You who behold no spirit in earth and sun,And in their marriage no symbol of increase;And you who plan or plot or brood, but runAbout the wine press never, and who shunThe kinship which makes one of beasts and man,Blossoms and vines and trees.You who see not the mystery of food,The ecstasy of the feast, replenishmentOf spirit in the wine-cup, and who banIn fear or loathing, swooning of the blood;You who can take as memory’s sacramentThe wafer and the thimble of vapid juice,And yet deny us, seekers of elation,Re-birth through Dionysus, the youthful Christ:Living, rejoicing in Life’s thrilling spring,Not grieving in its autumn and decline,Bridal, not funeral wineIn the hour of memory and of parting;You who forbid our ritual and our useOf Nature’s secrets, our illumination,Our sleep, our peace,Our freedom from the Fears, intoxicationIn which our souls are paradised;Our insight, charities, and our releaseFrom the grave of the day’s flesh, our Orphic lipsThrough which we find creations, sun-lit wings,Love, wanderings of the soul, and fellowships—You who these wisdoms see not, or gainsayWho will tear limb from limb of you, and slay?Will the old States never come to us, never again,And the sovereignty of men,In the mountains of our fathers, along the boundless plain?Has the will of the people perished, or passed into the handOf the oafs and boors and lunk-heads of the land,And the bigot, Puritan,And the martyrs to the martyrdom of Pain,Seeking remembrance not for Life, but Death?Have we given up the sister realms, the freedom of the StatesThrough a tyranny of shameIn the South land where the black-man wears the gag?Shall we bear the blight of cities, charged to electoratesIn the silence of the bearers of the flag?Shall the cowardice of sycophants commissioned to obeyDefeat the trust, but call it still our voice?Shall we who give you, as we wish, the choiceOf freedom to be solemn or rejoice,Avenge not your injustice, nor gainsay,Nor strew you limb from limb along the way?
You who behold no spirit in earth and sun,And in their marriage no symbol of increase;And you who plan or plot or brood, but runAbout the wine press never, and who shunThe kinship which makes one of beasts and man,Blossoms and vines and trees.You who see not the mystery of food,The ecstasy of the feast, replenishmentOf spirit in the wine-cup, and who banIn fear or loathing, swooning of the blood;You who can take as memory’s sacramentThe wafer and the thimble of vapid juice,And yet deny us, seekers of elation,Re-birth through Dionysus, the youthful Christ:Living, rejoicing in Life’s thrilling spring,Not grieving in its autumn and decline,Bridal, not funeral wineIn the hour of memory and of parting;You who forbid our ritual and our useOf Nature’s secrets, our illumination,Our sleep, our peace,Our freedom from the Fears, intoxicationIn which our souls are paradised;Our insight, charities, and our releaseFrom the grave of the day’s flesh, our Orphic lipsThrough which we find creations, sun-lit wings,Love, wanderings of the soul, and fellowships—You who these wisdoms see not, or gainsayWho will tear limb from limb of you, and slay?Will the old States never come to us, never again,And the sovereignty of men,In the mountains of our fathers, along the boundless plain?Has the will of the people perished, or passed into the handOf the oafs and boors and lunk-heads of the land,And the bigot, Puritan,And the martyrs to the martyrdom of Pain,Seeking remembrance not for Life, but Death?Have we given up the sister realms, the freedom of the StatesThrough a tyranny of shameIn the South land where the black-man wears the gag?Shall we bear the blight of cities, charged to electoratesIn the silence of the bearers of the flag?Shall the cowardice of sycophants commissioned to obeyDefeat the trust, but call it still our voice?Shall we who give you, as we wish, the choiceOf freedom to be solemn or rejoice,Avenge not your injustice, nor gainsay,Nor strew you limb from limb along the way?
You who behold no spirit in earth and sun,And in their marriage no symbol of increase;And you who plan or plot or brood, but runAbout the wine press never, and who shunThe kinship which makes one of beasts and man,Blossoms and vines and trees.You who see not the mystery of food,The ecstasy of the feast, replenishmentOf spirit in the wine-cup, and who banIn fear or loathing, swooning of the blood;You who can take as memory’s sacramentThe wafer and the thimble of vapid juice,And yet deny us, seekers of elation,Re-birth through Dionysus, the youthful Christ:Living, rejoicing in Life’s thrilling spring,Not grieving in its autumn and decline,Bridal, not funeral wineIn the hour of memory and of parting;You who forbid our ritual and our useOf Nature’s secrets, our illumination,Our sleep, our peace,Our freedom from the Fears, intoxicationIn which our souls are paradised;Our insight, charities, and our releaseFrom the grave of the day’s flesh, our Orphic lipsThrough which we find creations, sun-lit wings,Love, wanderings of the soul, and fellowships—You who these wisdoms see not, or gainsayWho will tear limb from limb of you, and slay?
Will the old States never come to us, never again,And the sovereignty of men,In the mountains of our fathers, along the boundless plain?Has the will of the people perished, or passed into the handOf the oafs and boors and lunk-heads of the land,And the bigot, Puritan,And the martyrs to the martyrdom of Pain,Seeking remembrance not for Life, but Death?Have we given up the sister realms, the freedom of the StatesThrough a tyranny of shameIn the South land where the black-man wears the gag?Shall we bear the blight of cities, charged to electoratesIn the silence of the bearers of the flag?Shall the cowardice of sycophants commissioned to obeyDefeat the trust, but call it still our voice?Shall we who give you, as we wish, the choiceOf freedom to be solemn or rejoice,Avenge not your injustice, nor gainsay,Nor strew you limb from limb along the way?
Marion Strode, my friend, a chanting voiceFor heaven’s kingdom on this earth, a handReady to open prisons, heal the bruised,Bring liberty to men, was wrought to fireOver the martyrdom of Ott. He called itA martyrdom, and said: “Come go with meAnd comfort Ott in prison.” So he went.And on the train I read what Ott had said,For which he suffered prison. Jail for wordsIs older than Saint Paul; as old as cities,And fear that dreads the change that words may bring.I also saw a picture of this Ott:Head like a billiard ball, a little cracked,Warped egg-like too. A homeless cat made furtiveBy missive cans and frightful hoots. A raggedGabriel shut from heaven’s bliss. A porterOf righteousness compelled to open the gateOf paradise for Mark Hanna, but himselfDebarred an entrance. Asking nothing either,Yet facing God to sift him, find him pureAs those who enter.Here’s a man who neverTo eighty years loses from brightening eyesFlames from the stake reflected, or the shadowsOf prison for the sake of conscience. ThinksNo one who has soft raiment ever reads“The Ancient Lowly,” or the “MartyrdomOf Labor,” history, science; none are wiseBut radicals.And then I read in fullWhat Ott had said for which they prisoned him.They charged him with obstructing the enlistment.But in his speech there isn’t a single wordAdvising a resistance to the draft,By just so many words concretely. QuiteAdroit this speech, quite foxy. Yet it’s trueIf you knew you could get a man to actOn what was in his mind, long brooded onBy giving him a shot of alcohol;And if you gave it and he did the deedYou would be an inciter, principalAnd doer of the deed.Now take this speechWhich glorifies the socialistic cause;Lauds divers martyrs tried, already jailedFor words against the draft; denounces Prussia,Oh, yes! but in such words as hit the homeOf the brave, the free America! Ouch! Quit!Says that the master class has always madeThe wars in which the subject class was used,Which never had a voice in making war:Affirmative universal! What’s the answer?He means this war, this holy war, the traitor!Denounces capital, exhorts the crowdTo strive for something better than to beFodder for cannon. What? The prize of deathIn battle called a foddering of the cannon!What better thing to strive for? Throw him out!The price of coal is due to plutocrats;They’re bleeding you, and say it’s for the war.They lie! What’s treason? Not disloyalTo those you work for, but disloyaltyTo truth, your better self.If you believe thisWould you become a soldier, or say no,I will not fight for such a cause or country?...I see, said Voltaire, three times one are one.A man in heat might flout the trinity;But when he studies out some persiflageWith which to flout it—well—here’s Ott who hasContempt aforethought for the war and draft,And squirts his venom through closed teeth, the betterTo shoot it further, make it hit.I said:“Your Mr. Ott is guilty of the charge.No use to talk of constitutions. No.He loves the Lovejoys, Garrisons and Paines,The Brunos, martyrs, let him stand his ground.”And Marion Strode replied: “Yes, Ott is guilty.But did he speak the truth? Yes? Very well.It must have been the time and place that madeThe penitentiary for twenty yearsA fitting penalty. But when’s the timeTo talk against war’s horror? When there’s war,And words are vivid, or when war is not,And talks against it sound like when you say‘Look out for bears’ to children?“War-lords talkIn peace and war to be prepared. May IPrepare for peace in war time, when my wordsHave demonstrations in the events of war?You think not? The majority has spoken!Well, has it? Point me out a plebisciteThat asked for war. But take your point at fullThe majority has spoken: why forbidThe back-hall, soap-box rostrum; what will come?The majority will stick and go ahead;Or else the soap box will persuade it backAnd end the war. Is there another term?The great majority annoyed, obstructed,Delayed, distracted, harried! Well, you knowThe Tories did that to George Washington.And Lincoln! Why, the people at the pollsReturned a critical congress. And if trialsStrengthen the character of a man, why notObstructions for majorities howling warTo clarify and strengthen them? God worksIn ways mysterious, but in every way;Whatever is is true.“Ott, as I see it,Was jailed for twenty years for speaking truthAt the wrong time and place. A heavy fineFor wrong a æsthetics, etiquette.“I go deeper,I pass the law that jailed him, all æsthetics,All etiquette, all wrong of time and place.Let’s enter in a realm of realer things.What does Ott stand for in a war or peace?Is it not freedom, equal rights, the endOf poverty, disease? Has he not heldThe torch of science up, the torch of thoughtInterpreting the greatest minds to winAttention to them and adherence to them?If he did this, has not his life been givenTo making America a brighter light,A sounder realm, her breed a stronger breed?If he be not a light himself, but onlyA humble trimmer of the wick, let’s sayThe wick of Socrates, or Franklin, Paine,Or Jesus as the prophet in the workOf freeing for the truth, then what of that?Who gets the judgment in the years to come,A parlor lamp of yellow flame, that smellsOf coal oil, or your Ott?“Let’s take a type:He woos the average man, appeals to him;The average man whose morals, art and booksAre just victrola records, microscopicEchoes of small realities of the past.He sees what he can do with this AmericaOf the average man, the common people called.He follows them and gives them vapid stuffOf morals, laws and politics. His aim?Talk which will win the very largest nodOf ignorant assent. Result? Why look,He is a daily of a million sale,He coins the money lecturing, uses tooHis following to keep AmericaUpon the level of the common manIn morals, freedom, thought, virility.He scoffs at science and the noodles giggle.Music? Why, who’s Beethoven? Let me hear‘Lead Kindly Light.’ The drama? Well, Ben HurIs moral and historical. Sculpture? LookAt those bronze figures by the mantel clock—That’s Faith and Hope. Freedom of speech and press?Within the limits of the law! And war?I loathe it, I opposed it, but when warIs by the law decreed, I enter tooAnd howl for what I hissed, for what I calledAn evil and a wrong.“Now hear me out:Suppose he could persuade AmericaTo take his books, and music, sculpture, ethics—That is his purpose, to persuade us allTo take them, as it was the aim of OttTo stay enlistment and so stop the war—What of our civilization? It would fall.If so who should be jailed, this oratorOr Ott?“Now we’ve arrived, can test these souls.Ott fights the war and sticks, your oratorOpposes the war and quotes the Nazarene.But does he stick? Why no! The truth remains.He changes, lifts his nose for noting whenThe noses of the majority are lifted.Our Mr. Ott winters behind the bars.Our orator retires to Florida;Emerges slick and strong when April comesTo lecture, get the money.“Now supposeOtt by his talk had balked the war, that crimeIs nothing by the side of the other crimeOf keeping common followers commoner;Corrupting thought. The war is over now.With Ott in prison and the orator out.Let’s test them on the whole, and wholly freedFrom war tests; Ott’s a trimmer of great wicks;Your orator a parlor lamp that smellsOf coal oil. And the larger truth would openThe prison doors for Ott, and push the oratorBehind the doors and lock them.”Marion StrodeWent on till we arrived. And there was OttSerene and smiling in his prison clothes.“We meanTo get a pardon for you,” Marion StrodeSpoke out at once, “and give this prison cellTo a certain orator of the commonplace.”Ott laughed and said, “What for? You’d break his puerileAnd shifty heart. This is a place for menWho stand their ground. I may not have much brains,But what I have I use as SocratesDevoted his. I want to share the greatnessOf the great with what brains I possess. I likeThis cell because it helps me do this.”ThenWe shook the hand of Ott and turned away!
Marion Strode, my friend, a chanting voiceFor heaven’s kingdom on this earth, a handReady to open prisons, heal the bruised,Bring liberty to men, was wrought to fireOver the martyrdom of Ott. He called itA martyrdom, and said: “Come go with meAnd comfort Ott in prison.” So he went.And on the train I read what Ott had said,For which he suffered prison. Jail for wordsIs older than Saint Paul; as old as cities,And fear that dreads the change that words may bring.I also saw a picture of this Ott:Head like a billiard ball, a little cracked,Warped egg-like too. A homeless cat made furtiveBy missive cans and frightful hoots. A raggedGabriel shut from heaven’s bliss. A porterOf righteousness compelled to open the gateOf paradise for Mark Hanna, but himselfDebarred an entrance. Asking nothing either,Yet facing God to sift him, find him pureAs those who enter.Here’s a man who neverTo eighty years loses from brightening eyesFlames from the stake reflected, or the shadowsOf prison for the sake of conscience. ThinksNo one who has soft raiment ever reads“The Ancient Lowly,” or the “MartyrdomOf Labor,” history, science; none are wiseBut radicals.And then I read in fullWhat Ott had said for which they prisoned him.They charged him with obstructing the enlistment.But in his speech there isn’t a single wordAdvising a resistance to the draft,By just so many words concretely. QuiteAdroit this speech, quite foxy. Yet it’s trueIf you knew you could get a man to actOn what was in his mind, long brooded onBy giving him a shot of alcohol;And if you gave it and he did the deedYou would be an inciter, principalAnd doer of the deed.Now take this speechWhich glorifies the socialistic cause;Lauds divers martyrs tried, already jailedFor words against the draft; denounces Prussia,Oh, yes! but in such words as hit the homeOf the brave, the free America! Ouch! Quit!Says that the master class has always madeThe wars in which the subject class was used,Which never had a voice in making war:Affirmative universal! What’s the answer?He means this war, this holy war, the traitor!Denounces capital, exhorts the crowdTo strive for something better than to beFodder for cannon. What? The prize of deathIn battle called a foddering of the cannon!What better thing to strive for? Throw him out!The price of coal is due to plutocrats;They’re bleeding you, and say it’s for the war.They lie! What’s treason? Not disloyalTo those you work for, but disloyaltyTo truth, your better self.If you believe thisWould you become a soldier, or say no,I will not fight for such a cause or country?...I see, said Voltaire, three times one are one.A man in heat might flout the trinity;But when he studies out some persiflageWith which to flout it—well—here’s Ott who hasContempt aforethought for the war and draft,And squirts his venom through closed teeth, the betterTo shoot it further, make it hit.I said:“Your Mr. Ott is guilty of the charge.No use to talk of constitutions. No.He loves the Lovejoys, Garrisons and Paines,The Brunos, martyrs, let him stand his ground.”And Marion Strode replied: “Yes, Ott is guilty.But did he speak the truth? Yes? Very well.It must have been the time and place that madeThe penitentiary for twenty yearsA fitting penalty. But when’s the timeTo talk against war’s horror? When there’s war,And words are vivid, or when war is not,And talks against it sound like when you say‘Look out for bears’ to children?“War-lords talkIn peace and war to be prepared. May IPrepare for peace in war time, when my wordsHave demonstrations in the events of war?You think not? The majority has spoken!Well, has it? Point me out a plebisciteThat asked for war. But take your point at fullThe majority has spoken: why forbidThe back-hall, soap-box rostrum; what will come?The majority will stick and go ahead;Or else the soap box will persuade it backAnd end the war. Is there another term?The great majority annoyed, obstructed,Delayed, distracted, harried! Well, you knowThe Tories did that to George Washington.And Lincoln! Why, the people at the pollsReturned a critical congress. And if trialsStrengthen the character of a man, why notObstructions for majorities howling warTo clarify and strengthen them? God worksIn ways mysterious, but in every way;Whatever is is true.“Ott, as I see it,Was jailed for twenty years for speaking truthAt the wrong time and place. A heavy fineFor wrong a æsthetics, etiquette.“I go deeper,I pass the law that jailed him, all æsthetics,All etiquette, all wrong of time and place.Let’s enter in a realm of realer things.What does Ott stand for in a war or peace?Is it not freedom, equal rights, the endOf poverty, disease? Has he not heldThe torch of science up, the torch of thoughtInterpreting the greatest minds to winAttention to them and adherence to them?If he did this, has not his life been givenTo making America a brighter light,A sounder realm, her breed a stronger breed?If he be not a light himself, but onlyA humble trimmer of the wick, let’s sayThe wick of Socrates, or Franklin, Paine,Or Jesus as the prophet in the workOf freeing for the truth, then what of that?Who gets the judgment in the years to come,A parlor lamp of yellow flame, that smellsOf coal oil, or your Ott?“Let’s take a type:He woos the average man, appeals to him;The average man whose morals, art and booksAre just victrola records, microscopicEchoes of small realities of the past.He sees what he can do with this AmericaOf the average man, the common people called.He follows them and gives them vapid stuffOf morals, laws and politics. His aim?Talk which will win the very largest nodOf ignorant assent. Result? Why look,He is a daily of a million sale,He coins the money lecturing, uses tooHis following to keep AmericaUpon the level of the common manIn morals, freedom, thought, virility.He scoffs at science and the noodles giggle.Music? Why, who’s Beethoven? Let me hear‘Lead Kindly Light.’ The drama? Well, Ben HurIs moral and historical. Sculpture? LookAt those bronze figures by the mantel clock—That’s Faith and Hope. Freedom of speech and press?Within the limits of the law! And war?I loathe it, I opposed it, but when warIs by the law decreed, I enter tooAnd howl for what I hissed, for what I calledAn evil and a wrong.“Now hear me out:Suppose he could persuade AmericaTo take his books, and music, sculpture, ethics—That is his purpose, to persuade us allTo take them, as it was the aim of OttTo stay enlistment and so stop the war—What of our civilization? It would fall.If so who should be jailed, this oratorOr Ott?“Now we’ve arrived, can test these souls.Ott fights the war and sticks, your oratorOpposes the war and quotes the Nazarene.But does he stick? Why no! The truth remains.He changes, lifts his nose for noting whenThe noses of the majority are lifted.Our Mr. Ott winters behind the bars.Our orator retires to Florida;Emerges slick and strong when April comesTo lecture, get the money.“Now supposeOtt by his talk had balked the war, that crimeIs nothing by the side of the other crimeOf keeping common followers commoner;Corrupting thought. The war is over now.With Ott in prison and the orator out.Let’s test them on the whole, and wholly freedFrom war tests; Ott’s a trimmer of great wicks;Your orator a parlor lamp that smellsOf coal oil. And the larger truth would openThe prison doors for Ott, and push the oratorBehind the doors and lock them.”Marion StrodeWent on till we arrived. And there was OttSerene and smiling in his prison clothes.“We meanTo get a pardon for you,” Marion StrodeSpoke out at once, “and give this prison cellTo a certain orator of the commonplace.”Ott laughed and said, “What for? You’d break his puerileAnd shifty heart. This is a place for menWho stand their ground. I may not have much brains,But what I have I use as SocratesDevoted his. I want to share the greatnessOf the great with what brains I possess. I likeThis cell because it helps me do this.”ThenWe shook the hand of Ott and turned away!
Marion Strode, my friend, a chanting voiceFor heaven’s kingdom on this earth, a handReady to open prisons, heal the bruised,Bring liberty to men, was wrought to fireOver the martyrdom of Ott. He called itA martyrdom, and said: “Come go with meAnd comfort Ott in prison.” So he went.
And on the train I read what Ott had said,For which he suffered prison. Jail for wordsIs older than Saint Paul; as old as cities,And fear that dreads the change that words may bring.I also saw a picture of this Ott:Head like a billiard ball, a little cracked,Warped egg-like too. A homeless cat made furtiveBy missive cans and frightful hoots. A raggedGabriel shut from heaven’s bliss. A porterOf righteousness compelled to open the gateOf paradise for Mark Hanna, but himselfDebarred an entrance. Asking nothing either,Yet facing God to sift him, find him pureAs those who enter.
Here’s a man who neverTo eighty years loses from brightening eyesFlames from the stake reflected, or the shadowsOf prison for the sake of conscience. ThinksNo one who has soft raiment ever reads“The Ancient Lowly,” or the “MartyrdomOf Labor,” history, science; none are wiseBut radicals.
And then I read in fullWhat Ott had said for which they prisoned him.They charged him with obstructing the enlistment.But in his speech there isn’t a single wordAdvising a resistance to the draft,By just so many words concretely. QuiteAdroit this speech, quite foxy. Yet it’s trueIf you knew you could get a man to actOn what was in his mind, long brooded onBy giving him a shot of alcohol;And if you gave it and he did the deedYou would be an inciter, principalAnd doer of the deed.
Now take this speechWhich glorifies the socialistic cause;Lauds divers martyrs tried, already jailedFor words against the draft; denounces Prussia,Oh, yes! but in such words as hit the homeOf the brave, the free America! Ouch! Quit!Says that the master class has always madeThe wars in which the subject class was used,Which never had a voice in making war:Affirmative universal! What’s the answer?He means this war, this holy war, the traitor!Denounces capital, exhorts the crowdTo strive for something better than to beFodder for cannon. What? The prize of deathIn battle called a foddering of the cannon!What better thing to strive for? Throw him out!The price of coal is due to plutocrats;They’re bleeding you, and say it’s for the war.They lie! What’s treason? Not disloyalTo those you work for, but disloyaltyTo truth, your better self.
If you believe thisWould you become a soldier, or say no,I will not fight for such a cause or country?...I see, said Voltaire, three times one are one.A man in heat might flout the trinity;But when he studies out some persiflageWith which to flout it—well—here’s Ott who hasContempt aforethought for the war and draft,And squirts his venom through closed teeth, the betterTo shoot it further, make it hit.
I said:“Your Mr. Ott is guilty of the charge.No use to talk of constitutions. No.He loves the Lovejoys, Garrisons and Paines,The Brunos, martyrs, let him stand his ground.”And Marion Strode replied: “Yes, Ott is guilty.But did he speak the truth? Yes? Very well.It must have been the time and place that madeThe penitentiary for twenty yearsA fitting penalty. But when’s the timeTo talk against war’s horror? When there’s war,And words are vivid, or when war is not,And talks against it sound like when you say‘Look out for bears’ to children?
“War-lords talkIn peace and war to be prepared. May IPrepare for peace in war time, when my wordsHave demonstrations in the events of war?You think not? The majority has spoken!Well, has it? Point me out a plebisciteThat asked for war. But take your point at fullThe majority has spoken: why forbidThe back-hall, soap-box rostrum; what will come?The majority will stick and go ahead;Or else the soap box will persuade it backAnd end the war. Is there another term?The great majority annoyed, obstructed,Delayed, distracted, harried! Well, you knowThe Tories did that to George Washington.And Lincoln! Why, the people at the pollsReturned a critical congress. And if trialsStrengthen the character of a man, why notObstructions for majorities howling warTo clarify and strengthen them? God worksIn ways mysterious, but in every way;Whatever is is true.
“Ott, as I see it,Was jailed for twenty years for speaking truthAt the wrong time and place. A heavy fineFor wrong a æsthetics, etiquette.
“I go deeper,I pass the law that jailed him, all æsthetics,All etiquette, all wrong of time and place.Let’s enter in a realm of realer things.What does Ott stand for in a war or peace?Is it not freedom, equal rights, the endOf poverty, disease? Has he not heldThe torch of science up, the torch of thoughtInterpreting the greatest minds to winAttention to them and adherence to them?If he did this, has not his life been givenTo making America a brighter light,A sounder realm, her breed a stronger breed?If he be not a light himself, but onlyA humble trimmer of the wick, let’s sayThe wick of Socrates, or Franklin, Paine,Or Jesus as the prophet in the workOf freeing for the truth, then what of that?Who gets the judgment in the years to come,A parlor lamp of yellow flame, that smellsOf coal oil, or your Ott?
“Let’s take a type:He woos the average man, appeals to him;The average man whose morals, art and booksAre just victrola records, microscopicEchoes of small realities of the past.He sees what he can do with this AmericaOf the average man, the common people called.He follows them and gives them vapid stuffOf morals, laws and politics. His aim?Talk which will win the very largest nodOf ignorant assent. Result? Why look,He is a daily of a million sale,He coins the money lecturing, uses tooHis following to keep AmericaUpon the level of the common manIn morals, freedom, thought, virility.He scoffs at science and the noodles giggle.Music? Why, who’s Beethoven? Let me hear‘Lead Kindly Light.’ The drama? Well, Ben HurIs moral and historical. Sculpture? LookAt those bronze figures by the mantel clock—That’s Faith and Hope. Freedom of speech and press?Within the limits of the law! And war?I loathe it, I opposed it, but when warIs by the law decreed, I enter tooAnd howl for what I hissed, for what I calledAn evil and a wrong.
“Now hear me out:Suppose he could persuade AmericaTo take his books, and music, sculpture, ethics—That is his purpose, to persuade us allTo take them, as it was the aim of OttTo stay enlistment and so stop the war—What of our civilization? It would fall.If so who should be jailed, this oratorOr Ott?
“Now we’ve arrived, can test these souls.Ott fights the war and sticks, your oratorOpposes the war and quotes the Nazarene.But does he stick? Why no! The truth remains.He changes, lifts his nose for noting whenThe noses of the majority are lifted.Our Mr. Ott winters behind the bars.Our orator retires to Florida;Emerges slick and strong when April comesTo lecture, get the money.
“Now supposeOtt by his talk had balked the war, that crimeIs nothing by the side of the other crimeOf keeping common followers commoner;Corrupting thought. The war is over now.With Ott in prison and the orator out.Let’s test them on the whole, and wholly freedFrom war tests; Ott’s a trimmer of great wicks;Your orator a parlor lamp that smellsOf coal oil. And the larger truth would openThe prison doors for Ott, and push the oratorBehind the doors and lock them.”
Marion StrodeWent on till we arrived. And there was OttSerene and smiling in his prison clothes.
“We meanTo get a pardon for you,” Marion StrodeSpoke out at once, “and give this prison cellTo a certain orator of the commonplace.”Ott laughed and said, “What for? You’d break his puerileAnd shifty heart. This is a place for menWho stand their ground. I may not have much brains,But what I have I use as SocratesDevoted his. I want to share the greatnessOf the great with what brains I possess. I likeThis cell because it helps me do this.”
ThenWe shook the hand of Ott and turned away!
They were the fair-haired Achæans,Who won the Trojan war;They were the Vikings who sailed to IcelandAnd America.They became the bone of England,And the fire of Normandy,And the will of Holland and Germany,And the builders of America.Their blood flowed into the veins of David,And the veins of Jesus,Homer and Æschylos,Dante and Michael Angelo,Alexander and Cæsar,William of Orange and Washington.They sang the songs,They won the wars.They were chosen for might in battle;For blue eyes and white flesh,For clean blood, for strength, for class.They went to the warsAnd left the little breedsTo stay with the women,Trading and plowing.They perished in battleAll the way along the stretch of centuries,And left the little breeds to possess the earth—The Great Race is passing.They went forth to free peoples,White and black.They fought for their own freedom,And perished.They founded America,And perished—The Great Race is passing.On State street throngs crowd and push,Wriggle and writhe like maggots.Their noses are flat,Their faces are broad,Their heads are like gourds,Their eyes are dull,Their mouths are open—The Great Race is passing.The meek shall inherit the earth:Crackers and negroes in the South,Methodists and prohibitionists,Mongrels and pigmiesPossess the land.A president sits in a wheel chairSick from the fumes of his own idle dreams—The Great Race is passing.
They were the fair-haired Achæans,Who won the Trojan war;They were the Vikings who sailed to IcelandAnd America.They became the bone of England,And the fire of Normandy,And the will of Holland and Germany,And the builders of America.Their blood flowed into the veins of David,And the veins of Jesus,Homer and Æschylos,Dante and Michael Angelo,Alexander and Cæsar,William of Orange and Washington.They sang the songs,They won the wars.They were chosen for might in battle;For blue eyes and white flesh,For clean blood, for strength, for class.They went to the warsAnd left the little breedsTo stay with the women,Trading and plowing.They perished in battleAll the way along the stretch of centuries,And left the little breeds to possess the earth—The Great Race is passing.They went forth to free peoples,White and black.They fought for their own freedom,And perished.They founded America,And perished—The Great Race is passing.On State street throngs crowd and push,Wriggle and writhe like maggots.Their noses are flat,Their faces are broad,Their heads are like gourds,Their eyes are dull,Their mouths are open—The Great Race is passing.The meek shall inherit the earth:Crackers and negroes in the South,Methodists and prohibitionists,Mongrels and pigmiesPossess the land.A president sits in a wheel chairSick from the fumes of his own idle dreams—The Great Race is passing.
They were the fair-haired Achæans,Who won the Trojan war;They were the Vikings who sailed to IcelandAnd America.They became the bone of England,And the fire of Normandy,And the will of Holland and Germany,And the builders of America.
Their blood flowed into the veins of David,And the veins of Jesus,Homer and Æschylos,Dante and Michael Angelo,Alexander and Cæsar,William of Orange and Washington.They sang the songs,They won the wars.
They were chosen for might in battle;For blue eyes and white flesh,For clean blood, for strength, for class.They went to the warsAnd left the little breedsTo stay with the women,Trading and plowing.
They perished in battleAll the way along the stretch of centuries,And left the little breeds to possess the earth—The Great Race is passing.
They went forth to free peoples,White and black.They fought for their own freedom,And perished.They founded America,And perished—The Great Race is passing.
On State street throngs crowd and push,Wriggle and writhe like maggots.Their noses are flat,Their faces are broad,Their heads are like gourds,Their eyes are dull,Their mouths are open—The Great Race is passing.
The meek shall inherit the earth:Crackers and negroes in the South,Methodists and prohibitionists,Mongrels and pigmiesPossess the land.A president sits in a wheel chairSick from the fumes of his own idle dreams—The Great Race is passing.
Not in the circus before your thumbs inverted,Demos, the despot, do we stand;But amid the swarming half-born girted,And amid the idiot millions who commandHave we our freedom re-asserted—Rule us you cannot, though you rule the land.Frederick and Charles and Philip the misbegottenDestroyed the body with fagots and with fetters,Until the finger magic of movable lettersChoked them out of a world that they made rottenWith blood and corpses. But, O Demos, youPlague us with dwarfs that trip us, run and hide;Foul us with frogs that froth our ancient wine;Scourge us with locusts, and with snakes that twine,And hiss but do not kill. With lice subdueOur patience, and our time divideIn seeking the favored hour. And then you say:Have you not freedom, pray?Do you not think and print? You do not bleedFor freedom’s sake! You do not die at once.And if you starve, have you not had your way?We let you print, but do we have to read?Or suffer what you print to be displayed?What you call liberty affrontsOur white-frog breasts, the laws we made.All rightful rights remain.Neglect and want shall be your ball and chainIf you trespass our rules—In other times you would be burned or slain!Such being the freedom that you grant, O Demos,Our olden task is this: we fire the rushesOf yesteryear, and beat with sticks of truthThe little snakes and dwarfs that hide in bushes;Drain the dead water, set exhilarant youthWith ploughs upon the musty marsh to turnThe scum and green decay, and chase the frogs.Then after we cut and drain and burnAll will be sweet and clean awhile.But soon the weeds and crawlers will defileOur labor. Then the demagoguesWill lead the chorus of the frogs:This is the land, this is the fieldThis is the age of freedom, long revealed.This is the age most blest,This is the country freest, best,This is the country that fulfillsAncient hope and prophecy,This is the age, this is the land,The land, the age, the realm most free....Then in that hour we shall be dancing,And feasting with new gods upon the hills;And graving images of lovelier Beauty;And building altars of a purer Duty;And singing rituals of a deeper Faith.And living life, and facing deathAs fairer gods would have us. And for youO frogs, the fated sharersOf all we dream and do,We the dreamers, the preparers,Shall then be gathering strength to burnBushes and plow againThe frog marsh and the weedy plain!
Not in the circus before your thumbs inverted,Demos, the despot, do we stand;But amid the swarming half-born girted,And amid the idiot millions who commandHave we our freedom re-asserted—Rule us you cannot, though you rule the land.Frederick and Charles and Philip the misbegottenDestroyed the body with fagots and with fetters,Until the finger magic of movable lettersChoked them out of a world that they made rottenWith blood and corpses. But, O Demos, youPlague us with dwarfs that trip us, run and hide;Foul us with frogs that froth our ancient wine;Scourge us with locusts, and with snakes that twine,And hiss but do not kill. With lice subdueOur patience, and our time divideIn seeking the favored hour. And then you say:Have you not freedom, pray?Do you not think and print? You do not bleedFor freedom’s sake! You do not die at once.And if you starve, have you not had your way?We let you print, but do we have to read?Or suffer what you print to be displayed?What you call liberty affrontsOur white-frog breasts, the laws we made.All rightful rights remain.Neglect and want shall be your ball and chainIf you trespass our rules—In other times you would be burned or slain!Such being the freedom that you grant, O Demos,Our olden task is this: we fire the rushesOf yesteryear, and beat with sticks of truthThe little snakes and dwarfs that hide in bushes;Drain the dead water, set exhilarant youthWith ploughs upon the musty marsh to turnThe scum and green decay, and chase the frogs.Then after we cut and drain and burnAll will be sweet and clean awhile.But soon the weeds and crawlers will defileOur labor. Then the demagoguesWill lead the chorus of the frogs:This is the land, this is the fieldThis is the age of freedom, long revealed.This is the age most blest,This is the country freest, best,This is the country that fulfillsAncient hope and prophecy,This is the age, this is the land,The land, the age, the realm most free....Then in that hour we shall be dancing,And feasting with new gods upon the hills;And graving images of lovelier Beauty;And building altars of a purer Duty;And singing rituals of a deeper Faith.And living life, and facing deathAs fairer gods would have us. And for youO frogs, the fated sharersOf all we dream and do,We the dreamers, the preparers,Shall then be gathering strength to burnBushes and plow againThe frog marsh and the weedy plain!
Not in the circus before your thumbs inverted,Demos, the despot, do we stand;But amid the swarming half-born girted,And amid the idiot millions who commandHave we our freedom re-asserted—Rule us you cannot, though you rule the land.
Frederick and Charles and Philip the misbegottenDestroyed the body with fagots and with fetters,Until the finger magic of movable lettersChoked them out of a world that they made rottenWith blood and corpses. But, O Demos, youPlague us with dwarfs that trip us, run and hide;Foul us with frogs that froth our ancient wine;Scourge us with locusts, and with snakes that twine,And hiss but do not kill. With lice subdueOur patience, and our time divideIn seeking the favored hour. And then you say:Have you not freedom, pray?Do you not think and print? You do not bleedFor freedom’s sake! You do not die at once.And if you starve, have you not had your way?We let you print, but do we have to read?
Or suffer what you print to be displayed?What you call liberty affrontsOur white-frog breasts, the laws we made.All rightful rights remain.Neglect and want shall be your ball and chainIf you trespass our rules—In other times you would be burned or slain!
Such being the freedom that you grant, O Demos,Our olden task is this: we fire the rushesOf yesteryear, and beat with sticks of truthThe little snakes and dwarfs that hide in bushes;Drain the dead water, set exhilarant youthWith ploughs upon the musty marsh to turnThe scum and green decay, and chase the frogs.
Then after we cut and drain and burnAll will be sweet and clean awhile.But soon the weeds and crawlers will defileOur labor. Then the demagoguesWill lead the chorus of the frogs:This is the land, this is the fieldThis is the age of freedom, long revealed.This is the age most blest,This is the country freest, best,This is the country that fulfillsAncient hope and prophecy,This is the age, this is the land,The land, the age, the realm most free....
Then in that hour we shall be dancing,And feasting with new gods upon the hills;And graving images of lovelier Beauty;And building altars of a purer Duty;And singing rituals of a deeper Faith.And living life, and facing deathAs fairer gods would have us. And for youO frogs, the fated sharersOf all we dream and do,We the dreamers, the preparers,Shall then be gathering strength to burnBushes and plow againThe frog marsh and the weedy plain!
Her faith abandoned and her place despised,Her mission lost through ridicule, hooted forthFrom the forum she erected, by cat calls,And tory sneers and schemes. Her basic lawScoffed out of court, amended at the needOf stomachology by the judges, orA majority of States, as it is said—Rather by drunks and grafters, for the timeThe spokesmen of the States, coerced and scaredBy Methodists with a fund to hire spies,And unearth women scrapes, or other sinsWith which to say: “Vote dry, or be exposed.”A marsh Atlantic drifting, towed at lastBy pirates into harbor, made a pastureFor alien hatreds, greeds. A shackled press,And voices gagged, creative spirits frozen,Obtunded by disgust or fear. War only,Armies and navies speak the national mind,And make it move as a man; for other thingsResistance, thought divided, ostracism,Or jail for their protagonists. At the mastThe cross above the crossbones, in betweenThe starry banner. A people hatched like chickens:Of feeble spirit for much intercrossing,Without vision and without will, incapableOf lusty revolution whatever rightIs spit upon or taken. A wriggling massBemused and babbling, trampling private rightAs a tyrant tramples it, calling it lawBecause it speaks the majority of the mob.A land that breeds the reformer, the infuriateWill in the shallow mind, the plague of frogsThat hop into our rooms at Pharaoh’s will,And soil our banquet dishes, hour of joy.A giantess growing huger, duller of mind,Her gland pituitary being lost.
Her faith abandoned and her place despised,Her mission lost through ridicule, hooted forthFrom the forum she erected, by cat calls,And tory sneers and schemes. Her basic lawScoffed out of court, amended at the needOf stomachology by the judges, orA majority of States, as it is said—Rather by drunks and grafters, for the timeThe spokesmen of the States, coerced and scaredBy Methodists with a fund to hire spies,And unearth women scrapes, or other sinsWith which to say: “Vote dry, or be exposed.”A marsh Atlantic drifting, towed at lastBy pirates into harbor, made a pastureFor alien hatreds, greeds. A shackled press,And voices gagged, creative spirits frozen,Obtunded by disgust or fear. War only,Armies and navies speak the national mind,And make it move as a man; for other thingsResistance, thought divided, ostracism,Or jail for their protagonists. At the mastThe cross above the crossbones, in betweenThe starry banner. A people hatched like chickens:Of feeble spirit for much intercrossing,Without vision and without will, incapableOf lusty revolution whatever rightIs spit upon or taken. A wriggling massBemused and babbling, trampling private rightAs a tyrant tramples it, calling it lawBecause it speaks the majority of the mob.A land that breeds the reformer, the infuriateWill in the shallow mind, the plague of frogsThat hop into our rooms at Pharaoh’s will,And soil our banquet dishes, hour of joy.A giantess growing huger, duller of mind,Her gland pituitary being lost.
Her faith abandoned and her place despised,Her mission lost through ridicule, hooted forthFrom the forum she erected, by cat calls,And tory sneers and schemes. Her basic lawScoffed out of court, amended at the needOf stomachology by the judges, orA majority of States, as it is said—Rather by drunks and grafters, for the timeThe spokesmen of the States, coerced and scaredBy Methodists with a fund to hire spies,And unearth women scrapes, or other sinsWith which to say: “Vote dry, or be exposed.”A marsh Atlantic drifting, towed at lastBy pirates into harbor, made a pastureFor alien hatreds, greeds. A shackled press,And voices gagged, creative spirits frozen,Obtunded by disgust or fear. War only,Armies and navies speak the national mind,And make it move as a man; for other thingsResistance, thought divided, ostracism,Or jail for their protagonists. At the mastThe cross above the crossbones, in betweenThe starry banner. A people hatched like chickens:Of feeble spirit for much intercrossing,Without vision and without will, incapableOf lusty revolution whatever rightIs spit upon or taken. A wriggling massBemused and babbling, trampling private rightAs a tyrant tramples it, calling it lawBecause it speaks the majority of the mob.A land that breeds the reformer, the infuriateWill in the shallow mind, the plague of frogsThat hop into our rooms at Pharaoh’s will,And soil our banquet dishes, hour of joy.A giantess growing huger, duller of mind,Her gland pituitary being lost.
Low windows in the roomThat tunnel the darkness with light!The tick of a clock in the fog that hoversFrom the cave and slide of the darknessInto the tunnels of light.A cannon stove, a dog at my feet;Cheap magazines on a table,Dead flies, an atlas;A register for guests,And stillness! Not a voice, a step—Only the tick of the clock!Mists of Fear, Mists of Memory, swirl and writhe,Dive, curl and coilFrom the mountain tops.A stretch of ochre grass by the river;Bent trees imploring the sun;And by the inn a road that stretchesAlong the river, full of dead dreams, patience,Weariness long endured!Second morning of rain.Second morning of separation, death in loneliness!The wind rushes to the corner of the porchAnd sighs as it hides.Second morning that I seeThe walker of the road:An opera cloak of blue blows round him,Flaps out a lining of red.And an Alpine hat comes down to his little ears.He is booted, he limps a little.But he’s a figure compacted of iron,He’s master of the landscape;He has cowed it, kicks it about him,As if to say: “A village, a road,A river, mountains, rain, an inn,And a lonely soul in the inn.Well, what of it? To-morrow Benares,To-morrow Bactria—who knows?”And I know as well as I know dead flies,And the tick of the clockHe wants me, passes the inn to draw me.Strides to my view, though he never looks in.The flap of his cloak is a gesture;His eyes fixed straight ahead allure.He is passing again, returns and passes.I can stand no more!I walk from the room, and haste to his side.A rusty hand out of the blue of his cloakReaches for mine; silken soft in the palmLike an anthropoid’s, but bonedTo the strength of bronze in the fingers.Red scar on his cheek—a sabre cut!Or was it an aiguille gashed himWhen he fell headlong like a meteor,And rolled to a valley, got up, shook out,And dusted himself, set forth to travelFrom Ctesiphon to Sarajevo?...But now the blue and red,The Alpine hat, the little ears,Against the ochre of stricken grassAre shrunk to the rust of jowl and jaw,And the scar, like lips grown to;And the smile of Jenghiz Khan....His voice is the lowest octaveOf riotous thought, conscienceless as nature.No talk, much thought. The earth’s a treadmill,And spheres back of us to toes dug in,Until we come to a mountain lakeClear and calm as a sky.Green shadows rich as moss around the shores;Clouds, clear blues at the centre!We are bending over, see each other’s facesIn the water.What was it? Red scar on his cheek,Or red feather in the Alpine hat?I thrill! For I see his eyes at last;They are the fires of burning cities,Carthage, Athens.Quick! And we are lyingLooking up into the sky.When a whiff of rotting men—I turnBut he stays me with his hand.The scent passes—he talksTo me—the sky!“I am a soul fancier and catcher,A catcher and cager of birds,Whether they be kites, condors, cormorants,Crows, cow-birds, vultures,Or martins, mocking-birds, or hawks,Shrikes, orioles, clarindas, thrushes,Songsters, or scavengers, I catch them,And in these mountains, call them of memoryOr bitter reflection,I cage them.But to be brief: Your bird of prey I catchBy luring him with carrion;And your mocking bird with soundsSweet as his own soul’s echo, as it wereUnreal made real. But whether bird of prey,Or songster, it’s to fool themAlways, until my hand cups over so—Then a cottage, in the mountains of memory!“I prize the soul called mocking birdMimetic of all spirits, would be all,Self-fooler, and world fooler!Coos in scourged kingdoms like the dove,Presaging peace;Croaks like the eagle where the serfs imploreOmens and leadership.I caught one lately, big as any crow.And cooped him—you shall see!But first as far as Prague, borne over seas,I heard the eagle, yes, was nearly fooled,Me, the expert in songsters, souls!I looked my soul-bird up and foundMy eagle was a mocking-bird;And when he croaked of counsel and debate,And breathing bracing air of matching minds,He was the mocking bird embowered and hiddenIn scented leaves of dreams,And sang what he would be, but could not be!A lyrist who sang down seclusion, stillCould live nowhere but in concealment.A seeker of sweet notes from rich thesauri,Slaved to the habit of the lexicon.I would not catch him yet! Believe me nowThere is that in each soul which builds its cage,Achieves its capture, be it thirst or lust,A lexicon or rhetoric, singing notesWhich makes the world say: ‘Hear the eagle cry!’The world is fooled, but not the self is fooled;It sleeps, submits to singing, but arousesWhen soul is highest charmed with its own song,And at the apex of the life, and treatsThe man as mocking bird for what he is!...The self as mocking bird betrays and leads,Not eagle-wings, but weak wings to the fray,And there the realest self is seen at lastOf self and all. To capture them or slayIs where I come and act.“Sweet bird of dawning, dreaming of Fourteen,Who carried Christ across a stream,And gained the magic sack,Into the which whatever he wished would comeWhen saying Artchila and Murtchila.But, he, this Fourteen, bird of dawning, mock-birdHow could he carry Christ? What magic bagWould gather in, to words like ‘counsel,’ ‘process’?So charmed with voice of self he flew aloneTo a parley of fowls. And there amid rich crumbs,Silk vestured falconers, birds of paradise,Mock eagle fails, but true to songUtters what self of him destroys him for.Then I, to end, come in!“Wouldn’t you think he’d know what had been doneTo him, his counsels, processes?Voice of the eagle sometimes, but the talonsAnd wings, where were they?How was he Christopherus, how Fourteen?I step in here and send himOn a great tour of singing, laugh in my sleeveTo see him start with his empty magic bag—Empty? Great wars to come and woes,Hatreds and desolations, blight of unfaith,And distillate of night-shade: Soul’s despairWere in the bag now.But I forget—all could not see these in it,Though most could see an empty bag. Well, nowMy project was to send him forth to chantThe rhetoric of a life-time, tent him toThe repetend and echo, the refrainThat hides a hollow courage, and a brainTired of its make-believe, and borrowed moods.My plan went further: Thus to send him forth,And in keen lighting have him see himselfAs some ten thousand saw him; in one momentTogether by him and them! flash picturePhotographed on a mountain’s wall,And visible for ages! So it was!I laughed, but being master I could pity....My hand goes over him cup-like now, shuts eyesFrom sight of how he pecked me peevishly,Like a stud-sparrow shrilled. Time for the cageFor our mock-eagle, logolyrist, truly!—You shall know them by their words.”“How’s this so quick, on a peak?”I said, for there we were, and the lake lost.Below us the plum world, pitted with gums: oceans.Streaked with streams: white-wash excrement of sparrows;Pine forests: fuzz on the rind; lice green and brown: men.I bawl in his ear against the breezeWhirl-pooled around us:“No Jesus business, no Budda business,I wouldn’t give a damn for it all.”“You lie,” he said. “You’re like the restEsophagus, coil of guts, a vent.”“Man is a spirit.” “Man is a smell.”Just then up from the world’s valley a breezeBearing the stench of ten million corpses—“Hey! I faint.”I back away, bump into a cottage wall, a doorWhich opens—and thereIs logolyrist caged, in durance,Twittering to himself the habitual notes,Impotent, damned, alone!“Night comes quickly these days,” says the landladyLighting the lamp. I stretch out of sleepAnd pat the head of an honest dog.
Low windows in the roomThat tunnel the darkness with light!The tick of a clock in the fog that hoversFrom the cave and slide of the darknessInto the tunnels of light.A cannon stove, a dog at my feet;Cheap magazines on a table,Dead flies, an atlas;A register for guests,And stillness! Not a voice, a step—Only the tick of the clock!Mists of Fear, Mists of Memory, swirl and writhe,Dive, curl and coilFrom the mountain tops.A stretch of ochre grass by the river;Bent trees imploring the sun;And by the inn a road that stretchesAlong the river, full of dead dreams, patience,Weariness long endured!Second morning of rain.Second morning of separation, death in loneliness!The wind rushes to the corner of the porchAnd sighs as it hides.Second morning that I seeThe walker of the road:An opera cloak of blue blows round him,Flaps out a lining of red.And an Alpine hat comes down to his little ears.He is booted, he limps a little.But he’s a figure compacted of iron,He’s master of the landscape;He has cowed it, kicks it about him,As if to say: “A village, a road,A river, mountains, rain, an inn,And a lonely soul in the inn.Well, what of it? To-morrow Benares,To-morrow Bactria—who knows?”And I know as well as I know dead flies,And the tick of the clockHe wants me, passes the inn to draw me.Strides to my view, though he never looks in.The flap of his cloak is a gesture;His eyes fixed straight ahead allure.He is passing again, returns and passes.I can stand no more!I walk from the room, and haste to his side.A rusty hand out of the blue of his cloakReaches for mine; silken soft in the palmLike an anthropoid’s, but bonedTo the strength of bronze in the fingers.Red scar on his cheek—a sabre cut!Or was it an aiguille gashed himWhen he fell headlong like a meteor,And rolled to a valley, got up, shook out,And dusted himself, set forth to travelFrom Ctesiphon to Sarajevo?...But now the blue and red,The Alpine hat, the little ears,Against the ochre of stricken grassAre shrunk to the rust of jowl and jaw,And the scar, like lips grown to;And the smile of Jenghiz Khan....His voice is the lowest octaveOf riotous thought, conscienceless as nature.No talk, much thought. The earth’s a treadmill,And spheres back of us to toes dug in,Until we come to a mountain lakeClear and calm as a sky.Green shadows rich as moss around the shores;Clouds, clear blues at the centre!We are bending over, see each other’s facesIn the water.What was it? Red scar on his cheek,Or red feather in the Alpine hat?I thrill! For I see his eyes at last;They are the fires of burning cities,Carthage, Athens.Quick! And we are lyingLooking up into the sky.When a whiff of rotting men—I turnBut he stays me with his hand.The scent passes—he talksTo me—the sky!“I am a soul fancier and catcher,A catcher and cager of birds,Whether they be kites, condors, cormorants,Crows, cow-birds, vultures,Or martins, mocking-birds, or hawks,Shrikes, orioles, clarindas, thrushes,Songsters, or scavengers, I catch them,And in these mountains, call them of memoryOr bitter reflection,I cage them.But to be brief: Your bird of prey I catchBy luring him with carrion;And your mocking bird with soundsSweet as his own soul’s echo, as it wereUnreal made real. But whether bird of prey,Or songster, it’s to fool themAlways, until my hand cups over so—Then a cottage, in the mountains of memory!“I prize the soul called mocking birdMimetic of all spirits, would be all,Self-fooler, and world fooler!Coos in scourged kingdoms like the dove,Presaging peace;Croaks like the eagle where the serfs imploreOmens and leadership.I caught one lately, big as any crow.And cooped him—you shall see!But first as far as Prague, borne over seas,I heard the eagle, yes, was nearly fooled,Me, the expert in songsters, souls!I looked my soul-bird up and foundMy eagle was a mocking-bird;And when he croaked of counsel and debate,And breathing bracing air of matching minds,He was the mocking bird embowered and hiddenIn scented leaves of dreams,And sang what he would be, but could not be!A lyrist who sang down seclusion, stillCould live nowhere but in concealment.A seeker of sweet notes from rich thesauri,Slaved to the habit of the lexicon.I would not catch him yet! Believe me nowThere is that in each soul which builds its cage,Achieves its capture, be it thirst or lust,A lexicon or rhetoric, singing notesWhich makes the world say: ‘Hear the eagle cry!’The world is fooled, but not the self is fooled;It sleeps, submits to singing, but arousesWhen soul is highest charmed with its own song,And at the apex of the life, and treatsThe man as mocking bird for what he is!...The self as mocking bird betrays and leads,Not eagle-wings, but weak wings to the fray,And there the realest self is seen at lastOf self and all. To capture them or slayIs where I come and act.“Sweet bird of dawning, dreaming of Fourteen,Who carried Christ across a stream,And gained the magic sack,Into the which whatever he wished would comeWhen saying Artchila and Murtchila.But, he, this Fourteen, bird of dawning, mock-birdHow could he carry Christ? What magic bagWould gather in, to words like ‘counsel,’ ‘process’?So charmed with voice of self he flew aloneTo a parley of fowls. And there amid rich crumbs,Silk vestured falconers, birds of paradise,Mock eagle fails, but true to songUtters what self of him destroys him for.Then I, to end, come in!“Wouldn’t you think he’d know what had been doneTo him, his counsels, processes?Voice of the eagle sometimes, but the talonsAnd wings, where were they?How was he Christopherus, how Fourteen?I step in here and send himOn a great tour of singing, laugh in my sleeveTo see him start with his empty magic bag—Empty? Great wars to come and woes,Hatreds and desolations, blight of unfaith,And distillate of night-shade: Soul’s despairWere in the bag now.But I forget—all could not see these in it,Though most could see an empty bag. Well, nowMy project was to send him forth to chantThe rhetoric of a life-time, tent him toThe repetend and echo, the refrainThat hides a hollow courage, and a brainTired of its make-believe, and borrowed moods.My plan went further: Thus to send him forth,And in keen lighting have him see himselfAs some ten thousand saw him; in one momentTogether by him and them! flash picturePhotographed on a mountain’s wall,And visible for ages! So it was!I laughed, but being master I could pity....My hand goes over him cup-like now, shuts eyesFrom sight of how he pecked me peevishly,Like a stud-sparrow shrilled. Time for the cageFor our mock-eagle, logolyrist, truly!—You shall know them by their words.”“How’s this so quick, on a peak?”I said, for there we were, and the lake lost.Below us the plum world, pitted with gums: oceans.Streaked with streams: white-wash excrement of sparrows;Pine forests: fuzz on the rind; lice green and brown: men.I bawl in his ear against the breezeWhirl-pooled around us:“No Jesus business, no Budda business,I wouldn’t give a damn for it all.”“You lie,” he said. “You’re like the restEsophagus, coil of guts, a vent.”“Man is a spirit.” “Man is a smell.”Just then up from the world’s valley a breezeBearing the stench of ten million corpses—“Hey! I faint.”I back away, bump into a cottage wall, a doorWhich opens—and thereIs logolyrist caged, in durance,Twittering to himself the habitual notes,Impotent, damned, alone!“Night comes quickly these days,” says the landladyLighting the lamp. I stretch out of sleepAnd pat the head of an honest dog.
Low windows in the roomThat tunnel the darkness with light!The tick of a clock in the fog that hoversFrom the cave and slide of the darknessInto the tunnels of light.A cannon stove, a dog at my feet;Cheap magazines on a table,Dead flies, an atlas;A register for guests,And stillness! Not a voice, a step—Only the tick of the clock!
Mists of Fear, Mists of Memory, swirl and writhe,Dive, curl and coilFrom the mountain tops.A stretch of ochre grass by the river;Bent trees imploring the sun;And by the inn a road that stretchesAlong the river, full of dead dreams, patience,Weariness long endured!
Second morning of rain.Second morning of separation, death in loneliness!The wind rushes to the corner of the porchAnd sighs as it hides.Second morning that I seeThe walker of the road:An opera cloak of blue blows round him,Flaps out a lining of red.And an Alpine hat comes down to his little ears.He is booted, he limps a little.But he’s a figure compacted of iron,He’s master of the landscape;He has cowed it, kicks it about him,As if to say: “A village, a road,A river, mountains, rain, an inn,And a lonely soul in the inn.Well, what of it? To-morrow Benares,To-morrow Bactria—who knows?”
And I know as well as I know dead flies,And the tick of the clockHe wants me, passes the inn to draw me.Strides to my view, though he never looks in.The flap of his cloak is a gesture;His eyes fixed straight ahead allure.He is passing again, returns and passes.I can stand no more!
I walk from the room, and haste to his side.A rusty hand out of the blue of his cloakReaches for mine; silken soft in the palmLike an anthropoid’s, but bonedTo the strength of bronze in the fingers.Red scar on his cheek—a sabre cut!Or was it an aiguille gashed himWhen he fell headlong like a meteor,And rolled to a valley, got up, shook out,And dusted himself, set forth to travelFrom Ctesiphon to Sarajevo?...
But now the blue and red,The Alpine hat, the little ears,Against the ochre of stricken grassAre shrunk to the rust of jowl and jaw,And the scar, like lips grown to;And the smile of Jenghiz Khan....His voice is the lowest octaveOf riotous thought, conscienceless as nature.No talk, much thought. The earth’s a treadmill,And spheres back of us to toes dug in,Until we come to a mountain lakeClear and calm as a sky.Green shadows rich as moss around the shores;Clouds, clear blues at the centre!We are bending over, see each other’s facesIn the water.What was it? Red scar on his cheek,Or red feather in the Alpine hat?I thrill! For I see his eyes at last;They are the fires of burning cities,Carthage, Athens.Quick! And we are lyingLooking up into the sky.When a whiff of rotting men—I turnBut he stays me with his hand.The scent passes—he talksTo me—the sky!
“I am a soul fancier and catcher,A catcher and cager of birds,Whether they be kites, condors, cormorants,Crows, cow-birds, vultures,Or martins, mocking-birds, or hawks,Shrikes, orioles, clarindas, thrushes,Songsters, or scavengers, I catch them,And in these mountains, call them of memoryOr bitter reflection,I cage them.But to be brief: Your bird of prey I catchBy luring him with carrion;And your mocking bird with soundsSweet as his own soul’s echo, as it wereUnreal made real. But whether bird of prey,Or songster, it’s to fool themAlways, until my hand cups over so—Then a cottage, in the mountains of memory!
“I prize the soul called mocking birdMimetic of all spirits, would be all,Self-fooler, and world fooler!Coos in scourged kingdoms like the dove,Presaging peace;Croaks like the eagle where the serfs imploreOmens and leadership.I caught one lately, big as any crow.And cooped him—you shall see!But first as far as Prague, borne over seas,I heard the eagle, yes, was nearly fooled,Me, the expert in songsters, souls!I looked my soul-bird up and foundMy eagle was a mocking-bird;And when he croaked of counsel and debate,And breathing bracing air of matching minds,He was the mocking bird embowered and hiddenIn scented leaves of dreams,And sang what he would be, but could not be!A lyrist who sang down seclusion, stillCould live nowhere but in concealment.A seeker of sweet notes from rich thesauri,Slaved to the habit of the lexicon.I would not catch him yet! Believe me nowThere is that in each soul which builds its cage,Achieves its capture, be it thirst or lust,A lexicon or rhetoric, singing notesWhich makes the world say: ‘Hear the eagle cry!’The world is fooled, but not the self is fooled;It sleeps, submits to singing, but arousesWhen soul is highest charmed with its own song,And at the apex of the life, and treatsThe man as mocking bird for what he is!...The self as mocking bird betrays and leads,Not eagle-wings, but weak wings to the fray,And there the realest self is seen at lastOf self and all. To capture them or slayIs where I come and act.
“Sweet bird of dawning, dreaming of Fourteen,Who carried Christ across a stream,And gained the magic sack,Into the which whatever he wished would comeWhen saying Artchila and Murtchila.But, he, this Fourteen, bird of dawning, mock-birdHow could he carry Christ? What magic bagWould gather in, to words like ‘counsel,’ ‘process’?So charmed with voice of self he flew aloneTo a parley of fowls. And there amid rich crumbs,Silk vestured falconers, birds of paradise,Mock eagle fails, but true to songUtters what self of him destroys him for.Then I, to end, come in!
“Wouldn’t you think he’d know what had been doneTo him, his counsels, processes?Voice of the eagle sometimes, but the talonsAnd wings, where were they?How was he Christopherus, how Fourteen?I step in here and send himOn a great tour of singing, laugh in my sleeveTo see him start with his empty magic bag—Empty? Great wars to come and woes,Hatreds and desolations, blight of unfaith,And distillate of night-shade: Soul’s despairWere in the bag now.But I forget—all could not see these in it,Though most could see an empty bag. Well, nowMy project was to send him forth to chantThe rhetoric of a life-time, tent him toThe repetend and echo, the refrainThat hides a hollow courage, and a brainTired of its make-believe, and borrowed moods.My plan went further: Thus to send him forth,And in keen lighting have him see himselfAs some ten thousand saw him; in one momentTogether by him and them! flash picturePhotographed on a mountain’s wall,And visible for ages! So it was!I laughed, but being master I could pity....My hand goes over him cup-like now, shuts eyesFrom sight of how he pecked me peevishly,Like a stud-sparrow shrilled. Time for the cageFor our mock-eagle, logolyrist, truly!—You shall know them by their words.”
“How’s this so quick, on a peak?”I said, for there we were, and the lake lost.Below us the plum world, pitted with gums: oceans.Streaked with streams: white-wash excrement of sparrows;Pine forests: fuzz on the rind; lice green and brown: men.I bawl in his ear against the breezeWhirl-pooled around us:“No Jesus business, no Budda business,I wouldn’t give a damn for it all.”“You lie,” he said. “You’re like the restEsophagus, coil of guts, a vent.”“Man is a spirit.” “Man is a smell.”Just then up from the world’s valley a breezeBearing the stench of ten million corpses—“Hey! I faint.”I back away, bump into a cottage wall, a doorWhich opens—and thereIs logolyrist caged, in durance,Twittering to himself the habitual notes,Impotent, damned, alone!
“Night comes quickly these days,” says the landladyLighting the lamp. I stretch out of sleepAnd pat the head of an honest dog.
Son of the freer Republic, child of a dayMore joyous and more vital and more blestAt the feast of Life; great heart, wise and gay,Forgiving and compassionate, though ever stressedBetween the thorns, seeing afar the flower;And living from hour to hourIn laughter for your wounds, or with a sighFor the thickening brambles that around you pressed:—April has come to me again and MaySince that JulyWhen you sank gladly to a coveted rest,Almost with your words to me upon your lips:That immortalityIs not a promise, but a threat; that sleepHowever eternal, or however deepNo more the worn out heart equipsFor life again; cannot make wholeA liver and a dreamer, and a soulThat climbed, as you did, earth’s precipitous steep.
Son of the freer Republic, child of a dayMore joyous and more vital and more blestAt the feast of Life; great heart, wise and gay,Forgiving and compassionate, though ever stressedBetween the thorns, seeing afar the flower;And living from hour to hourIn laughter for your wounds, or with a sighFor the thickening brambles that around you pressed:—April has come to me again and MaySince that JulyWhen you sank gladly to a coveted rest,Almost with your words to me upon your lips:That immortalityIs not a promise, but a threat; that sleepHowever eternal, or however deepNo more the worn out heart equipsFor life again; cannot make wholeA liver and a dreamer, and a soulThat climbed, as you did, earth’s precipitous steep.
Son of the freer Republic, child of a dayMore joyous and more vital and more blestAt the feast of Life; great heart, wise and gay,Forgiving and compassionate, though ever stressedBetween the thorns, seeing afar the flower;And living from hour to hourIn laughter for your wounds, or with a sighFor the thickening brambles that around you pressed:—April has come to me again and MaySince that JulyWhen you sank gladly to a coveted rest,Almost with your words to me upon your lips:That immortalityIs not a promise, but a threat; that sleepHowever eternal, or however deepNo more the worn out heart equipsFor life again; cannot make wholeA liver and a dreamer, and a soulThat climbed, as you did, earth’s precipitous steep.
You who had lived with books and walked the cityOf statesman and of priest,Of money changer, theorist,And knew the human heart thereby,Saw with clairvoyant eyeBehind my irony and laughter, pity;Behind indifference desire;At the core of me unquenchable fire,Walled with impenetrable ice.This I confess:I strewed adversities to your loveWith pride, with slow forgivenessOf the world’s ways. Yet for the strength thereof,Born of that mystic brotherhood, which can riseFrom kindred spirits, none the lessWas your love mine, even to the end.You were my brother, O my friend!
You who had lived with books and walked the cityOf statesman and of priest,Of money changer, theorist,And knew the human heart thereby,Saw with clairvoyant eyeBehind my irony and laughter, pity;Behind indifference desire;At the core of me unquenchable fire,Walled with impenetrable ice.This I confess:I strewed adversities to your loveWith pride, with slow forgivenessOf the world’s ways. Yet for the strength thereof,Born of that mystic brotherhood, which can riseFrom kindred spirits, none the lessWas your love mine, even to the end.You were my brother, O my friend!
You who had lived with books and walked the cityOf statesman and of priest,Of money changer, theorist,And knew the human heart thereby,Saw with clairvoyant eyeBehind my irony and laughter, pity;Behind indifference desire;At the core of me unquenchable fire,Walled with impenetrable ice.This I confess:I strewed adversities to your loveWith pride, with slow forgivenessOf the world’s ways. Yet for the strength thereof,Born of that mystic brotherhood, which can riseFrom kindred spirits, none the lessWas your love mine, even to the end.You were my brother, O my friend!
The wages of Wisdom is Death:—Shame, Fear, Want, Hate, Lust, Strife and Enmity,All these you lived, and living them throughYou survived them, but still knewTheir quality. At last from them made freeYou stood in blossom, perfecter of bloomAt the touch of the sickle than ever in all your years.Pure flame had conquered the reek and fumeOf the gross fuel of your nature, feedingThe light that lighted us, but to consumeItself at last. O soul of eyes and earsOpen and heedingSigns of all fair and foul in the land, all climes,Riches of dead epochs, ancient times.O, human, worldly Augustine, in your towerWatching the wavering lines of Want or Power,Hailing and warning, Stilites of the riteOf Epicurus (that happiness at the lastIs freedom) viewing the misty ageAtop a pillar of Zeus, and holding fast,Through change and weariness, to work, in spiteOf clear conviction, nothing can assuageThe soul’s desire. Though the flesh has food,And water, and is satisfied,Yet the soul must hunger for hope, for explanationOf this insoluble task of life, defiedBy every test of the human soul, still wooedBy flitting lights of faith and intimation.Yet if soul father us could soul not doFor souls of us what water for our thirstAccomplishes? Promethean, this you knew:The restless search with which man’s soul is cursed;Yet brooding on it, still you dreamedOf a city for all nations, consecrateTo the creative spirit of God in man;Guardian angels were to you revealedIn labor with man’s fate,Uplifting the human spirit, like a flame,Consoled, redeemed,Strengthened and purified and healed,To the silent, eternal life from whence it came.
The wages of Wisdom is Death:—Shame, Fear, Want, Hate, Lust, Strife and Enmity,All these you lived, and living them throughYou survived them, but still knewTheir quality. At last from them made freeYou stood in blossom, perfecter of bloomAt the touch of the sickle than ever in all your years.Pure flame had conquered the reek and fumeOf the gross fuel of your nature, feedingThe light that lighted us, but to consumeItself at last. O soul of eyes and earsOpen and heedingSigns of all fair and foul in the land, all climes,Riches of dead epochs, ancient times.O, human, worldly Augustine, in your towerWatching the wavering lines of Want or Power,Hailing and warning, Stilites of the riteOf Epicurus (that happiness at the lastIs freedom) viewing the misty ageAtop a pillar of Zeus, and holding fast,Through change and weariness, to work, in spiteOf clear conviction, nothing can assuageThe soul’s desire. Though the flesh has food,And water, and is satisfied,Yet the soul must hunger for hope, for explanationOf this insoluble task of life, defiedBy every test of the human soul, still wooedBy flitting lights of faith and intimation.Yet if soul father us could soul not doFor souls of us what water for our thirstAccomplishes? Promethean, this you knew:The restless search with which man’s soul is cursed;Yet brooding on it, still you dreamedOf a city for all nations, consecrateTo the creative spirit of God in man;Guardian angels were to you revealedIn labor with man’s fate,Uplifting the human spirit, like a flame,Consoled, redeemed,Strengthened and purified and healed,To the silent, eternal life from whence it came.
The wages of Wisdom is Death:—Shame, Fear, Want, Hate, Lust, Strife and Enmity,All these you lived, and living them throughYou survived them, but still knewTheir quality. At last from them made freeYou stood in blossom, perfecter of bloomAt the touch of the sickle than ever in all your years.Pure flame had conquered the reek and fumeOf the gross fuel of your nature, feedingThe light that lighted us, but to consumeItself at last. O soul of eyes and earsOpen and heedingSigns of all fair and foul in the land, all climes,Riches of dead epochs, ancient times.O, human, worldly Augustine, in your towerWatching the wavering lines of Want or Power,Hailing and warning, Stilites of the riteOf Epicurus (that happiness at the lastIs freedom) viewing the misty ageAtop a pillar of Zeus, and holding fast,Through change and weariness, to work, in spiteOf clear conviction, nothing can assuageThe soul’s desire. Though the flesh has food,And water, and is satisfied,Yet the soul must hunger for hope, for explanationOf this insoluble task of life, defiedBy every test of the human soul, still wooedBy flitting lights of faith and intimation.Yet if soul father us could soul not doFor souls of us what water for our thirstAccomplishes? Promethean, this you knew:The restless search with which man’s soul is cursed;Yet brooding on it, still you dreamedOf a city for all nations, consecrateTo the creative spirit of God in man;Guardian angels were to you revealedIn labor with man’s fate,Uplifting the human spirit, like a flame,Consoled, redeemed,Strengthened and purified and healed,To the silent, eternal life from whence it came.