To this you have gone. I saw your artist handsThat had so little restFolded in quietness upon your breast.Whether the dead find peace, or loose the bandsOf some intenser rhythm, still with peaceYour face was sealed, as of a great surcease:Like sculpture, tideless streams,Or winter woods, or windless skies,Or sleep that has no dreams.Those spheres of flame, your ever wandering eyes,Were turned within to a realm more deep,Where death’s great secret seemingly was knownAs some clear, mild Simplicity! Or ’twas sleepOf the unborn that stilled them, or the voidOf the dead seed never sown....You were no more to me, whatever death is.I stood aloneEmpty of hand, save for the heritageOf what you were:A voice, a light, a music of deep tone,Which life made richer, and the age,And something of heaven employedTo be for us our best interpreter.You were our star of empire lightingThe path of peoples more and moreTo a freer day! O, voice of you which wokeRapt listeners over the earth.Out of your ashes wings of memory soarTo carry the message of your life and word.Death of your body was the clearer birthOf the spirit of you, shining afarUpon our day and days to be:As evening winds blow coldly, yet make freeFrom mist and hovering cloudThe Western Star!
To this you have gone. I saw your artist handsThat had so little restFolded in quietness upon your breast.Whether the dead find peace, or loose the bandsOf some intenser rhythm, still with peaceYour face was sealed, as of a great surcease:Like sculpture, tideless streams,Or winter woods, or windless skies,Or sleep that has no dreams.Those spheres of flame, your ever wandering eyes,Were turned within to a realm more deep,Where death’s great secret seemingly was knownAs some clear, mild Simplicity! Or ’twas sleepOf the unborn that stilled them, or the voidOf the dead seed never sown....You were no more to me, whatever death is.I stood aloneEmpty of hand, save for the heritageOf what you were:A voice, a light, a music of deep tone,Which life made richer, and the age,And something of heaven employedTo be for us our best interpreter.You were our star of empire lightingThe path of peoples more and moreTo a freer day! O, voice of you which wokeRapt listeners over the earth.Out of your ashes wings of memory soarTo carry the message of your life and word.Death of your body was the clearer birthOf the spirit of you, shining afarUpon our day and days to be:As evening winds blow coldly, yet make freeFrom mist and hovering cloudThe Western Star!
To this you have gone. I saw your artist handsThat had so little restFolded in quietness upon your breast.Whether the dead find peace, or loose the bandsOf some intenser rhythm, still with peaceYour face was sealed, as of a great surcease:Like sculpture, tideless streams,Or winter woods, or windless skies,Or sleep that has no dreams.Those spheres of flame, your ever wandering eyes,Were turned within to a realm more deep,Where death’s great secret seemingly was knownAs some clear, mild Simplicity! Or ’twas sleepOf the unborn that stilled them, or the voidOf the dead seed never sown....You were no more to me, whatever death is.I stood aloneEmpty of hand, save for the heritageOf what you were:A voice, a light, a music of deep tone,Which life made richer, and the age,And something of heaven employedTo be for us our best interpreter.You were our star of empire lightingThe path of peoples more and moreTo a freer day! O, voice of you which wokeRapt listeners over the earth.Out of your ashes wings of memory soarTo carry the message of your life and word.Death of your body was the clearer birthOf the spirit of you, shining afarUpon our day and days to be:As evening winds blow coldly, yet make freeFrom mist and hovering cloudThe Western Star!
He had the bluest eyes I ever saw,And a smiling face like a bed of yellow daisies,And a voice around the house like a pet crow.And he went whistling through the yard and rooms,His hands grimed up with grease about machines,Which he could take apart and put together.And he could run a motor boat or a car.Or mend a telephone or a dynamo.And he knew novels, poetry and science.And he could swim, and box and run a race.And on a morning I went in his roomAnd saw his naked body, saw his shouldersAs broad as a great wrestler’s, and his armsAs big as mine. He started to play bear,And took me in his arms and hugged me soI felt my ribs crack. Then I wondered whenHe had quit wearing stockings and knee breeches,And when it was he slipped to seventeen,Became a man.And so the war came on.He tried to be a flyer, for he knewWhat engines were and all about machinesAnd he knew trigonometry, and chemistry,And wireless telegraphy—but his ageDebarred him from the flyers; so he chafedAnd did not whistle as he used to do,But growled a little like a yearling bear.And then his face grew bright again: he had gone,Enlisted in the army, came to me,His face all glowing: “Everything I amYou taught to me,” he said; “to love the truth,To love democracy and America.And now we have a war, the very firstWhen men could fight to bring democracy.Our country turned against the revolutionIn France, which was a democratic cause,But now we war to bring democracyTo peoples everywhere, and I am off.God moves among us, and to serve and dieAre blessings, I am happy, and am off.”He terrified me with his shining face,His blue eyes, beautiful body, slim and strong.St. George was not more beautiful. I was awed,And said to him: “You terrify me, boy.There are plenty of men to go, await the call;Go if they call you, but you have your school,And if you go you’ll never go to schoolAgain, and that will leave you half preparedFor life, you’ll feel it all the rest of life.”But he stood up so straight and stern and shiningAnd said: “I owe this service to you, Dad,For what you’ve been and taught me, and I owe itTo God and to my country.” So it wasHe terrified me, and I said: “My boy,I am not wise enough, after all, to sayWhat you should do. Perhaps you have a vision—You are America come to herself;A vision and a mission and a gloryPerhaps, perhaps. I step aside. Go on!”They took him to a camp, and in a weekI went to see him. He was in a penLike a prize porker, looked a little down.He had been shot with vaccines of all sorts.He didn’t say much. Two weeks after thatI saw him and he had a cold he caughtFrom doing picket duty in the rainAnd sleeping on a mattress soaked with rain.The food was pretty good, not very good.He whispered: “All the pin-heads in the worldHave got the jobs of officers. I’m surprised.I know more mathematics than they do,And more of everything. I thought an officerWas educated. Well, I am surprised.”He said the boys were dying right and leftBecause they had no care. And on a dayWhen he came home to visit for a whileHe was stricken with the flu. I telephonedThe officer, who raved and said no trickWould go with him. He’d send for him. He did,And took him out with a raging temperature,And back to camp. He almost died for that.And, when he got up, wobbled for some weeks.And about the time he stood up fairly strongThey shipped him off to Europe; and they wentYelling like tigers smelling blood, and GodSeemed farthest from their thoughts.Well, so it went.And after while we had the armistice,The war was over, but no letter came.Where was he? Dead? We couldn’t learn a thing.Until at last this boy who went to fightFor God and for democracy landed upIn Russia fighting democracy, as AmericaFought France in eighteen hundred—for a letterCame to us telling where he was. And thereHe stayed some months and fought for covenantsArrived at in the open, independenceOf little and big peoples, for the sea’sFreedom, or democracy, I’m not sure,For one of these or all, I am not sure.He got through anyway, or they got throughWith him, perhaps, for he came back at last,One eye out and one leg gone, and he’d lostGod, so he said, and didn’t use the wordDemocracy at all, and, as for war,He said to me: “What is it? EverythingHas its own idea, and the idea of warIs killing people? That’s our job, that’s war!And everybody yells atrocities,And everybody does ’em—what the hellDo people think war is, a Sunday School?I want some money, Dad, for I am broke;And I can’t work at much now, and, by God,I think I’ll write my story. So they’ll knowThey use you, and they fool you, and you dieThat some one may make money selling stuff,Or grab off lands or commerce. Hell’s delight!When I was sick in Russia, had delusions,I saw a snake so big he wrapped the worldAnd swallowed it with everybody in it.You see, the snake’s the money-men, big business,The schemers, human buzzards, who eat upYoung fellows and the kids, and lay on fatWith fresh young blood that wants to shed itselfFor God and truth! I killed a Russian soldierAnd said: ‘You bastard,’ as I stuck him through,You hate yourself, so you just kill to glutYour hatred of yourself, your crueltyWhich lusts, as it can masquerade behindThe mask of duty. Give me a dollar, Dad,To get some cigarettes and some shaving blades.”
He had the bluest eyes I ever saw,And a smiling face like a bed of yellow daisies,And a voice around the house like a pet crow.And he went whistling through the yard and rooms,His hands grimed up with grease about machines,Which he could take apart and put together.And he could run a motor boat or a car.Or mend a telephone or a dynamo.And he knew novels, poetry and science.And he could swim, and box and run a race.And on a morning I went in his roomAnd saw his naked body, saw his shouldersAs broad as a great wrestler’s, and his armsAs big as mine. He started to play bear,And took me in his arms and hugged me soI felt my ribs crack. Then I wondered whenHe had quit wearing stockings and knee breeches,And when it was he slipped to seventeen,Became a man.And so the war came on.He tried to be a flyer, for he knewWhat engines were and all about machinesAnd he knew trigonometry, and chemistry,And wireless telegraphy—but his ageDebarred him from the flyers; so he chafedAnd did not whistle as he used to do,But growled a little like a yearling bear.And then his face grew bright again: he had gone,Enlisted in the army, came to me,His face all glowing: “Everything I amYou taught to me,” he said; “to love the truth,To love democracy and America.And now we have a war, the very firstWhen men could fight to bring democracy.Our country turned against the revolutionIn France, which was a democratic cause,But now we war to bring democracyTo peoples everywhere, and I am off.God moves among us, and to serve and dieAre blessings, I am happy, and am off.”He terrified me with his shining face,His blue eyes, beautiful body, slim and strong.St. George was not more beautiful. I was awed,And said to him: “You terrify me, boy.There are plenty of men to go, await the call;Go if they call you, but you have your school,And if you go you’ll never go to schoolAgain, and that will leave you half preparedFor life, you’ll feel it all the rest of life.”But he stood up so straight and stern and shiningAnd said: “I owe this service to you, Dad,For what you’ve been and taught me, and I owe itTo God and to my country.” So it wasHe terrified me, and I said: “My boy,I am not wise enough, after all, to sayWhat you should do. Perhaps you have a vision—You are America come to herself;A vision and a mission and a gloryPerhaps, perhaps. I step aside. Go on!”They took him to a camp, and in a weekI went to see him. He was in a penLike a prize porker, looked a little down.He had been shot with vaccines of all sorts.He didn’t say much. Two weeks after thatI saw him and he had a cold he caughtFrom doing picket duty in the rainAnd sleeping on a mattress soaked with rain.The food was pretty good, not very good.He whispered: “All the pin-heads in the worldHave got the jobs of officers. I’m surprised.I know more mathematics than they do,And more of everything. I thought an officerWas educated. Well, I am surprised.”He said the boys were dying right and leftBecause they had no care. And on a dayWhen he came home to visit for a whileHe was stricken with the flu. I telephonedThe officer, who raved and said no trickWould go with him. He’d send for him. He did,And took him out with a raging temperature,And back to camp. He almost died for that.And, when he got up, wobbled for some weeks.And about the time he stood up fairly strongThey shipped him off to Europe; and they wentYelling like tigers smelling blood, and GodSeemed farthest from their thoughts.Well, so it went.And after while we had the armistice,The war was over, but no letter came.Where was he? Dead? We couldn’t learn a thing.Until at last this boy who went to fightFor God and for democracy landed upIn Russia fighting democracy, as AmericaFought France in eighteen hundred—for a letterCame to us telling where he was. And thereHe stayed some months and fought for covenantsArrived at in the open, independenceOf little and big peoples, for the sea’sFreedom, or democracy, I’m not sure,For one of these or all, I am not sure.He got through anyway, or they got throughWith him, perhaps, for he came back at last,One eye out and one leg gone, and he’d lostGod, so he said, and didn’t use the wordDemocracy at all, and, as for war,He said to me: “What is it? EverythingHas its own idea, and the idea of warIs killing people? That’s our job, that’s war!And everybody yells atrocities,And everybody does ’em—what the hellDo people think war is, a Sunday School?I want some money, Dad, for I am broke;And I can’t work at much now, and, by God,I think I’ll write my story. So they’ll knowThey use you, and they fool you, and you dieThat some one may make money selling stuff,Or grab off lands or commerce. Hell’s delight!When I was sick in Russia, had delusions,I saw a snake so big he wrapped the worldAnd swallowed it with everybody in it.You see, the snake’s the money-men, big business,The schemers, human buzzards, who eat upYoung fellows and the kids, and lay on fatWith fresh young blood that wants to shed itselfFor God and truth! I killed a Russian soldierAnd said: ‘You bastard,’ as I stuck him through,You hate yourself, so you just kill to glutYour hatred of yourself, your crueltyWhich lusts, as it can masquerade behindThe mask of duty. Give me a dollar, Dad,To get some cigarettes and some shaving blades.”
He had the bluest eyes I ever saw,And a smiling face like a bed of yellow daisies,And a voice around the house like a pet crow.And he went whistling through the yard and rooms,His hands grimed up with grease about machines,Which he could take apart and put together.And he could run a motor boat or a car.Or mend a telephone or a dynamo.And he knew novels, poetry and science.And he could swim, and box and run a race.And on a morning I went in his roomAnd saw his naked body, saw his shouldersAs broad as a great wrestler’s, and his armsAs big as mine. He started to play bear,And took me in his arms and hugged me soI felt my ribs crack. Then I wondered whenHe had quit wearing stockings and knee breeches,And when it was he slipped to seventeen,Became a man.
And so the war came on.He tried to be a flyer, for he knewWhat engines were and all about machinesAnd he knew trigonometry, and chemistry,And wireless telegraphy—but his ageDebarred him from the flyers; so he chafedAnd did not whistle as he used to do,But growled a little like a yearling bear.And then his face grew bright again: he had gone,Enlisted in the army, came to me,His face all glowing: “Everything I amYou taught to me,” he said; “to love the truth,To love democracy and America.And now we have a war, the very firstWhen men could fight to bring democracy.Our country turned against the revolutionIn France, which was a democratic cause,But now we war to bring democracyTo peoples everywhere, and I am off.God moves among us, and to serve and dieAre blessings, I am happy, and am off.”
He terrified me with his shining face,His blue eyes, beautiful body, slim and strong.St. George was not more beautiful. I was awed,And said to him: “You terrify me, boy.There are plenty of men to go, await the call;Go if they call you, but you have your school,And if you go you’ll never go to schoolAgain, and that will leave you half preparedFor life, you’ll feel it all the rest of life.”But he stood up so straight and stern and shiningAnd said: “I owe this service to you, Dad,For what you’ve been and taught me, and I owe itTo God and to my country.” So it wasHe terrified me, and I said: “My boy,I am not wise enough, after all, to sayWhat you should do. Perhaps you have a vision—You are America come to herself;A vision and a mission and a gloryPerhaps, perhaps. I step aside. Go on!”
They took him to a camp, and in a weekI went to see him. He was in a penLike a prize porker, looked a little down.He had been shot with vaccines of all sorts.He didn’t say much. Two weeks after thatI saw him and he had a cold he caughtFrom doing picket duty in the rainAnd sleeping on a mattress soaked with rain.The food was pretty good, not very good.He whispered: “All the pin-heads in the worldHave got the jobs of officers. I’m surprised.I know more mathematics than they do,And more of everything. I thought an officerWas educated. Well, I am surprised.”He said the boys were dying right and leftBecause they had no care. And on a dayWhen he came home to visit for a whileHe was stricken with the flu. I telephonedThe officer, who raved and said no trickWould go with him. He’d send for him. He did,And took him out with a raging temperature,And back to camp. He almost died for that.And, when he got up, wobbled for some weeks.And about the time he stood up fairly strongThey shipped him off to Europe; and they wentYelling like tigers smelling blood, and GodSeemed farthest from their thoughts.
Well, so it went.And after while we had the armistice,The war was over, but no letter came.Where was he? Dead? We couldn’t learn a thing.Until at last this boy who went to fightFor God and for democracy landed upIn Russia fighting democracy, as AmericaFought France in eighteen hundred—for a letterCame to us telling where he was. And thereHe stayed some months and fought for covenantsArrived at in the open, independenceOf little and big peoples, for the sea’sFreedom, or democracy, I’m not sure,For one of these or all, I am not sure.He got through anyway, or they got throughWith him, perhaps, for he came back at last,One eye out and one leg gone, and he’d lostGod, so he said, and didn’t use the wordDemocracy at all, and, as for war,He said to me: “What is it? EverythingHas its own idea, and the idea of warIs killing people? That’s our job, that’s war!And everybody yells atrocities,And everybody does ’em—what the hellDo people think war is, a Sunday School?I want some money, Dad, for I am broke;And I can’t work at much now, and, by God,I think I’ll write my story. So they’ll knowThey use you, and they fool you, and you dieThat some one may make money selling stuff,Or grab off lands or commerce. Hell’s delight!When I was sick in Russia, had delusions,I saw a snake so big he wrapped the worldAnd swallowed it with everybody in it.You see, the snake’s the money-men, big business,The schemers, human buzzards, who eat upYoung fellows and the kids, and lay on fatWith fresh young blood that wants to shed itselfFor God and truth! I killed a Russian soldierAnd said: ‘You bastard,’ as I stuck him through,You hate yourself, so you just kill to glutYour hatred of yourself, your crueltyWhich lusts, as it can masquerade behindThe mask of duty. Give me a dollar, Dad,To get some cigarettes and some shaving blades.”
Under a sky as green as a juniper berryThe yellow sands of the dunes, in clefts and curvesRun up and down, until the horizon swervesAt Michigan City, twenty miles from Gary.Scrawls and grotesqueries of giants who laughAt the storm’s puffed cheeks, the water’s pilfering hands!Like the beat of a heart traced by a cardiograph,Their sky-line lifts and lulls,With the eternal pulseOf air and the sands.The dunes are a quilt of yellow, green and graySpread to the Calumet River.Peaked by giant children who playCircus with feet for poles. Fantastic dunes,Protean hills, and migratory tentsOf invisible gypsies, changing with the moon’sReplenished and exhausted valleys of light.Forests of pine and oak ariseOn many a height,And down the steep descentsFlourish and vanish from sight,Under the restless feet of the wandering hills.They trace in sand the changes of the skiesWhen the sun of evening smeltsGreat towers of cloud or battlements,And levels them, or warpsTheir shapes to broken walls,Or twisted scraps,Or floors of emerald strewn with lion pelts....Here there are water-falls;Lakes bright as mercury, and poolsGreen as the mosses, where hepaticasAnd asters scurry before the gesturing wind;Cool hollows, scented brakesOf bramble, fern and cane;Great marshes where the flags leap like green snakes,Bordered with garish gulesOf pye-weed; over whose wastes the craneFlaps the slow rhythm of extended wings.And on whose reeds the blackbird singsA quaver of blue water, March’s fire.Between the feet of the dunes and the trampling troopsOf waves along the shore the sand is poundedInto a broad mosaic firm and smooth,Whereon are strewn old reels, between the groupsOf blackened hut and booth.Boats lie here where they grounded,Like skeletons in the desert ribbed and black,Scaled with the water’s scurf.The shore is the moat between the ruined rampartOf the dunes, whose shifting is stayedBy splotches of thickets, trees and turf,And the invading surf.Here phantom mists descend, and the wrackOf autumn clouds fade into the air when stormsHarry the water, and the sand is flayedBy the whip of the wind.There is forever here the futile fashioningOf hills, and their leveling;The growth of forests and their burial;Pools filled and rivers changed or driedBetween the spoiling winds, and the mysticalHands of the tide!Branches as gnarled as an ancient olive treeStream cherry blossoms like blown snowToward the blue of the lake, a hundred feet below.They have been sand, now being blossoms driftWith the winds whose spirit cannot beQuieted or given shrift.By night they howl or whineAs if they asked for words, or a signTo tell of the sand and seeds and sporesWhich build and root, bear blossoms, seed,And change the uplands and the shores;Destroy, make over, mendWithout use, without endIn an endless cycle of sand and seed,Of wind and the washing of waves;They would tell why forests grow and find their graves;And hills glide to their sepulchres,Even as cities sink and pass away:Old Memphis, or old Bactria....
Under a sky as green as a juniper berryThe yellow sands of the dunes, in clefts and curvesRun up and down, until the horizon swervesAt Michigan City, twenty miles from Gary.Scrawls and grotesqueries of giants who laughAt the storm’s puffed cheeks, the water’s pilfering hands!Like the beat of a heart traced by a cardiograph,Their sky-line lifts and lulls,With the eternal pulseOf air and the sands.The dunes are a quilt of yellow, green and graySpread to the Calumet River.Peaked by giant children who playCircus with feet for poles. Fantastic dunes,Protean hills, and migratory tentsOf invisible gypsies, changing with the moon’sReplenished and exhausted valleys of light.Forests of pine and oak ariseOn many a height,And down the steep descentsFlourish and vanish from sight,Under the restless feet of the wandering hills.They trace in sand the changes of the skiesWhen the sun of evening smeltsGreat towers of cloud or battlements,And levels them, or warpsTheir shapes to broken walls,Or twisted scraps,Or floors of emerald strewn with lion pelts....Here there are water-falls;Lakes bright as mercury, and poolsGreen as the mosses, where hepaticasAnd asters scurry before the gesturing wind;Cool hollows, scented brakesOf bramble, fern and cane;Great marshes where the flags leap like green snakes,Bordered with garish gulesOf pye-weed; over whose wastes the craneFlaps the slow rhythm of extended wings.And on whose reeds the blackbird singsA quaver of blue water, March’s fire.Between the feet of the dunes and the trampling troopsOf waves along the shore the sand is poundedInto a broad mosaic firm and smooth,Whereon are strewn old reels, between the groupsOf blackened hut and booth.Boats lie here where they grounded,Like skeletons in the desert ribbed and black,Scaled with the water’s scurf.The shore is the moat between the ruined rampartOf the dunes, whose shifting is stayedBy splotches of thickets, trees and turf,And the invading surf.Here phantom mists descend, and the wrackOf autumn clouds fade into the air when stormsHarry the water, and the sand is flayedBy the whip of the wind.There is forever here the futile fashioningOf hills, and their leveling;The growth of forests and their burial;Pools filled and rivers changed or driedBetween the spoiling winds, and the mysticalHands of the tide!Branches as gnarled as an ancient olive treeStream cherry blossoms like blown snowToward the blue of the lake, a hundred feet below.They have been sand, now being blossoms driftWith the winds whose spirit cannot beQuieted or given shrift.By night they howl or whineAs if they asked for words, or a signTo tell of the sand and seeds and sporesWhich build and root, bear blossoms, seed,And change the uplands and the shores;Destroy, make over, mendWithout use, without endIn an endless cycle of sand and seed,Of wind and the washing of waves;They would tell why forests grow and find their graves;And hills glide to their sepulchres,Even as cities sink and pass away:Old Memphis, or old Bactria....
Under a sky as green as a juniper berryThe yellow sands of the dunes, in clefts and curvesRun up and down, until the horizon swervesAt Michigan City, twenty miles from Gary.
Scrawls and grotesqueries of giants who laughAt the storm’s puffed cheeks, the water’s pilfering hands!Like the beat of a heart traced by a cardiograph,Their sky-line lifts and lulls,With the eternal pulseOf air and the sands.
The dunes are a quilt of yellow, green and graySpread to the Calumet River.Peaked by giant children who playCircus with feet for poles. Fantastic dunes,Protean hills, and migratory tentsOf invisible gypsies, changing with the moon’sReplenished and exhausted valleys of light.Forests of pine and oak ariseOn many a height,And down the steep descentsFlourish and vanish from sight,Under the restless feet of the wandering hills.They trace in sand the changes of the skiesWhen the sun of evening smeltsGreat towers of cloud or battlements,And levels them, or warpsTheir shapes to broken walls,Or twisted scraps,Or floors of emerald strewn with lion pelts....Here there are water-falls;Lakes bright as mercury, and poolsGreen as the mosses, where hepaticasAnd asters scurry before the gesturing wind;Cool hollows, scented brakesOf bramble, fern and cane;Great marshes where the flags leap like green snakes,Bordered with garish gulesOf pye-weed; over whose wastes the craneFlaps the slow rhythm of extended wings.And on whose reeds the blackbird singsA quaver of blue water, March’s fire.
Between the feet of the dunes and the trampling troopsOf waves along the shore the sand is poundedInto a broad mosaic firm and smooth,Whereon are strewn old reels, between the groupsOf blackened hut and booth.Boats lie here where they grounded,Like skeletons in the desert ribbed and black,Scaled with the water’s scurf.
The shore is the moat between the ruined rampartOf the dunes, whose shifting is stayedBy splotches of thickets, trees and turf,And the invading surf.Here phantom mists descend, and the wrackOf autumn clouds fade into the air when stormsHarry the water, and the sand is flayedBy the whip of the wind.There is forever here the futile fashioningOf hills, and their leveling;The growth of forests and their burial;Pools filled and rivers changed or driedBetween the spoiling winds, and the mysticalHands of the tide!
Branches as gnarled as an ancient olive treeStream cherry blossoms like blown snowToward the blue of the lake, a hundred feet below.They have been sand, now being blossoms driftWith the winds whose spirit cannot beQuieted or given shrift.By night they howl or whineAs if they asked for words, or a signTo tell of the sand and seeds and sporesWhich build and root, bear blossoms, seed,And change the uplands and the shores;Destroy, make over, mendWithout use, without endIn an endless cycle of sand and seed,Of wind and the washing of waves;They would tell why forests grow and find their graves;And hills glide to their sepulchres,Even as cities sink and pass away:Old Memphis, or old Bactria....
Seas, mountains, rivers, hills, forests and plains,Our earth that floats in heaven’s translucent sphere,And keeps us fosterlings, though man attains—As a spider winds the nerve white gossamerFrom its own being, and unwinding sailsThe heights—the secrets of the stars, the sheerChasms of space, and tears the vaporous veilsFrom Force and Distance. Nature! At the lastOur breast of consolation! Man exhalesThereon the spirit which was an him castFrom that same breast at birth. But what you areRemains, or on the mind of man is glassedAs you, remaining; while the farthest star,The changing moon, the lessening sun, the sandsOf buried cities toll our calendarOf dying days. Waters by star light, landsThat slip or climb; leaves, blossoms, fruits containThe flesh of wonder perished, and the handsThat sought with zeal or laughter, but in painTo know you and themselves. Still nourishing,Destroying, but unriddled, you remain!Immeasurable Arc! To which our brief existenceIs a point, if relative, not understood.With you endowed with motion and persistence,Contained within you, is life evil, good?Is life not of you? Is there aught withoutBy which to judge this restless brotherhoodOf will and water, and to quiet doubtThat life is good? And may the scheme denyItself when it is all, and rules throughout,Knows no defeat, except as forces vieWithin it, striving? But, O Nature, youMother of suns and systems, what can lieAs God beyond you, making you untrueTo larger truth or being? You are all!And man who moves within you may imbrueHis hands in war, or famine on him fallOut of your eyeless genius, yet what wrongIs wrought to your creating, magicalRenewal, scheme? What arbiter more strongThan you are judges discord for the strifeThat stirs upon our earth, wherever throngThoughts, forces, fires. What is evil? Life!Even as life is struggle, whether it smite,Or lift, as waves to waves in will are rifeWith enmity. Whatever is, is right.Like insects on a drift weed water tossedThe sea of nature moves in man’s despite,While generations flourish and are lost.Ether of the ethereal energyWhich whirls the atoms: Will in man. And soulWhich is to light as light to flame: the freeSoaring of man’s thought. This is the doleAnd tragedy of man: He has outgrownHis kinship with the beasts that kept him whole,Through thought, which is not instinct, but would ownThe unerring realm of instinct. Like a sunHe flares his thought in storms of fire, has flownHis symmetry and sphere, has wandered, wonNo orbit for the beast’s, which he has marred,Departed from; must finish what’s begun,Until he be in spirit moved and starred,Instinct regained to thought, his sun createdAs far as flames have leaped; or leave the scarredBlack cavities of his hopes to beings fatedTo grow therefrom to what he failed to reach.Something within him drew the gods, and matedHis spirit to celestial powers. The breachBetween him and the beast is fixed. He sinksIn tangled madness, anger, railing speech,Below the ape, or else he rises, linksHis being to a life to which he climbs,A realm of thought harmonious, while he thinks.This is the tragedy of man, and Time’sColossal task laid on him: Roll he mustThe stone up to the peak against the slimes,And fasten it, or let it make him dust,Escaped his hand and crushing, still confessThat you, O Mighty Mother, still are justWho fling him down to failure, nothingness.This is the tragedy of man: to learnYour secret wishes, having learned to pressThe heights of life, or ignorant still to burnWith questioning; and on this stage of earthLive as they lived of old in a return,Endless of useless labor, madder mirth.Labor or Mirth! No matter—but to man,And for an hour! And after that the sleep.Waking or sleeping man fulfills the planOf you, O Mother. Other thought may creepOn man’s defeated spirit, make him sayThat you should weep, O Mother, if he weep.But we are but ephemera in a playOf tangled sun light, and the universeOf ages counts the minutes of our day,And makes them of the ages. And the curseThat man deems his is not upon the farAnd infinite existence. It could nurseNo evil in great spaces, sun and starAs great as man’s to man, and not lie downTo death as man does. Hence if you unbarTo us, O Nature, nothing better, crownOur hour with folly still, you give us restAmong the mountains, meadows, and unclownOur idiot brows, and on your infinite breastRock us eternally under the infinite sky.
Seas, mountains, rivers, hills, forests and plains,Our earth that floats in heaven’s translucent sphere,And keeps us fosterlings, though man attains—As a spider winds the nerve white gossamerFrom its own being, and unwinding sailsThe heights—the secrets of the stars, the sheerChasms of space, and tears the vaporous veilsFrom Force and Distance. Nature! At the lastOur breast of consolation! Man exhalesThereon the spirit which was an him castFrom that same breast at birth. But what you areRemains, or on the mind of man is glassedAs you, remaining; while the farthest star,The changing moon, the lessening sun, the sandsOf buried cities toll our calendarOf dying days. Waters by star light, landsThat slip or climb; leaves, blossoms, fruits containThe flesh of wonder perished, and the handsThat sought with zeal or laughter, but in painTo know you and themselves. Still nourishing,Destroying, but unriddled, you remain!Immeasurable Arc! To which our brief existenceIs a point, if relative, not understood.With you endowed with motion and persistence,Contained within you, is life evil, good?Is life not of you? Is there aught withoutBy which to judge this restless brotherhoodOf will and water, and to quiet doubtThat life is good? And may the scheme denyItself when it is all, and rules throughout,Knows no defeat, except as forces vieWithin it, striving? But, O Nature, youMother of suns and systems, what can lieAs God beyond you, making you untrueTo larger truth or being? You are all!And man who moves within you may imbrueHis hands in war, or famine on him fallOut of your eyeless genius, yet what wrongIs wrought to your creating, magicalRenewal, scheme? What arbiter more strongThan you are judges discord for the strifeThat stirs upon our earth, wherever throngThoughts, forces, fires. What is evil? Life!Even as life is struggle, whether it smite,Or lift, as waves to waves in will are rifeWith enmity. Whatever is, is right.Like insects on a drift weed water tossedThe sea of nature moves in man’s despite,While generations flourish and are lost.Ether of the ethereal energyWhich whirls the atoms: Will in man. And soulWhich is to light as light to flame: the freeSoaring of man’s thought. This is the doleAnd tragedy of man: He has outgrownHis kinship with the beasts that kept him whole,Through thought, which is not instinct, but would ownThe unerring realm of instinct. Like a sunHe flares his thought in storms of fire, has flownHis symmetry and sphere, has wandered, wonNo orbit for the beast’s, which he has marred,Departed from; must finish what’s begun,Until he be in spirit moved and starred,Instinct regained to thought, his sun createdAs far as flames have leaped; or leave the scarredBlack cavities of his hopes to beings fatedTo grow therefrom to what he failed to reach.Something within him drew the gods, and matedHis spirit to celestial powers. The breachBetween him and the beast is fixed. He sinksIn tangled madness, anger, railing speech,Below the ape, or else he rises, linksHis being to a life to which he climbs,A realm of thought harmonious, while he thinks.This is the tragedy of man, and Time’sColossal task laid on him: Roll he mustThe stone up to the peak against the slimes,And fasten it, or let it make him dust,Escaped his hand and crushing, still confessThat you, O Mighty Mother, still are justWho fling him down to failure, nothingness.This is the tragedy of man: to learnYour secret wishes, having learned to pressThe heights of life, or ignorant still to burnWith questioning; and on this stage of earthLive as they lived of old in a return,Endless of useless labor, madder mirth.Labor or Mirth! No matter—but to man,And for an hour! And after that the sleep.Waking or sleeping man fulfills the planOf you, O Mother. Other thought may creepOn man’s defeated spirit, make him sayThat you should weep, O Mother, if he weep.But we are but ephemera in a playOf tangled sun light, and the universeOf ages counts the minutes of our day,And makes them of the ages. And the curseThat man deems his is not upon the farAnd infinite existence. It could nurseNo evil in great spaces, sun and starAs great as man’s to man, and not lie downTo death as man does. Hence if you unbarTo us, O Nature, nothing better, crownOur hour with folly still, you give us restAmong the mountains, meadows, and unclownOur idiot brows, and on your infinite breastRock us eternally under the infinite sky.
Seas, mountains, rivers, hills, forests and plains,Our earth that floats in heaven’s translucent sphere,And keeps us fosterlings, though man attains—As a spider winds the nerve white gossamerFrom its own being, and unwinding sailsThe heights—the secrets of the stars, the sheerChasms of space, and tears the vaporous veilsFrom Force and Distance. Nature! At the lastOur breast of consolation! Man exhalesThereon the spirit which was an him castFrom that same breast at birth. But what you areRemains, or on the mind of man is glassedAs you, remaining; while the farthest star,The changing moon, the lessening sun, the sandsOf buried cities toll our calendarOf dying days. Waters by star light, landsThat slip or climb; leaves, blossoms, fruits containThe flesh of wonder perished, and the handsThat sought with zeal or laughter, but in painTo know you and themselves. Still nourishing,Destroying, but unriddled, you remain!
Immeasurable Arc! To which our brief existenceIs a point, if relative, not understood.With you endowed with motion and persistence,Contained within you, is life evil, good?Is life not of you? Is there aught withoutBy which to judge this restless brotherhoodOf will and water, and to quiet doubtThat life is good? And may the scheme denyItself when it is all, and rules throughout,Knows no defeat, except as forces vieWithin it, striving? But, O Nature, youMother of suns and systems, what can lieAs God beyond you, making you untrueTo larger truth or being? You are all!And man who moves within you may imbrueHis hands in war, or famine on him fallOut of your eyeless genius, yet what wrongIs wrought to your creating, magicalRenewal, scheme? What arbiter more strongThan you are judges discord for the strifeThat stirs upon our earth, wherever throngThoughts, forces, fires. What is evil? Life!Even as life is struggle, whether it smite,Or lift, as waves to waves in will are rifeWith enmity. Whatever is, is right.Like insects on a drift weed water tossedThe sea of nature moves in man’s despite,While generations flourish and are lost.
Ether of the ethereal energyWhich whirls the atoms: Will in man. And soulWhich is to light as light to flame: the freeSoaring of man’s thought. This is the doleAnd tragedy of man: He has outgrownHis kinship with the beasts that kept him whole,Through thought, which is not instinct, but would ownThe unerring realm of instinct. Like a sunHe flares his thought in storms of fire, has flownHis symmetry and sphere, has wandered, wonNo orbit for the beast’s, which he has marred,Departed from; must finish what’s begun,Until he be in spirit moved and starred,Instinct regained to thought, his sun createdAs far as flames have leaped; or leave the scarredBlack cavities of his hopes to beings fatedTo grow therefrom to what he failed to reach.Something within him drew the gods, and matedHis spirit to celestial powers. The breachBetween him and the beast is fixed. He sinksIn tangled madness, anger, railing speech,Below the ape, or else he rises, linksHis being to a life to which he climbs,A realm of thought harmonious, while he thinks.This is the tragedy of man, and Time’sColossal task laid on him: Roll he mustThe stone up to the peak against the slimes,And fasten it, or let it make him dust,Escaped his hand and crushing, still confessThat you, O Mighty Mother, still are justWho fling him down to failure, nothingness.This is the tragedy of man: to learnYour secret wishes, having learned to pressThe heights of life, or ignorant still to burnWith questioning; and on this stage of earthLive as they lived of old in a return,Endless of useless labor, madder mirth.
Labor or Mirth! No matter—but to man,And for an hour! And after that the sleep.Waking or sleeping man fulfills the planOf you, O Mother. Other thought may creepOn man’s defeated spirit, make him sayThat you should weep, O Mother, if he weep.But we are but ephemera in a playOf tangled sun light, and the universeOf ages counts the minutes of our day,And makes them of the ages. And the curseThat man deems his is not upon the farAnd infinite existence. It could nurseNo evil in great spaces, sun and starAs great as man’s to man, and not lie downTo death as man does. Hence if you unbarTo us, O Nature, nothing better, crownOur hour with folly still, you give us restAmong the mountains, meadows, and unclownOur idiot brows, and on your infinite breastRock us eternally under the infinite sky.
THE END