontier fort,And its commander! Aged now forty-nine.But in my time a British soldier first,Now an American; first residentOf Ireland, then England, Maryland,Now living here. I see the wild geese flyTo distant shores from distant shores and wonderHow they endure such strangeness. But what’s thatTo man’s adventures, change of home, what’s thatTo my unsettled life? Why there’s La Salle:They say La Salle in sixteen seventy-oneWas here, and now it’s almost eighteen five.And what’s your wild geese to La Salle! He’s bornAt Rouen, sails the seas, and travels overSome several thousand miles through Canada.Is here exploring portages and rivers.Ends up at last down by the Rio Grande,And dies almost alone half way aroundThe world from where he started. There’s a man!May some one say of me: There was a man!...

I’m lonely without Sarah, without James.Tom bring my pipe and that tobacco bag.Here place my note to Jacob KingsburyThere on the shelf—remember, to the captainWhen the “Tracy” comes. Draw, boys, up to the fireI’ll tell you what a wondrous dream I had,And woke with on my Sarah’s wedding day....

I had an uncle back in IrelandWho failed at everything except his Latin.He could spout Virgil till your head would ache.And when I was a boy he used to rollThe Latin out, translating as he went:The ghost of Hector comes before Æneas,And warns him to leave Troy. His mother VenusTells him to settle in another land!The Delphic oracle misunderstood,Æneas goes to Crete. He finds at lastHis ships are fired by the Trojan women,Great conflagration! Down he goes to hell,And then the Sibyl shows him what’s to be:What race of heroes shall descend from him,And how a city’s walls he shall up-buildIn founding Rome....

So last night in my dreamThis uncle came to me and said to me:“‘Aeneas’ Whistler you shall found a city.You’ve built Fort Dearborn, that is the beginning.Imperial Rome could be put in a cornerOf this, the city which you’ll found. Fear notThe wooden horse, but have a care for cows:I see ships burning on your muddy Tiber,And toppling walls.” I dreamed I felt the heat.But then a voice said “Where’s your little boyGeorge Washington?”—come sit on father’s knee,And hear about my dream—there little boy!Well, as I said, I felt the heat and thenI felt the cruelest cold and then the voice:“You cannot come to Russia with your boy,He’ll make his way.” I woke up with these words,And found the covers off and I was cold.And then no sooner did I fall asleepThan this old uncle re-appeared and said:“A race of heroes shall descend from you,Here shall a city stand greater than Rome.”With that he seemed to alter to a witch,A woman’s form, the voice of him changed too,And said: “I’m Mother Shipton, Captain Whistler.“Men through the mountains then shall ride,“Nor horse nor ass be by their side”—Think, gentlemen, what it would be to rideIn carriages propelled by steam! And thenThis dream became a wonder in a wonderOf populous streets, of flying things, of spiresOf driven mist that looked like fiddle stringsFrom tree to tree. Of smoke-stacks over-toppingThe tallest pine; of bridges built of levers,And such a haze of smoke, and cloud like shapesPassing along like etchings one by one:Cathedrals, masts as thick as hazel thickets,And buildings great as hills, and miles of lights.Till by some miracle the sun had moved,And rose not in the east but in the south.And shone along the shore line of the Lake,As he shines o’er the Lake when he arises,And makes an avenue of gold, no lessThis yellow sand took glory of his light.And where he shone it seemed an avenue,And over it, where now the dunes stretch south,Along the level shore of sand, there stoodThese giant masses, etchings as it were!And Mother Shipton said: “This is your city.“A race of heroes shall descend from you;“Your son George Washington shall do great deeds.“And if he had a son what would you name him?”Well, as I went to sleep with thoughts of SarahAnd praises for James Abbott, it was naturalThat I should say “I’d name him after James.”“Well done” said Mother Shipton and then vanished....I woke to find the sun-light in my room,And from my barracks window saw the LakeStirred up to waves slate-colored by the wind;Some Indians loitering about the fort.They knew this was James Abbott’s wedding day,And Sarah’s day of leaving.

Soldiers! Comrades!What is most real, our waking hours, our dreams?Where was I in this sleep? What are our dreamsBut lands which lie below our hour’s horizon,Yet still are seen in a reflecting sky,And which through earth and heaven draw us on?Look at me now! Consider of yourselves:Housed, fed, yet lonely, in this futile taskBy this great water, in this waste of grass,Close to this patch of forest, on this riverWhere wolves howl, and the Indian waits his chance—Consider of your misery, your senseOf worthless living, living to no end:I tell you no man lives but to some end.He may live only to increase the massWherewith Fate is borne-down, or just to swellThe needed multitude when the hero passes,To give the hero heart! But every manWalks, though in blindness, to some destinyOf human growth, who only helps to fill,And helps that way alone, the empty FateThat waits for lives to give it Life.

And lookHere are we housed and fed, here is a fireAnd here a bed. A hundred years agoMarquette, La Salle, scarce housed and poorly fedGave health and life itself to find the wayThrough icy marshes, treacherous swamps and forestsFor this Fort Dearborn, where to-night we sitWarming ourselves against a roaring hearth.And what’s our part? It is not less than theirs.And what’s the part of those to come? Not lessThan ours has been! And what’s the life of man?To live up to the God in him, to obeyThe Voice which says: You shall not live and rest.Nor sleep, nor mad delight nor senses fed,Nor memory dulled, nor tortured hearing stoppedTo drown my Voice shall leave you to forgetLife’s impulse at the heart of Life, to striveFor men to be, for cities, nobler statesMoving foreshadowed in your dreams at night,And realized some hundred years to come.When this Fort Dearborn, you and all of you,And I who sit with pipe and son on knee,Regretting a dear daughter, who this hourIs somewhere in the darkness (like our soulsWhich move in darkness, listening to the beatOf our mysterious hearts, or with closed eyesSensing a central Purpose) shall be dust—Our triumphs, sorrows, even our names forgotten.And all we knew lost in the wreck and wasteAnd change of things. And even what we didFor cities, nobler states, and greater menForgotten too. It matters not. We workFor cities, nobler states and greater men,Or else we die in Life which is the deathWhich soldiers must not die!

Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni, et de profundo lacu.

Leave me now and I will watch here through the night,And I’ll put in new candles, if these fail.I’ll sit here as I am, where I can seeHis brow, his nose’s tip and thin white hair,And just beyond his brow, above the altar,The red gash in the side of Jesus likeA candle’s flame when burning to the socket.Go all of you, and leave me. I don’t careHow cold the church grows. Michael AngeloWent to a garret, which was cold, and strippedHis feet, and painted till the chill of deathTook hold of him, a man just eighty-seven,And I am ninety, what’s the odds?—go now ...Now Jean we are alone! Your very stillnessIs like intenser life, as in your browYour soul was crystallized and made more strong,And nearer to me. You are here, I feel you.I close my eyes and feel you, you are here.Therefore a little talk before the dawn,Which will come soon. Dawn always comes too soonIn times like this. It waits too long in timesOf absence, and you will be absent soon....I want to talk about my happiness,My happy life, the part you played in it.There never was a day you did not kiss meThrough nearly seventy years of married life.I had two hours of heaven in my life.The first one was the dance where first we met.The other when last fall they brought me roses,Those ninety roses for my birth-day, whenThey had me tell them of the first ChicagoI saw when just a child, about the Fort;The cabins where the traders lived, who worked,And made the fortune of John Jacob Astor.Poor Jean! It’s scarce a week since you were struck.You sat down in your chair, ’twas after dinner,Then suddenly I saw your head fall forward.You could not speak when I went over to you.But afterwards when you were on the bedI leaned above you and you took the ribbon,That hung down from my cap and pressed it tremblingAgainst your lips. What triumph in your death!Your death was like a mass, mysterious, richLike Latin which the priests sing and the choir—May angels take you and with Lazarus,Once poor, receive you to eternal rest....Two hours of heaven in my life that’s true!And years between that made life more than good.My first sight of Chicago stands for allMy life became for you and all I’ve lived.The year is 1829, you know of course.I’ve told you of the trip in Prairie schoonersFrom Ft. Detroit round the lake, we campedAlong the way, the last time near the placeWhere Gary and the steel mills are to-day.And the next morning what a sky! as blueAs a jay’s wing, with little rifts of snowAlong the hollows of the yellow dunes,And some ice in the lake, which lapped a little,And purplish colors far off in the north.So round these more than twenty miles we droveThat April day. And when we came as farAs thirty-ninth or thirty-first perhaps—Just sand hills then—I never can forget it—What should I see? Fort Dearborn dazzling bright,All newly white-washed right against that sky,And the log cabins round it, far awayThe rims of forests, and between a prairieWith wild flowers in the grasses red and blue—Such wild flowers and such grasses, such a sky,Such oceans of sweet air, in which were risingStraight up from Indian wigwams spires of smoke,About where now the Public Library standsOn Randolph Street. And as we neared the placeThere was the flag, a streaming red and whiteUpon a pole within the Fort’s inclosure.I cried for happiness though just a child,And cry now thinking....I must set this candleTo see your pale brow better! What’s the hour?The night is passing, and I have so muchTo say to you before the dawn....Well, thenThe first hour that I call an hour of heaven:Who was that man that built the first hotel?—It stood across the river from the Fort—No matter. But before that I had heardNothing beside a fiddle, living hereAmid the traders eleven years or so.And this man for his hotel’s openingHad brought an orchestra from somewhere. ThinkBass viols, violins, and horns and flutes.I’m dressed up like a princess for those days.I’m sixteen years of age and pass the door,Enter the ball-room where such candle-lightAs I had never seen shone on me, theyBored sockets in suspended wheels of woodAnd hung them from the ceiling, chandeliers!And at that moment all the orchestraBroke into music, yes, it was a waltz!And in that moment—what a moment-full!This hotel man presented you and saidYou were my partner for the evening. JeanI call this heaven, for its youth and love!I’m sixteen and you’re twenty and I love you.I slip my arm through yours for you to lead me,You are so strong, so ruddy, kind and brave.I want you for a husband, for a friend,A guide, a solace, father to the childThat I can bear. Oh Jean how can I talk soIn this lone church at mid-night of such things,With all these candles burning round your face.I who have rounded ninety-years, and lookOn what was sweet, long seventy years ago?Feeling this city even at mid-night moveIn restlessness, desire, around this church,Where once I saw the prairie grass and flowers;And saw the Indians in their colored trappingsPour from a bottle of whisky on the fireA tribute to the Spirit of the world,And dance and sing for madness of that Spirit?Well, Jean, my other hour. I’ve spoken beforeOf our long life together glad and sad,But mostly good. I’m happy for it all.This other hour is marked, I call it heavenJust as I told you, not because they stoodAround me as a mystery from the past,And looked at me admiringly for my age,My strength in age, my life that spanned the growthOf my Chicago from a place of huts,Just four or five, a fort, and all around itA wilderness, to what it is this hourWhere most three million souls are living, norBecause I saw this rude life, and beheldThe World’s Fair where such richnesses of timeWere spread before me—not because of these,Nor for the ninety roses, nor the tributeThey paid me in them, nor their gentle words—These did not make that hour a heaven, no—Jean, it was this:First I was just as happyAs I was on that night we danced together.And that I could repeat that hour’s great blissAt ninety years, though in a different way,And for a different cause, that was the thingThat made me happy. For you see it proves,Just give the soul a chance it’s happinessIs endless, let the body house it well,Or house it ill, but give it but a chanceTo speak itself, not stifle it, or hush itWith hands of flesh against the quivering strings,Made sick or weak by time, the soul will findDelights as good as youth has to the end.And even if the flesh be sick there’s Heine:Few men had raptures keen as his, though lyingWith death beside him through a stretch of years.It must be something in the soul as well,Which makes me think a third hour shall be mineIn spite of death, yes Jean it must be so!I want that third hour, I shall pray for itUnceasingly, I want it for my soul’s sake:Which will have happiness in its very powerAnd dignity that time nor change can hurt.For if I have it you shall have it too.And in that third hour we shall give each otherSomething that’s kindred to the souls we gaveThat night we danced together—but much more!...It’s dawn! Good bye till then, my Jean, good bye!

Now Jean we are alone! Your very stillnessIs like intenser life, as in your browYour soul was crystallized and made more strong,And nearer to me. You are here, I feel you.I close my eyes and feel you, you are here.Therefore a little talk before the dawn,Which will come soon. Dawn always comes too soonIn times like this. It waits too long in timesOf absence, and you will be absent soon....

I want to talk about my happiness,My happy life, the part you played in it.There never was a day you did not kiss meThrough nearly seventy years of married life.I had two hours of heaven in my life.The first one was the dance where first we met.The other when last fall they brought me roses,Those ninety roses for my birth-day, whenThey had me tell them of the first ChicagoI saw when just a child, about the Fort;The cabins where the traders lived, who worked,And made the fortune of John Jacob Astor.Poor Jean! It’s scarce a week since you were struck.You sat down in your chair, ’twas after dinner,Then suddenly I saw your head fall forward.You could not speak when I went over to you.But afterwards when you were on the bedI leaned above you and you took the ribbon,That hung down from my cap and pressed it tremblingAgainst your lips. What triumph in your death!Your death was like a mass, mysterious, richLike Latin which the priests sing and the choir—May angels take you and with Lazarus,Once poor, receive you to eternal rest....Two hours of heaven in my life that’s true!And years between that made life more than good.My first sight of Chicago stands for allMy life became for you and all I’ve lived.The year is 1829, you know of course.I’ve told you of the trip in Prairie schoonersFrom Ft. Detroit round the lake, we campedAlong the way, the last time near the placeWhere Gary and the steel mills are to-day.And the next morning what a sky! as blueAs a jay’s wing, with little rifts of snowAlong the hollows of the yellow dunes,And some ice in the lake, which lapped a little,And purplish colors far off in the north.So round these more than twenty miles we droveThat April day. And when we came as farAs thirty-ninth or thirty-first perhaps—Just sand hills then—I never can forget it—What should I see? Fort Dearborn dazzling bright,All newly white-washed right against that sky,And the log cabins round it, far awayThe rims of forests, and between a prairieWith wild flowers in the grasses red and blue—Such wild flowers and such grasses, such a sky,Such oceans of sweet air, in which were risingStraight up from Indian wigwams spires of smoke,About where now the Public Library standsOn Randolph Street. And as we neared the placeThere was the flag, a streaming red and whiteUpon a pole within the Fort’s inclosure.I cried for happiness though just a child,And cry now thinking....

I must set this candleTo see your pale brow better! What’s the hour?The night is passing, and I have so muchTo say to you before the dawn....

Well, thenThe first hour that I call an hour of heaven:Who was that man that built the first hotel?—It stood across the river from the Fort—No matter. But before that I had heardNothing beside a fiddle, living hereAmid the traders eleven years or so.And this man for his hotel’s openingHad brought an orchestra from somewhere. ThinkBass viols, violins, and horns and flutes.I’m dressed up like a princess for those days.I’m sixteen years of age and pass the door,Enter the ball-room where such candle-lightAs I had never seen shone on me, theyBored sockets in suspended wheels of woodAnd hung them from the ceiling, chandeliers!And at that moment all the orchestraBroke into music, yes, it was a waltz!And in that moment—what a moment-full!This hotel man presented you and saidYou were my partner for the evening. JeanI call this heaven, for its youth and love!I’m sixteen and you’re twenty and I love you.I slip my arm through yours for you to lead me,You are so strong, so ruddy, kind and brave.I want you for a husband, for a friend,A guide, a solace, father to the childThat I can bear. Oh Jean how can I talk soIn this lone church at mid-night of such things,With all these candles burning round your face.I who have rounded ninety-years, and lookOn what was sweet, long seventy years ago?Feeling this city even at mid-night moveIn restlessness, desire, around this church,Where once I saw the prairie grass and flowers;And saw the Indians in their colored trappingsPour from a bottle of whisky on the fireA tribute to the Spirit of the world,And dance and sing for madness of that Spirit?

Well, Jean, my other hour. I’ve spoken beforeOf our long life together glad and sad,But mostly good. I’m happy for it all.This other hour is marked, I call it heavenJust as I told you, not because they stoodAround me as a mystery from the past,And looked at me admiringly for my age,My strength in age, my life that spanned the growthOf my Chicago from a place of huts,Just four or five, a fort, and all around itA wilderness, to what it is this hourWhere most three million souls are living, norBecause I saw this rude life, and beheldThe World’s Fair where such richnesses of timeWere spread before me—not because of these,Nor for the ninety roses, nor the tributeThey paid me in them, nor their gentle words—These did not make that hour a heaven, no—Jean, it was this:

First I was just as happyAs I was on that night we danced together.And that I could repeat that hour’s great blissAt ninety years, though in a different way,And for a different cause, that was the thingThat made me happy. For you see it proves,Just give the soul a chance it’s happinessIs endless, let the body house it well,Or house it ill, but give it but a chanceTo speak itself, not stifle it, or hush itWith hands of flesh against the quivering strings,Made sick or weak by time, the soul will findDelights as good as youth has to the end.And even if the flesh be sick there’s Heine:Few men had raptures keen as his, though lyingWith death beside him through a stretch of years.It must be something in the soul as well,Which makes me think a third hour shall be mineIn spite of death, yes Jean it must be so!I want that third hour, I shall pray for itUnceasingly, I want it for my soul’s sake:Which will have happiness in its very powerAnd dignity that time nor change can hurt.For if I have it you shall have it too.And in that third hour we shall give each otherSomething that’s kindred to the souls we gaveThat night we danced together—but much more!...

It’s dawn! Good bye till then, my Jean, good bye!

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