VHANGING THE PICTURE

(David Kennison died in Chicago February 24th, 1852, aged 115 years, 3 months and 17 days. Veteran of the Revolution.)

David Kennison is here born at Kingston in the yearSeventeen thirty-seven and it’s nineteen sixteen now,Dumped the tea into the harbor, saw Cornwallis’ careerEnd at Yorktown with the sullen thunder written on his brow.Was at West Point when the traitor Arnold gave up the fort,Saw them hang Major Andre for a spy and his due.Settled down in Sackett’s Harbor for a rest of a sort,Till I crossed the western country in the year forty-two.And I saw Chicago rising in the ten years to come,Ere I passed in the fifties to the peace of the dead.Now where is there a city in the whole of ChristendomWhere such roar is and such walking is around a grave’s head?Oh, ’twas fighting as a soldier in the wars of the land;And ’twas giving and living to make the people freeThat kept me past a century an oak to withstandThe heat and snow and weevils that break down a tree.There were other dead around me with a slab to markWhen they heaped the final pillow for my honor’s meed.Now the lovers stopping curiously in Lincoln ParkLook at the bronze tablet on my boulder and read:How I fought at Long Island and fought at White Plains—What does it mean you lovers who scan what is scoredOn the tablet on my boulder?—Why the task remainsTo make the torch brighter and to keep clean the sword.Go labor for the future. Go make the cities great:There are other realms to conquer for the men to be.For it’s toil and it’s courage that solve a soul’s fate,And it’s giving and living that make a people free!

Was at West Point when the traitor Arnold gave up the fort,Saw them hang Major Andre for a spy and his due.Settled down in Sackett’s Harbor for a rest of a sort,Till I crossed the western country in the year forty-two.

And I saw Chicago rising in the ten years to come,Ere I passed in the fifties to the peace of the dead.Now where is there a city in the whole of ChristendomWhere such roar is and such walking is around a grave’s head?

Oh, ’twas fighting as a soldier in the wars of the land;And ’twas giving and living to make the people freeThat kept me past a century an oak to withstandThe heat and snow and weevils that break down a tree.

There were other dead around me with a slab to markWhen they heaped the final pillow for my honor’s meed.Now the lovers stopping curiously in Lincoln ParkLook at the bronze tablet on my boulder and read:

How I fought at Long Island and fought at White Plains—What does it mean you lovers who scan what is scoredOn the tablet on my boulder?—Why the task remainsTo make the torch brighter and to keep clean the sword.

Go labor for the future. Go make the cities great:There are other realms to conquer for the men to be.For it’s toil and it’s courage that solve a soul’s fate,And it’s giving and living that make a people free!

Before you pull that string,And strip away that veil,I rise to enter my objectionTo the hanging of Archer Price’s pictureHere in this hall....For I’ll venture the artist has tried to softenThe vain and shifty look of the eyes;And the face that looked like a harte-beest’s,And the rabbit mouth that looked like a horse’s,Lipping oats from a leather bag!I knew this man in ’28When he drifted here from Maine, he said.And now it’s eighteen ninety two:This year is sacred to conquerors,Discoverers and soldiers.And I object to the hanging of picturesOf men who trade while others fight,And follow the army to get the loot,And rest till other men are tired,Then grab the spoils while the workers sleep.I would like to burn all masks,And padded shoes,And smash all dark lanterns.And take all friends of the peopleAnd brand them with the letter “B,”Which means “Betrayer.”And I would like to enter the Kingdom of HeavenJust to see the publicans who will be there,And the Archer Prices who will not be there!You call him a great man,And a prophetic man,And a leader, and a savior,And a man who was wise in an evil worldOf tangled interests and selfish power,And who knew the art of compromise,And how to get half when you can’t get all!You haven’t probed deep enough in this man.For he was great as the condor is great.And prophetic as the wolf is prophetic.And a leader as the jackal is a leader.And his wisdom was that of the python,Which will swallow a hare when no pig is at hand!He was rich,He was well known,His name was linked with lofty things,And adorned all noble committees.And he was a friend of art and music—He gave them money!He was on the Library Board,And the Commerce Board, and every boardFor building up the city—I admit these things. They were pawns on the board for him.That’s why I rise to enter my objectionTo hanging his picture here!We had no telephones in those days.But there was a certain man of power,A man who was feared, as one might fearA lion that hides in the jungle.And this man sat in a hidden roomAs a banded-epira waits and watches.And he went from this room to his house in a cab,And back to this room in a cab.But everyone knew that Archer PriceWas doing the will of the man in the room,Though you never saw the two together,As you never could see together the leadersOf some of these late bi-partisan deals.But Archer Price was so much alikeThis secret man in the room;And did so much what we knewHe wanted done, and built the citySo near to the heart’s desire of this manThat all of us knew that the two conferredIn spite of the fact that telephonesHad never been heard of then....Well, because of this man in the room,As well as because of Price himself,Everyone feared him, no one knewExactly how to fight him.Everyone hated him, althoughEveryone helped him to wealth and power.He was what you’d call a touch-me-not.If you clodded him you ran the riskOf hitting the teacher, or maybe a child.He always walked with the wind to his back:If you spit at him it would fly in your face.And though we suspected more than we knewOf his subtle machinations,No one could attack him for what was known.Because the things he was known to be doingWere service to those, who couldn’t allowThe service to be imperiled.There never was a timeThis man was out of public office.He clung to the people’s treasuryAs a magnet clings to a magnet.Why didn’t your orator tell this audienceHe started in life as town assessor?That would have left me with nothing to sayExcept he traded the fixing of taxesFor business!Oh, you people who unveil pictures!In his day no one was permitted to say this.And now everyone has forgotten it.It is useless to say it.And here in the year of ColumbusYou are unveiling his picture!And you say the Illinois and Michigan CanalHad never been built or saved for the peopleExcept for Archer Price!Why don’t you tell that he fought the Canal in 1830,Saying it would burden the people?And why don’t you say that even thenHe was acting for his own interests and the man in the room?Why don’t you show that his art of compromiseCreated the Public Canal CommitteeWhen he failed to block the Canal,And failed of appointment as Canal Commissioner?Why don’t you show that through that committeeThe squatters stole the wharves on the river?Why don’t you show how his friends grew richThrough buying the lands at public salesWhich were given to build the Canal,And which the Committee was pretending to conserve?Why don’t you show that through that Committee,Pretending to be a friend of the people,He opened a fight at length on the squattersAnd won the fight, and won the wharvesFor himself and a clique of friends?Why don’t you tell—?Cry me down if you will—I object—I object—

I knew this man in ’28When he drifted here from Maine, he said.And now it’s eighteen ninety two:This year is sacred to conquerors,Discoverers and soldiers.And I object to the hanging of picturesOf men who trade while others fight,And follow the army to get the loot,And rest till other men are tired,Then grab the spoils while the workers sleep.I would like to burn all masks,And padded shoes,And smash all dark lanterns.And take all friends of the peopleAnd brand them with the letter “B,”Which means “Betrayer.”And I would like to enter the Kingdom of HeavenJust to see the publicans who will be there,And the Archer Prices who will not be there!

You call him a great man,And a prophetic man,And a leader, and a savior,And a man who was wise in an evil worldOf tangled interests and selfish power,And who knew the art of compromise,And how to get half when you can’t get all!You haven’t probed deep enough in this man.For he was great as the condor is great.And prophetic as the wolf is prophetic.And a leader as the jackal is a leader.And his wisdom was that of the python,Which will swallow a hare when no pig is at hand!

He was rich,He was well known,His name was linked with lofty things,And adorned all noble committees.And he was a friend of art and music—He gave them money!He was on the Library Board,And the Commerce Board, and every boardFor building up the city—I admit these things. They were pawns on the board for him.That’s why I rise to enter my objectionTo hanging his picture here!

We had no telephones in those days.But there was a certain man of power,A man who was feared, as one might fearA lion that hides in the jungle.And this man sat in a hidden roomAs a banded-epira waits and watches.And he went from this room to his house in a cab,And back to this room in a cab.But everyone knew that Archer PriceWas doing the will of the man in the room,Though you never saw the two together,As you never could see together the leadersOf some of these late bi-partisan deals.But Archer Price was so much alikeThis secret man in the room;And did so much what we knewHe wanted done, and built the citySo near to the heart’s desire of this manThat all of us knew that the two conferredIn spite of the fact that telephonesHad never been heard of then....

Well, because of this man in the room,As well as because of Price himself,Everyone feared him, no one knewExactly how to fight him.Everyone hated him, althoughEveryone helped him to wealth and power.He was what you’d call a touch-me-not.If you clodded him you ran the riskOf hitting the teacher, or maybe a child.He always walked with the wind to his back:If you spit at him it would fly in your face.And though we suspected more than we knewOf his subtle machinations,No one could attack him for what was known.Because the things he was known to be doingWere service to those, who couldn’t allowThe service to be imperiled.

There never was a timeThis man was out of public office.He clung to the people’s treasuryAs a magnet clings to a magnet.Why didn’t your orator tell this audienceHe started in life as town assessor?That would have left me with nothing to sayExcept he traded the fixing of taxesFor business!Oh, you people who unveil pictures!In his day no one was permitted to say this.And now everyone has forgotten it.It is useless to say it.And here in the year of ColumbusYou are unveiling his picture!

And you say the Illinois and Michigan CanalHad never been built or saved for the peopleExcept for Archer Price!Why don’t you tell that he fought the Canal in 1830,Saying it would burden the people?And why don’t you say that even thenHe was acting for his own interests and the man in the room?Why don’t you show that his art of compromiseCreated the Public Canal CommitteeWhen he failed to block the Canal,And failed of appointment as Canal Commissioner?Why don’t you show that through that committeeThe squatters stole the wharves on the river?Why don’t you show how his friends grew richThrough buying the lands at public salesWhich were given to build the Canal,And which the Committee was pretending to conserve?Why don’t you show that through that Committee,Pretending to be a friend of the people,He opened a fight at length on the squattersAnd won the fight, and won the wharvesFor himself and a clique of friends?Why don’t you tell—?Cry me down if you will—I object—I object—

Have you ever seen the Douglas monumentThere in Chicago?They say it’s by the Lake,With a column of marble a hundred feet high,And a statue of The Little Giant on top,With knit brows and lion face,Like he used to look when debatin’ with Linkern.I want to go up to Chicago sometime,To see that monument.And some one told meThey carved on his marble coffin the words:“Tell my children to obey the laws,And uphold the constitution.”Well, they couldn’t have put sadder wordsOn his coffin than that.For it was tryin’ to obey the laws and support theconstitutionThat killed him.And why should his children do the same thing and die?You young men of this day don’t care,And you don’t understand the old questions.But a man’s life is always worth understanding,Especially a man’s like The Little Giant.Now this was the point:There was that devilish thing slavery,And The Little Giant, as senator,Put through a bill for leaving it to the peopleWhether they would have slavery in Kansas or Nebraska,Or any other territory, and that was popular sovereignty—And sounds democratic; but three years laterAlong comes the Supreme Court and says:The people of a territory must have slaveryWhether they want it or not, becauseThe constitution is for slavery, and it follows the flag!Well, there was The Little GiantCaught between the law and the constitution!And tryin’ to obey ’em both!Or better still he was like Lem Reese’s boyWho was standin’ one time one foot on shore,And one in a skiff, baitin’ a hook,And all at once Col. Lankford’s little steamerCame along and bobbled the skiff;And it started to glide out into the river,—Why the boy walked like a spread compassFor a month.For the skiff was movin’, and that’s the law.And his other foot slipped on the slimy bank,And that’s the constitution!But if you want to consider a minuteHow Time plays tag with people,And how no one can tellWhen he’ll be It, just think:There was Bill McKinleyWho kept the old constitution’s from goin’ to the Philippines,And they elected him.And here was The Little Giant,Who wanted to send it everywhere,And they defeated him.So you see it depends on what it meansWhether you want to keep it or send it.And nobody knows what it means—Not even judges.But just the same them were great days.One time The Little Giant came here with LinkernAnd talked from the steps of the Court-house;And you never saw such a crowd of people:Democrats, Whigs, and Locofocos,Know-nothings and Anti-masonics,Blue lights, Spiritualists, RepublicansFree Soilers, Socialists, Americans—such a crowd.Linkern’s voice squeaked up high,And didn’t carry.But Douglas!People out yonder in Proctor’s Grove,A mile from the Court House steps,Could hear him roar and hear him say:“I’m going to trot him down to EgyptAnd see if he’ll say the things he saysTo the black republicans in northern Illinois.”It made you shiver all down your spineTo see that face and hear that voice—And that was The Little Giant!And then on the other hand there wasAbe Linkern standing six foot four,As thin as a rail, with a high-keyed voice,And sometimes solemn, and sometimes comicAs any clown you ever saw,And runnin’ Col. Lankford’s little steamer,As it were, you know, which would bobble the skiff,Which was the law; and The Little Giant’s other footWould slip on the bank, which was the constitution.And you could almost hear him holler “ouch.”And Linkern would say: This argumentOf the Senator’s is thin as soupMade from the shadow of a starved pigeon!And then the crowd would yell, and the cornet bandWould play, and men would walk away and say:Linkern floored him. And others would say:He aint no match for The Little Giant.But I’ll declare if I could decideWhich whipped the other.For to let the people decide whether they wanted slaverySounded good.And to have the constitution in force sounded good.And not to have any slavery at all sounded good.But so far as the law was concerned,And where it was, and what you could do with itIt was like the shell game:Now you see the little ball and now you don’t!Who’s got a dollar to say where the little ball is?But when you try to obey the laws and support the constitution,It reminds me of a Campbellite preacherWe had here years ago.And he debated with the Methodist preacherAs to whether immersion or sprinklingWas the way to salvation.And the Campbellite preacher said:“The holy scripture says:‘And Jesus when he was baptisedWent up straightway out of the water.’And how could he come up out of the waterIf he wasn’t in?” asked the Campbellite preacher,Pointing a long finger at the Methodist preacher.“And how could he be in without being immersed?”Well, the Campbellite preacher won the debate.But the next day Billy Bell,An infidel we had here,Met the Campbellite preacher and said:“I suppose it wouldn’t be possible for a manTo stand in water up to his kneesAnd have water sprinkled on his head, would it?”And the Campbellite preacher said:“Get thee behind me Satan,” and went on.Well Linkern was kind of an infidel,And The Little Giant got caught in his own orthodoxy,And his ability for debate led him intoThe complete persuading of himself.And by arguin’ for the lawHe made Linkern appearAs bein’ against the law.But just think, for a minute, young man:Here is The Little Giant the greatest figure in all the landAnd the wheel of fortune turnsAnd he stands by Linkern’s side and holdsHis hat while Linkern takes the oathAs president!Then the war comes and his leadershipHas left him, and millions who followed himTurn from him, and then Death comes,And sits by him and says: Your time’s up!So I say when they put up that monumentAnd carved those words upon itThey had just as well have carved the words,“He took poison.”Which reminds me:There was a family over at DutchlandNamed Nitchie.And my boy writes me from collegeThat there is a writer named NitchieWho says—well I can’t tell you just now.But if you’ll look at things closeYou’ll see that Linkern was against the legal law,And Douglas against the moral law so-called,And neither cared for the other’s law—And that was the real debate!Linkern rode over laws to save the Union,And Douglas said he cared more for white supremacyThan anything else.Which being true, who can tellWho won the debates?Is it better to have the Union,Or better to have a master race?I’ll go over to the post-office nowAnd see if there’s a letter from my boy.

And some one told meThey carved on his marble coffin the words:“Tell my children to obey the laws,And uphold the constitution.”Well, they couldn’t have put sadder wordsOn his coffin than that.For it was tryin’ to obey the laws and support theconstitutionThat killed him.And why should his children do the same thing and die?

You young men of this day don’t care,And you don’t understand the old questions.But a man’s life is always worth understanding,Especially a man’s like The Little Giant.Now this was the point:There was that devilish thing slavery,And The Little Giant, as senator,Put through a bill for leaving it to the peopleWhether they would have slavery in Kansas or Nebraska,Or any other territory, and that was popular sovereignty—And sounds democratic; but three years laterAlong comes the Supreme Court and says:The people of a territory must have slaveryWhether they want it or not, becauseThe constitution is for slavery, and it follows the flag!Well, there was The Little GiantCaught between the law and the constitution!And tryin’ to obey ’em both!Or better still he was like Lem Reese’s boyWho was standin’ one time one foot on shore,And one in a skiff, baitin’ a hook,And all at once Col. Lankford’s little steamerCame along and bobbled the skiff;And it started to glide out into the river,—Why the boy walked like a spread compassFor a month.

For the skiff was movin’, and that’s the law.And his other foot slipped on the slimy bank,And that’s the constitution!

But if you want to consider a minuteHow Time plays tag with people,And how no one can tellWhen he’ll be It, just think:There was Bill McKinleyWho kept the old constitution’s from goin’ to the Philippines,And they elected him.And here was The Little Giant,Who wanted to send it everywhere,And they defeated him.So you see it depends on what it meansWhether you want to keep it or send it.And nobody knows what it means—Not even judges.

But just the same them were great days.One time The Little Giant came here with LinkernAnd talked from the steps of the Court-house;And you never saw such a crowd of people:Democrats, Whigs, and Locofocos,Know-nothings and Anti-masonics,Blue lights, Spiritualists, RepublicansFree Soilers, Socialists, Americans—such a crowd.Linkern’s voice squeaked up high,And didn’t carry.But Douglas!People out yonder in Proctor’s Grove,A mile from the Court House steps,Could hear him roar and hear him say:“I’m going to trot him down to EgyptAnd see if he’ll say the things he saysTo the black republicans in northern Illinois.”It made you shiver all down your spineTo see that face and hear that voice—And that was The Little Giant!

And then on the other hand there wasAbe Linkern standing six foot four,As thin as a rail, with a high-keyed voice,And sometimes solemn, and sometimes comicAs any clown you ever saw,And runnin’ Col. Lankford’s little steamer,As it were, you know, which would bobble the skiff,Which was the law; and The Little Giant’s other footWould slip on the bank, which was the constitution.And you could almost hear him holler “ouch.”And Linkern would say: This argumentOf the Senator’s is thin as soupMade from the shadow of a starved pigeon!And then the crowd would yell, and the cornet bandWould play, and men would walk away and say:Linkern floored him. And others would say:He aint no match for The Little Giant.But I’ll declare if I could decideWhich whipped the other.For to let the people decide whether they wanted slaverySounded good.And to have the constitution in force sounded good.And not to have any slavery at all sounded good.But so far as the law was concerned,And where it was, and what you could do with itIt was like the shell game:Now you see the little ball and now you don’t!Who’s got a dollar to say where the little ball is?

But when you try to obey the laws and support the constitution,It reminds me of a Campbellite preacherWe had here years ago.And he debated with the Methodist preacherAs to whether immersion or sprinklingWas the way to salvation.And the Campbellite preacher said:“The holy scripture says:‘And Jesus when he was baptisedWent up straightway out of the water.’And how could he come up out of the waterIf he wasn’t in?” asked the Campbellite preacher,Pointing a long finger at the Methodist preacher.“And how could he be in without being immersed?”Well, the Campbellite preacher won the debate.But the next day Billy Bell,An infidel we had here,Met the Campbellite preacher and said:“I suppose it wouldn’t be possible for a manTo stand in water up to his kneesAnd have water sprinkled on his head, would it?”And the Campbellite preacher said:“Get thee behind me Satan,” and went on.Well Linkern was kind of an infidel,And The Little Giant got caught in his own orthodoxy,And his ability for debate led him intoThe complete persuading of himself.And by arguin’ for the lawHe made Linkern appearAs bein’ against the law.

But just think, for a minute, young man:Here is The Little Giant the greatest figure in all the landAnd the wheel of fortune turnsAnd he stands by Linkern’s side and holdsHis hat while Linkern takes the oathAs president!Then the war comes and his leadershipHas left him, and millions who followed himTurn from him, and then Death comes,And sits by him and says: Your time’s up!So I say when they put up that monumentAnd carved those words upon itThey had just as well have carved the words,“He took poison.”

Which reminds me:There was a family over at DutchlandNamed Nitchie.And my boy writes me from collegeThat there is a writer named NitchieWho says—well I can’t tell you just now.But if you’ll look at things closeYou’ll see that Linkern was against the legal law,And Douglas against the moral law so-called,And neither cared for the other’s law—And that was the real debate!Linkern rode over laws to save the Union,And Douglas said he cared more for white supremacyThan anything else.Which being true, who can tellWho won the debates?Is it better to have the Union,Or better to have a master race?

I’ll go over to the post-office nowAnd see if there’s a letter from my boy.

In a rude country some four thousand milesFrom Charles’ and Alfred’s birthplace you were born,In the same year. But Charles and you were bornOn the same day, and Alfred six months later.Thus start you in a sense the race together....Charles goes to Edinburgh, afterwardsHis father picks him for the ministry,And sends him off to Cambridge where he spendsHis time on beetles and geology,Neglects theology. Alfred is hereFondling a Virgil and a Horace.But you—these years you give to reading Æsop,The Bible, lives of Washington and Franklin,And Kirkham’s grammar.In 1830 Alfred prints a bookContaining “Mariana,” certain otherDelicate, wind-blown bells of airy music.And in this year you move from IndianaAnd settle near Decatur, Illinois,Hard by the river Sangamon where feverAnd ague burned and shook the poorSwamp saffron creatures of that desolate land.While Alfred walks the flowering lanes of England,And reads Theocritus to the song of larksYou clear the forests, plow the stumpy land,Fight off the torments of mosquitoes, fliesAnd study Kirkham’s grammar.In 1831 Charles takes a tripAround the world, sees South America,And studies living things in Galapagos,Tahiti, Keeling Island and Tasmania.In 1831 you take a tripUpon a flat-boat down to New OrleansThrough hardships scarcely less than JolietAnd Marquette knew in 1673,Return on foot to Orfutt’s store at Salem.By this time Jacques Rousseau was canonized;Jefferson dead but seven years or so;Brook Farm was budding, Garrison had startedHisLiberator, Fourier still alive;And Emerson was preening his slim wingsFor flights into broad spaces—there was stirEnough to sweep the Shelleyan heads,—in truthShelley was scarcely passed a decade then.Old Godwin still was writing, wars for freedomSwept through the Grecian Isles, AmericaHad “isms” in abundance, but not oneTook hold of you.In 1832 Alfred has drawnOut of old Mallory and Grecian mythsThe “Lady of Shalott” and fair “Œnone,”And put them into verse.This is the year you fight the Black Hawk war,And issue an address to Sangamon’s people.You are but twenty-three, yet this addressWould not shame Charles or Alfred; it’s restrained,And sanely balanced, without extra words,Or youth’s conceits, or imitative figures, dreamsOr “isms” of the day. No, here you hopeThat enterprise, morality, sobrietyMay be more general, and speak a wordFor popular education, so that allMay have a “moderate education” as you say.You make a plea for railroads and canals,And ask the suffrages of the people, sayingYou have known disappointment far too muchTo be chagrined at failure, if you lose.They take you at your word and send anotherTo represent them in the Legislature.Then you decide to learn the blacksmith’s trade.But Fate comes by and plucks you by the sleeve,And changes history, doubtless.By ’36 when Charles returns to EnglandYou have become a legislator; yesYou tried again and won. You have becomeA lawyer too, by working through the levelsOf laborer, store-keeper and surveyor,Wrapped up in problems of geometry,And Kirkham’s grammar and Sir William Blackstone,And Coke on Littleton, and Joseph Chitty.Brook Farm will soon bloom forth, Francois FourierIs still on earth, and Garrison is shakingTerrible lightning at Slavocracy.And certain libertarians,videlicetJohn Greenleaf Whittier and others, singThe trampling out of grapes of wrath; in truthThe Hebrews taught the idealist how to singDestruction in the name of God and curseWhere strength was lacking for the sword—but youAre not a Robert Emmet, or a Shelley,Have no false dreams of dying to bring inThe day of Liberty. At twenty-threeYou’re measuring the world and waiting forDawn’s mists to clear that you may measure it,And know the field’s dimensions ere you putYour handle to the plow.In 1833 a man named Hallam,A friend of Alfred’s, died at twenty-two.Thereafter Alfred worked his hopes and fearsUpon the dark impasto of this lossIn delicate colors. And in 1850When you were sunk in melancholia,As one of no use in the world, adjudgedTo be of no use by your time and place,Alfred brought forth his Dante dream of life,Received the laureate wreath and settled downWith a fair wife amid entrancing richnessOf sunny seas and silken sails and dreamsOf Araby,And ivied halls, and meadows where the breezeOf temperate England blows the hurrying cloud.There, seated like an Oriental kingIn silk and linen clothed took the acclaimOf England and the world!...This is the yearYou sit in a little office there in Springfield,Feet on the desk and brood. What are you thinking?You’re forty-one; around you spears are whackingThe wind-mills of the day, you watch and weigh.The sun-light of your mind quivers aboutThe darkness every thinking soul must know,And lights up hidden things behind the door,And in dark corners. You have fathomed much,Weighed life and men. O what a spheréd brain,Strong nerved, fresh blooded, firm in plasmic fire,And ready for a task, if there be one!That is the question that makes brooding thought:For you know well men come into the worldAnd find no task, and die, and are not known—Great spheréd brains gone into dust again,Their light under a bushel all their days!In 1859, Charles publishesHis “Origin of Species,” and ’tis saidYou see it, or at least hear what it is.Out of three travelers in a distant landOne writes a book of what the three have seen.Perhaps you never read much, yet perhapsSome books were just a record of your mind.How had it helped you in your work to readThe “Idylls of the King”? As much, perhaps,Had Alfred read the Northwest OrdinanceOf 1787....But in this yearOf ’59 you’re sunk in blackest thoughtAbout the country maybe, but, I think,About this riddle of our mortal life.You were a poet, Abraham, from your birth.That makes you think, and makes you deal at lastWith things material to the tune of lawsMoving in higher spaces when you’re calledTo act—and show a poet moulding stuffToo tough for spirits practical to mould.Here are you with your feet upon the desk.You have been beaten in a cause which keptSome strings too loose to catch the vibrate wavesOf a great Harp whose music you have sensed.You are a mathematician using symbolsLike Justice, Truth, with keenness to perceiveDisturbance of equations, a logicianWho sees invariable laws, and beauty bornOf finding out and following the laws.You are a Plato brooding there in Springfield.You are a poet with a voice for Truth,And never to be claimed by visionariesWho chant the theme of bread and bread alone.But here and nowThey want you not for Senator, it seems.You have been tossed to one side by the rushOf world events, left stranded and alone,And fitted for no use, it seems, in Springfield.A country lawyer with a solid logic,And gift of prudent phrase which has a wayOf hardening under time to rock as hardAs the enduring thought you seal it with.You’ve reached your fiftieth year, your occultationShould pass. If ever, we should see a light:In all your life you have not seen a city.But now our Springfield giant strides Broadway,Thrills William Cullen Bryant, sets a wonderGoing about the East, that Kirkham’s grammarCan give a man such speech at Cooper Union,Which even Alfred’s, trained to Virgil’s style,Cannot disdain for matching in the thoughtWith faultless clearness.And still in 1860 all the BrahminsHave fear to give you power.You are a backwoodsman, a country lawyerUnlettered in the difficult art of states.A denizen of a squalid western town,Dowered with a knack of argument alone,Which wakes the country school-house, and may liftIts devotees to Congress by good fortune.But then at Cooper Union intuitive eyesHad measured your tall frame, and careful speech,Your strength and self-possession. Then they cameWith that dramatic sense which is AmericanInto the hall with rails which you had split,And called you Honest Abe, and wearing badgesWith your face on them and the poor catch wordsOf Honest Abe, as if you were a refereeLike Honest Kelly, when in truth no manHad ever been your intimate, ever slapped youWith brisk familiarity, or called youAnything but Mr. Lincoln, neverAbe, or Abraham, and never usedThe Hello Bill of salutation to you—O great patrician, therefore fit to beGreat democrat as well!In 1862 Charles publishes“How Orchid Flowers are Fertilized by Insects,”And you give forth a proclamation saying“The Union must have peace, or I wipe outThe blot of negro slavery. You see,The symphony’s the thing, and if you mar it,Contending over slavery, I removeThe source of the disharmony. I admitThe freedom of the press—but for the Union.When you abuse the Union, you shall stop.And when you are in jail, no habeas corpusShall bring relief—I have suspended it.”To-day they call you libertarian—Well, so you were, but just as Beauty is,And Truth is, even if they curb and vanquishThe lower heights of beauty and of truth.They take your speech and deeds and give you placeIn Hebrew temples with Ezekiel,Habakkuk and Isaiah—you emergeFrom this association, master man!You are not of the faith that breeds the ethicWranglers, who make economic goalsThe strain and test of life. You are not one,Spite of your lash and sword threat, who believeGod will avenge the weak. That is the dreamWhich builds millenniums where disharmoniesThat make the larger harmony shall cease—A dream not yours. And they shall lose you whoEnthrone you as a prophet who cut throughThe circle of our human sphere of lifeTo let in wrath and judgments, final testsOn Life around the price of sparrows, weightsWherewith bread shall be weighed....There is a windless flame where cries and tears,Where hunger, strife, and war and human bloodNo shadow cast, and where the love of Truth,Which is not love of individual souls,Finds solace in a Judgment of our life.That is the Flame that took both Charles and You—O leader in a Commonwealth of Thought!

In 1830 Alfred prints a bookContaining “Mariana,” certain otherDelicate, wind-blown bells of airy music.And in this year you move from IndianaAnd settle near Decatur, Illinois,Hard by the river Sangamon where feverAnd ague burned and shook the poorSwamp saffron creatures of that desolate land.While Alfred walks the flowering lanes of England,And reads Theocritus to the song of larksYou clear the forests, plow the stumpy land,Fight off the torments of mosquitoes, fliesAnd study Kirkham’s grammar.

In 1831 Charles takes a tripAround the world, sees South America,And studies living things in Galapagos,Tahiti, Keeling Island and Tasmania.In 1831 you take a tripUpon a flat-boat down to New OrleansThrough hardships scarcely less than JolietAnd Marquette knew in 1673,Return on foot to Orfutt’s store at Salem.

By this time Jacques Rousseau was canonized;Jefferson dead but seven years or so;Brook Farm was budding, Garrison had startedHisLiberator, Fourier still alive;And Emerson was preening his slim wingsFor flights into broad spaces—there was stirEnough to sweep the Shelleyan heads,—in truthShelley was scarcely passed a decade then.Old Godwin still was writing, wars for freedomSwept through the Grecian Isles, AmericaHad “isms” in abundance, but not oneTook hold of you.

In 1832 Alfred has drawnOut of old Mallory and Grecian mythsThe “Lady of Shalott” and fair “Œnone,”And put them into verse.This is the year you fight the Black Hawk war,And issue an address to Sangamon’s people.You are but twenty-three, yet this addressWould not shame Charles or Alfred; it’s restrained,And sanely balanced, without extra words,Or youth’s conceits, or imitative figures, dreamsOr “isms” of the day. No, here you hopeThat enterprise, morality, sobrietyMay be more general, and speak a wordFor popular education, so that allMay have a “moderate education” as you say.You make a plea for railroads and canals,And ask the suffrages of the people, sayingYou have known disappointment far too muchTo be chagrined at failure, if you lose.They take you at your word and send anotherTo represent them in the Legislature.Then you decide to learn the blacksmith’s trade.But Fate comes by and plucks you by the sleeve,And changes history, doubtless.

By ’36 when Charles returns to EnglandYou have become a legislator; yesYou tried again and won. You have becomeA lawyer too, by working through the levelsOf laborer, store-keeper and surveyor,Wrapped up in problems of geometry,And Kirkham’s grammar and Sir William Blackstone,And Coke on Littleton, and Joseph Chitty.Brook Farm will soon bloom forth, Francois FourierIs still on earth, and Garrison is shakingTerrible lightning at Slavocracy.And certain libertarians,videlicetJohn Greenleaf Whittier and others, singThe trampling out of grapes of wrath; in truthThe Hebrews taught the idealist how to singDestruction in the name of God and curseWhere strength was lacking for the sword—but youAre not a Robert Emmet, or a Shelley,Have no false dreams of dying to bring inThe day of Liberty. At twenty-threeYou’re measuring the world and waiting forDawn’s mists to clear that you may measure it,And know the field’s dimensions ere you putYour handle to the plow.

In 1833 a man named Hallam,A friend of Alfred’s, died at twenty-two.Thereafter Alfred worked his hopes and fearsUpon the dark impasto of this lossIn delicate colors. And in 1850When you were sunk in melancholia,As one of no use in the world, adjudgedTo be of no use by your time and place,Alfred brought forth his Dante dream of life,Received the laureate wreath and settled downWith a fair wife amid entrancing richnessOf sunny seas and silken sails and dreamsOf Araby,And ivied halls, and meadows where the breezeOf temperate England blows the hurrying cloud.There, seated like an Oriental kingIn silk and linen clothed took the acclaimOf England and the world!...This is the yearYou sit in a little office there in Springfield,Feet on the desk and brood. What are you thinking?You’re forty-one; around you spears are whackingThe wind-mills of the day, you watch and weigh.The sun-light of your mind quivers aboutThe darkness every thinking soul must know,And lights up hidden things behind the door,And in dark corners. You have fathomed much,Weighed life and men. O what a spheréd brain,Strong nerved, fresh blooded, firm in plasmic fire,And ready for a task, if there be one!That is the question that makes brooding thought:For you know well men come into the worldAnd find no task, and die, and are not known—Great spheréd brains gone into dust again,Their light under a bushel all their days!In 1859, Charles publishesHis “Origin of Species,” and ’tis saidYou see it, or at least hear what it is.Out of three travelers in a distant landOne writes a book of what the three have seen.Perhaps you never read much, yet perhapsSome books were just a record of your mind.How had it helped you in your work to readThe “Idylls of the King”? As much, perhaps,Had Alfred read the Northwest OrdinanceOf 1787....

But in this yearOf ’59 you’re sunk in blackest thoughtAbout the country maybe, but, I think,About this riddle of our mortal life.You were a poet, Abraham, from your birth.That makes you think, and makes you deal at lastWith things material to the tune of lawsMoving in higher spaces when you’re calledTo act—and show a poet moulding stuffToo tough for spirits practical to mould.Here are you with your feet upon the desk.You have been beaten in a cause which keptSome strings too loose to catch the vibrate wavesOf a great Harp whose music you have sensed.You are a mathematician using symbolsLike Justice, Truth, with keenness to perceiveDisturbance of equations, a logicianWho sees invariable laws, and beauty bornOf finding out and following the laws.You are a Plato brooding there in Springfield.You are a poet with a voice for Truth,And never to be claimed by visionariesWho chant the theme of bread and bread alone.

But here and nowThey want you not for Senator, it seems.You have been tossed to one side by the rushOf world events, left stranded and alone,And fitted for no use, it seems, in Springfield.A country lawyer with a solid logic,And gift of prudent phrase which has a wayOf hardening under time to rock as hardAs the enduring thought you seal it with.You’ve reached your fiftieth year, your occultationShould pass. If ever, we should see a light:In all your life you have not seen a city.But now our Springfield giant strides Broadway,Thrills William Cullen Bryant, sets a wonderGoing about the East, that Kirkham’s grammarCan give a man such speech at Cooper Union,Which even Alfred’s, trained to Virgil’s style,Cannot disdain for matching in the thoughtWith faultless clearness.And still in 1860 all the BrahminsHave fear to give you power.You are a backwoodsman, a country lawyerUnlettered in the difficult art of states.A denizen of a squalid western town,Dowered with a knack of argument alone,Which wakes the country school-house, and may liftIts devotees to Congress by good fortune.But then at Cooper Union intuitive eyesHad measured your tall frame, and careful speech,Your strength and self-possession. Then they cameWith that dramatic sense which is AmericanInto the hall with rails which you had split,And called you Honest Abe, and wearing badgesWith your face on them and the poor catch wordsOf Honest Abe, as if you were a refereeLike Honest Kelly, when in truth no manHad ever been your intimate, ever slapped youWith brisk familiarity, or called youAnything but Mr. Lincoln, neverAbe, or Abraham, and never usedThe Hello Bill of salutation to you—O great patrician, therefore fit to beGreat democrat as well!

In 1862 Charles publishes“How Orchid Flowers are Fertilized by Insects,”And you give forth a proclamation saying“The Union must have peace, or I wipe outThe blot of negro slavery. You see,The symphony’s the thing, and if you mar it,Contending over slavery, I removeThe source of the disharmony. I admitThe freedom of the press—but for the Union.When you abuse the Union, you shall stop.And when you are in jail, no habeas corpusShall bring relief—I have suspended it.”To-day they call you libertarian—Well, so you were, but just as Beauty is,And Truth is, even if they curb and vanquishThe lower heights of beauty and of truth.They take your speech and deeds and give you placeIn Hebrew temples with Ezekiel,Habakkuk and Isaiah—you emergeFrom this association, master man!You are not of the faith that breeds the ethicWranglers, who make economic goalsThe strain and test of life. You are not one,Spite of your lash and sword threat, who believeGod will avenge the weak. That is the dreamWhich builds millenniums where disharmoniesThat make the larger harmony shall cease—A dream not yours. And they shall lose you whoEnthrone you as a prophet who cut throughThe circle of our human sphere of lifeTo let in wrath and judgments, final testsOn Life around the price of sparrows, weightsWherewith bread shall be weighed....

There is a windless flame where cries and tears,Where hunger, strife, and war and human bloodNo shadow cast, and where the love of Truth,Which is not love of individual souls,Finds solace in a Judgment of our life.That is the Flame that took both Charles and You—O leader in a Commonwealth of Thought!

’Twixt certain parallels of latitude;Say thirty-seven and forty-two and more;And certain meridians, say ninety-oneAnd eighty-seven plus.The top line drawn to leave the lower lakeShaped like a drinking cup to meet your needs;To bind you to the east and west,Save you from tributary servitudeThrough Mississippi’s River to the south.No sheds of hills to guard you on the northAgainst the arctic winds loosed at the pole,Or Medicine Hat parturient as the bagOf Mad Æolus.The valley and the river just a hall-wayMaking a draft for tropic heat in summer—Well, here you are in physiography.Upon a time black soil was pouredOver your surface as the cookPours chocolate on a cake.So you are fertile, never a land so rich.A little river flowing in the lakeVanishing in marshes up a mile or soMakes for a portage to another streamWhich empties in another stream which emptiesInto the Mississippi.A spot between the lake and river liesUpon the highway binding east and west,And from the south and north where traders meet.This is the very place to build a fort—The fort becomes a town within a year,A great metropolis in half a cycle.Within a lifetime you have gainedSome seven million souls.The land of Luther sends a swarming host;And Milton’s land adventurous sons;And Scandinavia’s realm,And Michael Angelo’s mountains,All Europe pours her wealthOf brawn and spirit on you,Until you are an empireOf restless vital men, and teeming towns.Before you were grown rich,And populousYou brightened history;Great men came from you.But now that you have cities and great treasureWhere are your great ones?What is your genius?What star enwraps your eyes?What heights allure you?Hermaphroditic giant, sad and drunkNot gay, but foolish, stuffed with new baked bread,Who took away your gland pituitary,Abandoned you to such exaggerate growthWithout increase of soul?You blasphemous, yet afraid,Licentious, yet ashamed,Swaggering, yet blubberingAnd boasting of your rights.Materialist who woos the spiritual,Who holds aloft the cross from which you’ve soldThe nails to junk-men.And makes a hackle from the crown of thornsWherewith to hackle hemp to make a ropeFor your own hanging in the Philippines!Who with one hand grabs off the widow’s mite,And with the other tosses golden coinsInto the beggar’s cup.The black-snake whip in one hand, in the otherA plentiful supply of surgeon’s tape. Oh you!A hard oppressor, charitably inclined,And keen to see and take the outward image—Devoid of categories to reduceIts truth and meaning.No seed of old world thistles should be sown here,Or let to fly upon this soil.Yet dogma has been sown hereMen rise thereby who sow the seed again;Accessory spirits keep the ground well stirred.It’s gold and then it’s power, but gold at last.And for the rest what are your dominant breeds?Smug cultures where the aggregate mind is leatherGorged with the oil respectabilityImpervious to thought.These pick the eunuch type as being safe,American, it’s called:Sleek, quiet, smiling, ready servitorsWho for the salary, and that alone,(Require no bribes)Effect the business will.You are a hollow thing of steel, a cauldron,No monument of freedom.You’re lettered, it is true,With many luminous truths that came to beThrough deeds of men who died for liberty.But inside you there is a seething compostOf public schools, the ballot, journalism,Laws, jurisprudence, dogma, gold the chiefIngredient all stirred into a brewWherewith to feed yourself and keep yourselfThe thing you are!Not wholly slave, not really free,Desiring vaguely to be master moral,And yet too sicklied over by old truths,The ballot, fear, plebian spirit, lack of mind,To reach patrician levels—Hermaphroditic giant, misty-eyed,Half blinded by ideals, half by greed!Can nothing but a war,The prospect of a slaughter or the prizeOf foreign lands, shake off your lethargy,And make you seem as big in spirit asYou are in body?Would you not love the general weal improved?Would you not love your towns made beautiful?Your halls and courtsReclaimed from dicers’ oaths?Your laws made just and tuned to god-like laws?Your weights and measures made invariable?Is there no tonic in such hopes as theseTo rouse you, giant?I think you are DelilahTricked out as Liberty for a fancy ball,Spiritless, provincal, shabby, dull,Where no ways gentle, no natural mirth prevails.You’ve put your Samson’s eye out; he would see.You’ve chained him to the grinder, he would play,Be wise and human, free, courageous, fair,Of cleaner flesh and nobler spirit. LookHe may pull down your bastard temple yet,And make you use pentelic marble forRebuilding of the Parthenon you planned,And leave the misse stone thrown in a heapFor sheep gates in the walls of Ancient Zion!

Upon a time black soil was pouredOver your surface as the cookPours chocolate on a cake.So you are fertile, never a land so rich.

A little river flowing in the lakeVanishing in marshes up a mile or soMakes for a portage to another streamWhich empties in another stream which emptiesInto the Mississippi.A spot between the lake and river liesUpon the highway binding east and west,And from the south and north where traders meet.This is the very place to build a fort—The fort becomes a town within a year,A great metropolis in half a cycle.

Within a lifetime you have gainedSome seven million souls.The land of Luther sends a swarming host;And Milton’s land adventurous sons;And Scandinavia’s realm,And Michael Angelo’s mountains,All Europe pours her wealthOf brawn and spirit on you,Until you are an empireOf restless vital men, and teeming towns.

Before you were grown rich,And populousYou brightened history;Great men came from you.But now that you have cities and great treasureWhere are your great ones?What is your genius?What star enwraps your eyes?

What heights allure you?Hermaphroditic giant, sad and drunkNot gay, but foolish, stuffed with new baked bread,Who took away your gland pituitary,Abandoned you to such exaggerate growthWithout increase of soul?You blasphemous, yet afraid,Licentious, yet ashamed,Swaggering, yet blubberingAnd boasting of your rights.Materialist who woos the spiritual,Who holds aloft the cross from which you’ve soldThe nails to junk-men.And makes a hackle from the crown of thornsWherewith to hackle hemp to make a ropeFor your own hanging in the Philippines!Who with one hand grabs off the widow’s mite,And with the other tosses golden coinsInto the beggar’s cup.The black-snake whip in one hand, in the otherA plentiful supply of surgeon’s tape. Oh you!A hard oppressor, charitably inclined,And keen to see and take the outward image—Devoid of categories to reduceIts truth and meaning.

No seed of old world thistles should be sown here,Or let to fly upon this soil.Yet dogma has been sown hereMen rise thereby who sow the seed again;Accessory spirits keep the ground well stirred.It’s gold and then it’s power, but gold at last.And for the rest what are your dominant breeds?Smug cultures where the aggregate mind is leatherGorged with the oil respectabilityImpervious to thought.These pick the eunuch type as being safe,American, it’s called:Sleek, quiet, smiling, ready servitorsWho for the salary, and that alone,(Require no bribes)Effect the business will.

You are a hollow thing of steel, a cauldron,No monument of freedom.You’re lettered, it is true,With many luminous truths that came to beThrough deeds of men who died for liberty.But inside you there is a seething compostOf public schools, the ballot, journalism,Laws, jurisprudence, dogma, gold the chiefIngredient all stirred into a brewWherewith to feed yourself and keep yourselfThe thing you are!Not wholly slave, not really free,Desiring vaguely to be master moral,And yet too sicklied over by old truths,The ballot, fear, plebian spirit, lack of mind,To reach patrician levels—Hermaphroditic giant, misty-eyed,Half blinded by ideals, half by greed!

Can nothing but a war,The prospect of a slaughter or the prizeOf foreign lands, shake off your lethargy,And make you seem as big in spirit asYou are in body?Would you not love the general weal improved?Would you not love your towns made beautiful?Your halls and courtsReclaimed from dicers’ oaths?Your laws made just and tuned to god-like laws?Your weights and measures made invariable?Is there no tonic in such hopes as theseTo rouse you, giant?

I think you are DelilahTricked out as Liberty for a fancy ball,Spiritless, provincal, shabby, dull,Where no ways gentle, no natural mirth prevails.You’ve put your Samson’s eye out; he would see.You’ve chained him to the grinder, he would play,Be wise and human, free, courageous, fair,Of cleaner flesh and nobler spirit. LookHe may pull down your bastard temple yet,And make you use pentelic marble forRebuilding of the Parthenon you planned,And leave the misse stone thrown in a heapFor sheep gates in the walls of Ancient Zion!

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