Said Friar Yves: "God will blessSaint Louis' other-worldliness.Whatever the fate be, still I fareTo fight for the Holy Sepulcher.If I survive, I shall returnWith precious things from Palestine—Gold for my purse, spices and wine,Glory to wear among my kin.Fame as a warrior I shall win.But, otherwise, if I am slainIn Jesus' cause, my soul shall earnImmortal life washed white from sin."Said Friar Yves: "Come what will—Riches and glory, death and woe—At dawn to Palestine I go.Whether I live or die, I gainTo fly the tepid good and illOf daily living in Champagne,Where those who reach salvation loseThe treasures, raptures of the earth,Captured, possessed, and made to serveThe gospel love of Jesus' birth,Sacrifice, death; where even thosePassing from pious works and prayerTo paradise are not receivedAs those who battled, strove, and lived,And periled bodies, as I chooseTo peril mine, and thus to useBody and soul to build the throneOf Louis the Saint, where Joseph's careLay Jesus under a granite stone."Then Friar Yves buckled onHis breastplate, and, at break of dawn,With crossboy, halberd took his way,Walked without resting, without pause,Till the sun hovered at middayOver a tree of glistening leaves,Where a spring gurgled. "Hunger gnawsMy stomach," whispered Friar Yves."If I," he sighed, "could only gain,Like yonder spring, an inner sourceOf life, and need not dew or rainOf human love, or human friends,And thus accomplish my soul's endsWithin myself! No," said the friar;"There is one water and one fire;There is one Spirit, which is God.And what are we but streams and springsThrough which He takes His wanderings?Lord, I am weak, I am afraid;Show me the way!" the friar prayed."Where do I flow and to what end?Am I of Thee, or do I blendHereafter with Thee?"Yves heard,While praying, sounds as when the sodTeems with a swarm of insect things.He dropped his halberd to look down,And then his waking vision blurred,As one before a light will frown.His inner ear was caught and stirredBy voices; then the chestnut treeBecame a step beside a throne.Breathless he lay and fearfully,While on his brain a vision shone.Said a Great Voice of sweetest tone:"The time has come when I must takeThe form of man for mankind's sake.This drama is played long enoughBy creatures who have naught of me,Save what comes up from foam of the seaTo crawling moss or swimming weeds,At last to man. From heaven in flame,Pure, whole, and vital, down I fly,And take a mortal's form and name,And labor for the race's needs."Then Friar Yves dreamed the skyFlushed like a bride's face rosily,And shot to lightning from its bloom.The world leaped like a babe in the womb,And choral voices from heaven's copeCircled the earth like singing stars:"O wondrous hope, O sweetest hope,O passion realized at last;O end of hunger, fear, and wars,O victory over the bottomless, vastValley of Death!"A silence fell,Broke by the voice of Gabriel:"Music may follow this, O Lord!Music I hear; I hear discordThrough ages yet to be, as well.There will be wars because of this,And wars will come in its despite.It's noon on the world now; blackest nightWill follow soon. And men will missThe meaning, Lord! There will be strife'Twixt Montanist and Ebionite,Gnostic, Mithraist, Manichean,'Twixt Christian and the Saracen.There will be war to win the placeWhere you bend death to sovereign life.Armed kings will battle for the graceOf rulership, for power and goldIn the name of Jesus. Men will holdConclaves of swords to win surceaseOf doctrines of the Prince of Peace.The seed is good, Lord, make the groundGood for the seed you scatter round!"Said the Great Voice of sweetest tone:"The gardener sprays his plants and treesTo drive out lice and stop disease.After the spraying, fruit is grownRuddy and plump. The shortened eyesOf men can see this end, althoughLeaves wither or a whole tree diesFrom what the gardener does to growApples and plums of sweeter flesh.The gardener lives outside the tree;The gardener knows the tree can seeWhat cure is needed, plans afreshAn end foreseen, and there's the willWherewith the gardener may fulfilThe orchard's destiny."So He spake.And Friar Yves seemed to wake,But did not wake, and only sunkInto another dreaming state,Wherein he saw a woman's formLeaning against the chestnut's trunk.Her body was virginal, white, and straight,And glowed like a dawning, golden, warm,Behind a robe of writhing green:As when a rock's wall makes a screenWhereon the crisscross reflect movesOf circling water under the raysOf April sunlight through the spraysOf budding branches in willow groves—A liquid mosaic of green and gold—Thus was her robe.But to beholdHer face was to forget the youthOf her white bosom. All her hairWas tangled serpents; she did wearA single eye in the middle brow.Her cheeks were shriveled, and one toothStuck from shrunken gums. A boughO'ershadowed her the while she grippedA pail in either hand. One drippedClear water; one, ethereal fire.Then to the Graia spoke the friar:"Have mercy! Tell me your desireAnd what you are?"Then the Graia said:"My body is Nature and my headIs Man, and God has given meA seeing spirit, strong and free,Though by a single eye, as evenMan has one vision at a time.I lift my pails up; mark them well.With this fire I will burn up heaven,And with this water I will quenchThe flames of hell's remotest trench,That men may work in righteousness.Not for the fears of an after hell,Nor for the rewards which heaven will blessThe soul with when the mountains nodAnd the sun darkens, but for loveOf Man and Life, and love of God.Now look!"She dashed the pail of fireAgainst the vault of heaven. It fellAs would a canopy of blueBurned by a soldier's careless torch.She dashed the water into hell,And a great steam rose up with the smellOf gaseous coals, which seemed to scorchAll things which on the good earth grew."Now," said the Graia, "loiterer,Awake from slumber, rise and speedTo fight for the Holy Sepulcher—Nothing is left but Life, indeed—I have burned heaven! I have quenched hell."Friar Yves no longer slept;Friar Yves awoke and wept.
June, but we kept the fire place piled with logs,And every day it rained. And every morningI heard the wind and rain among the leaves.Try as I would my spirits grew no better.What was it? Was I ill or sick in mind?I spent the whole day working with my hands,For there was brush to clear and corn to plantBetween the gusts of rain; and there at nightI sat about the room and hugged the fire.And the rain dripped and the wind blew, we shiveredFor cold and it was June. I ached all throughFor my hard labor, why did muscles grow notTo hardness and cure body, if 'twere body,Or soul if it were soul?But there at nightAs I sat aching, worn, before the hourOf sleep, and restless in this intervalOf nothingness, the silence out-of-doors,Timed by the dripping rain, and by the slapOf cards upon a table by a boarderWho passed the time in playing solitaire,Sometimes my ancient host would fill his pipe,And scrape away the dust of long past yearsTo show me what had happened in his life.And as he smoked and talked his aged wifeWould parallel his theme, as a brooks' branchesFormed by a slender island, flow together.Or yet again she'd intercalate a touch,An episode or version. And sometimesHe'd make her hush; or sometimes he'd suspendWhile she went on to what she wished to finish,When he'd resume. They talked together thus.He found the story and began to tell it,And she hung on his story, told it too.This night the rain came down in buckets full,And Claude who brought the logs in showed his breathBetween the opening of the outer doorAnd the swift on-rush of the room's warm air.And my host who had hoed the whole day long,Hearty at eighty years, sat with his pipeReading the organ of the Adventists,His wife beside him knitting.On the tableAre several magazines with their monthly gristOf stories and of pictures. O such stories!Who writes these stories? How does it happen peopleAre born into the world to read these stories?But anyway the lamp is very bad,And every bone in me aches—and why alwaysMust one be either reading, knitting, talking?Why not sit quietly and think?At lastBetween the clicking needles and the slapOf cards upon the table and the swishOf rain upon the window my host speaks:"It says here when the Germans are defeated,And that means when the Turks are beaten too,The Christian world will take back Palestine,And drive the Turks out. God be praised, I hope so.""Amen" breaks in the wife. "May we both liveTo see the day. Perhaps you'll get your trunk backFrom Jaffa if the Allies win."To meThe wife turns and goes on, "He has a trunk,At least his trunk went on to Jaffa, andIt never came back. The bishop's trunk came back,But his trunk never came."And then the husband:"What are you saying, mother, you go onAs if our friend here knew the story too.And then you talk as if our hope of the warWas centered on recovering that trunk.""Oh, not at allBut if the Allies win, and the trunk is thereIn Jaffa you might get it back. You knowYou'll never get it back while infidelsRule Palestine."The husband says to me:"It looks as if she thought that trunk of mine,Which went to Jaffa fifty years ago,Is in existence yet, when chances areThey kept it for awhile, and sold it off,Or threw it away.""They never threw it away.Why I made him a dozen shirts or more,And knitted him a lot of lovely socks,And made him neck-ties, and that trunk containedEverything that a man might need in absenceA year from home. And yet they threw it away!""They might have done so.""But they never did,Perhaps they threw your cabinet tools away?""They were too valuable.""Too valuable,Fine socks and shirts are worthless are they, yes.""Not worthless, but fine tools are valuable."He turns to me: "I lost a box of toolsSent on to Jaffa, too. The scheme was this:To work at cabinet making while observingConditions there in Palestine, and get readyTo drive the Turks from Palestine."What's this?I rub my eyes and wake up to this story.I'm here in Illinois, in a farmer's houseWho boards stray fishermen, and takes me in.And in a moment Turks and Palestine,And that old dream of Louis the Saint ariseAnd show me how the world is small, and a manNative to Illinois may travel forthAnd mix his life with ancient things afar.To-day be raising corn here and next monthWalking the streets of Jaffa, in Mycenæ,Digging for Grecian relics.So I asked"Were you in Palestine?" And the wife spoke quick:"He didn't get there, that's the joke of it."And the husband said: "It wasn't such a joke.You see it was this way, myself and the bishop,He lived in Springfield, I in Pleasant Plains,Had planned to meet in Switzerland.""Montreaux"The wife broke in."Montreaux" the husband added."You said you two had planned it," she went on.Now looking over specks and speaking louder:"The bishop came to him, he planned it out.My husband didn't plan the trip at all.He knows the bishop planned it."Then the husband:"Oh for that matter he spoke of it first,And I acceded and we worked it out.He was to go ahead of me, I wasTo come in later, soon as I could raiseWhat funds my congregation could affordTo spare for this adventure.""Guess," she said,"How much it was."I shook my head and sheSaid in a lowered and a tragic voice:"Four hundred dollars, and you can believeIt strapped his church to raise so great a sum.And if they hadn't thought that Christ would comeScarcely before the plan could be put throughOf winning back the Holy Land, that sumHad never been made up and put in goldFor him to carry in a chamois belt."And then the husband said: "Mother, be still,I'll tell our friend the story if you'll let me.""I'm done," she said. "I wanted to say that.Go on," she said.And so he started over:"The bishop came to me and said he thoughtThe Advent would be June of seventy-six.This was the winter of eighteen seventy-one.He said he had a dream; and in this dreamAn angel stood beside him, told him so,And told him to get me and go to Jaffa,And live there, learn the people and the country,We were to live disguised the better to learnThe people and the country. I was to workAt my trade as a cabinet maker, heAt carpentry, which was his trade, and soNo one would know us, or suspect our plan.And thus we could live undisturbed and work,And get all things in readiness, that in timeThe Lord would send us power, and do all things.We were the messengers to go aheadAnd make the ways straight, so I told her of it.""You told me, yes, but my trust was as greatAs yours was in the bishop, little the goodTo tell me of it.""Well, I told you of it.And she said, 'If the Lord commands you soYou must obey.' And so she knit the socksAnd made that trunk of things, as she has said,And in six weeks I sailed from Philadelphia.""'Twas nearer two months," said the wife."Perhaps,Somewhere between six weeks and that. The bishopLeft Springfield in a month from our first talk.I knew, for I went over when he left.And I remember how his poor wife cried,And how the children cried. He had a familyOf some eight children.""Only seven then,The son named David died the year before.""Mother, you're right, 'twas seven children then.The oldest was not more than twelve, I think,And all the children cried, and at the trainHis congregation almost to a manWas there to see him off.""Well, one was missing.You know, you know," the wife said pregnantly."I'll come to that in time, if you'll be still.Well, so the bishop left, and in six weeks,Or somewhere there, I started for MontreauxTo meet the bishop. Shipped ahead my trunkTo Jaffa as the bishop did. But nowI must tell you my dream. The night beforeI reached Montreaux I had a wondrous dream:I saw the bishop on the station platformHis face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearingHis gold head cane. And sure enough next dayAs I stepped from the train I saw the bishopHis face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearingHis gold head cane. And I thought something wrong,And still I didn't act upon the thought.""I should say not," the wife broke in again."Oh, well what could I do, if I had thoughtMore clearly than I did that things were wrong.You can't uproot the confidence of yearsBecause of dreams. And as to brandy blossomsI knew his face was red, but didn't know,Or think just then, that brandy made it red.And so I went up to the house he lived in—A mansion beautiful, and we sat down.And he sat there bolt upright in a rocker,Hands spread upon his knees, his black eyes biggerThan I had ever seen them, eyeing meSilently for a moment, when he said:'What money did you bring?' And so I told him.And he said quickly 'let me have it.' SoI took my belt off, counted out the goldAnd gave it to him. And he took it, thrust itWith this hand in this pocket, that in that,And sat there and said nothing more, just looked!And then before a word was spoke againI heard a step upon the stair, the stairCame down into this room where we were sitting.And I looked up, and there—I rubbed my eyes—I looked again, rose from my chair to see,And saw descending the most lovely woman,Who was"—"A lovely woman," sneered the wife"Well, she was just affinity to the bishop,That's what she was.""Affinity is right—You see she was the leader in the choir,And she had run away with him, or ratherHad gone abroad upon another boatAnd met him in Montreaux. Now from this timeFor forty hours or so all is a blank.I just remember trying to speak and choking,And flying from the room, the bishop clutchingAt my coat sleeve to hold me. After thatI can't recall a thing until I sawA little cottage way up in the Alps.I was knocking at the door, was faint and sick,The door was opened and they took me in,And warmed me with a glass of wine, and tucked meIn a good bed where I slept half a week.It seems in my bewilderment I wandered,Ran, stumbled, climbed for forty hours or soBy rocky chasms, up the piney slopes.""He might have lost his life," the wife exclaimed."These were the kindest people in the world,A French family. They gave me splendid food,And when I left two francs to reach the placeWhere lived the English Consul, who arrangedAfter some days for money for my passageBack to America, and in six weeksI preached a sermon here in Pleasant Plains.""Beware of false prophets was the text!" she said.And I who heard this story through spoke up:"The thing about this that I fail to getConcerns this woman, the affinity.If, as seems evident, she and the bishopHad planned this run-a-way and used the faith,And you, the congregation to get moneyTo do it with, or used you in particularTo get the money for themselves to live onAfter they had arrived there in Montreaux,If all this be" I said, "why did this womanDescend just at the moment when he asked youFor the money that you had. You might have seen herBefore you gave the money, if you hadYou might have held it back.""I would indeed,You can be sure I should have held it back."And then the old wife gasped and dropped her knitting."Now, James, you let me answer that, I know.She was done with the bishop, that's the reason.Be still and let me answer. Here's the story:We found out later that the bishop's trunkAnd kit of tools had been returned from JaffaThere to Montreaux, were there that very day,Which means the bishop never meant to goTo Palestine at all, but meant to meetThis woman in Montreaux and live with her.Well, that takes money. So he used my husbandTo get that money. Now you wonder I seeWhy she would chance the spoiling of the scheme,Descend into the room before my husbandHad given up this money, and this money,You see, was treated as a common fundBelonging to the church and to be usedTo get back Palestine, and so the bishopAs head of the church, superior to my husband,Could say 'give me the money'—that was natural,My husband could not be surprised at that,Or question it. Well, why did she descendAnd almost lose the money? Oh, the cat!I know what she did, as well as I had seenHer do it. Yes, she listened at the landing.And when she heard my husband tell the sumWhich he had brought, it wasn't enough to please her,And Satan entered in her heart, and sheWaited until she heard the bishop's pocketsClink with the double eagles, then descendedTo expose the bishop and disgrace him thereAnd everywhere in all the world. Now listen:She got that money or the most of itIn spite of what she did. For in six weeksAfter my husband had returned, she walked,The brazen thing, the public streets of SpringfieldAs jaunty as you please, and pretty soonThe bishop died and all the papers printedThe story of his shame."She had scarce finishedWhen the man at solitaire threw down the deckAnd make a whacking noise and rose and cameAround in front of us and stood and lookedThe old man and old woman over, meHe studied too. Then in an organ voice:"Is there a single verse in the New TestamentThat hasn't sprouted one church anyway,Letting alone the verses that have sproutedTwo, three or four or five? I know of one:Where is it that it says that "Jesus wept"?Let's found a church on that verse, "Jesus wept."With that he went out in the rain and slammedThe door behind him.The old clergymanHad fallen asleep. His wife looked up and said,"That man is crazy, ain't he? I'm afraid."
A lassie sells the War Cry on the cornerAnd the big drum booms, and the raucous brass hornsMingle with the cymbals and the silver triangle.I stand a moment listening, then my friendWho studies all religions, finds a wonderIn orphic spectacles like this, lays holdUpon my arm and draws me to a doorThrough which we look and see a room of seats,A platform at the end, a table on it,And signs upon the wall, "Jesus is Waiting,"And "God is Love."We enter, take a seat.The band comes in and fills the room to burstingWith horns and drums. They cease and feet are heard,The crowd has followed, half the seats are full.After a prayer, a song, the captain mountsThe platform by the table and begins:"Praise God so many girls are here to-night,And Sister Trickey, by the grace of GodSaved from the wrath to come, will speak to you."So Sister Trickey steps upon the platform,A woman nearing forty, one would say.Blue-eyed, fair skinned, and yellow haired, a figureOnce trim enough, no doubt, grown stout at last.She was a pretty woman in her time,'Twas plain to see. A shrewd intelligenceFrom living in the world shines in her face.We settle down to hear from Sister TrickeyAnd in a moment she begins:"Young girls:I thank the Lord for Jesus, for he saved me,I thank the Lord for Jesus every hour.No woman ever stained with redder sins.Had greater grace than mine. Praise God for Jesus!Praise God for blood that washes sins away!I was a woman fallen till Lord JesusForgave me, helped me up and made me clean.My name is Lilah Trickey. Let me tell youHow music was my tempter. Oh, you girls,If there be one before me who can singBeware the devil and beware your voiceThat it be used for Jesus, not for Satan.""I had a voice, was leader of the choir,But Satan entered in my voice to temptThe bishop of the church, and in my heartTo tempt and use the bishop; in the bishopOld Satan slipped to lure me from the path.He fell from grace for listening. And IWhose voice had turned him over to the devilFell as he fell. He dragged me down with him.No use to make it long, one word's enough:Old Satan is the first word and the last,And all between is nothing. It's enoughTo say the bishop and myself elopedWent to Montreaux. He left a wife and children.And I poor silly thing with promisesOf culture of my voice in Paris, lostGood name and all. And he lost all as well.Good name, his soul I fear, because he tookThe church's money saying he would use itTo win the Holy Sepulchre, in factIntending all the while to use the moneyFor travel and for keeping up a houseWith me as soul-mate. For he never meantTo let me go to Paris for my voice,He never got enough to pay for that.On that point he betrayed me, now I see'Twas God who used him to deceive me there,And leave me to return to Springfield broken,An out-cast, fallen woman, shamed and scorned.""We took a house in Montreaux, plain enoughAs we looked at it passing, but within'Twas sweet and fair as Satan could desire:Engravings on the wall and marble mantels,Gilt clocks upon the mantels, lovely rugs,Chests full of linen, silver, pewter, china,Soft beds with canopies of figured satin,The scent of apple blossoms through the rooms.A little garden, vines against the wall.There were the lake and mountains. Oh, but SatanBaited the hook with beauty. But the bishopSeemed self-absorbed, depressed and never smiled.And every time his face came close to mineI smelled the brandy on him. Conscience whippedIts venomed tail against his peace of mind.And so he took the brandy to benumbThe sting of conscience and to dull the pain.He told me he had business in MontreauxWhich would require some weeks, would there be metBy people who had money for him. IWas twenty-three and green, besides I walkedIn dreamland thinking of the promised schoolingIn Paris—oh 'twas music, as I said.". ..."At last one day he said a friend was coming,And he went to the station. Very soonI heard their steps, the bishop and his friend.They entered. I was curious and satUpon the stair-way's landing just to hear.And this is what I heard. The bishop asked:'You've brought some money, how much have you brought?'The man replied 'four hundred dollars.' ThenThe bishop said: 'I'll take it.' In a momentI heard the clinking gold and heard the bishopPutting it in his pocket.'"God forgive me,I never was so angry in my life.The bishop had been talking in big figures,We would have thousands for my voice and Paris,And here was just a paltry sum. Scarce knowingJust what I did, perhaps I wished to seeThe American who brought the money—well,No matter what it was, I walked in viewUpon the landing, stood there for a momentAnd saw our visitor, a clergymanFrom all appearances. He stared, grew red,Large eyed and apoplectic, then he rose,Walked side-ways, backward, stumbled toward the door,Rattled with shaking hand the knob and jerkedThe door ajar, with open mouth backed outUpon the street and ran. I heard him runA square at least.""The bishop looked at me,His face all brandy blossoms, left the room,Came back at once with brandy on his breath.And all that day was tippling, went to bedSo drunk I had to take his clothing offAnd help him in.""Young girls, beware of music,Save only hymns and sacred oratorios.Beware the theatre and dancing hall.Take lesson from my fate."The morning came.The bishop called me, he was very illAnd pale with fear. He had a dream that night.Satan had used him and abandoned him.And Death, whom only Jesus can put down,Was standing by the bed. He called to me,And said to me:"'That money's in that drawer.Use it to reach America, but use itTo send my body back. Death's in the cornerBehind that cabinet—there—see him look!I had a dream—go get a pen and paper,And write down what I tell you. God forgive me—Oh what a blasphemer am I. O, woman,To lie here dying and to know that GodHas left me—hell awaits me—horrible!Last night I dreamed this man who brought the money,This man and I were walking from Damascus,And in a trice came down to Olivet.Just then great troops of men sprang up around usAnd hailed us as expecting our approach.And there I saw the faces—hundreds maybe,Of congregations who had trusted meIn all the long past years—Oh, sinful woman,Why did you cross my path,' he moaned at times,'And wreck my ministry.'"'And so these crowdsArmed as it seemed, exulted, called me general,And shouted forward. So we ran like madAnd came before a building with a dome—You know—I've seen a picture of it somewhere.And so the crowds yelled: let the bishop enterAnd see the sepulchre, while we keep guard.They pushed me in. But when I was insideThere was no dome, above us was the sky,And what seemed walls was nothing but a fence.Before us was a stable with a stallWhere two cows munched the hay. There was a farmerWho with a pitchfork bedded down the stall."Where is the holy sepulchre?" I asked—"My army's at the door." He kept at workAnd never raised his eyes and only said:"Don't know; I haven't time for things like that.You're 'bout the hundredth man who's asked me that.We don't know where it is, nor do we care.We live here and we knew him, so we feelLess interest than you. But have you thoughtIf you should find it it would only beA tomb like other tombs? Why look at this:Here is the very manger where he lay—What is it? Just a manger filled with straw.These cows are not the very cows you know—But cows are cows in every age and place.I think that board there has been nailed on since.Outside of that the place is just the same.Now what's the good of seeing it? His motherLay in that corner there, what if she did?That lantern on the wall's the very oneThey came to see the child with from the inn—What of it? Take your army and go on,And leave me with my barn and with my cows.""'So all the glory vanished! Devil magicStripped all the glory off. No angels singing,No star of Bethlehem, no magi kneeling,No Mary crowned, no Jesus King, no mysticBlood for sins' remission—just a barn,A stall, two cows, a lantern—all the glory—Swept from the gospel. That's my punishment:My poor weak brain filled full of all this dream,Which seems as real as life—to lie here dyingToo weak to shake the dream! To see Death thereBehind that cabinet—there—see him look—By God forsaken—all theology,All mystery, all wonder, all delightOf spiritual vision swept away as cleanAs winds sweep up the clouds, and thus to seeWhile dying, just a manger, and two cows,A lantern on the wall."'And thus to see,For blasphemy that duped an honest heart,And took the pitiful dollars of the flockTo win you with—oh, woman, woman, woman,A barn, a stall, a lantern limned so clearIn such a daylight of clear seeing sensesThat all the splendor, the miraculousWonder of the virgin, nimbused child,The star that followed till it rested overThe manger (such a manger) all are wrecked,All blotted from belief, all snatched awayFrom hands pushed off by God, no longer holdingThe robes of God.'"And so the bishop ravedWhile I stood terrified, since I could feelDeath in the room, and almost see the monsterBehind the cabinet."Then the bishop said:"'My dream went on. I crossed the stable yardAnd passed into a place of tombs. And look!Before I knew I stepped into a hole,A sunken grave with just a slab at head,And "Jesus" carven on it, nothing else,No date, no birth, no parentage.'""'I lieTormented by the pictures of this dream.Woman, take to your death bed with clear mindOf gospel faith, clean conscience, sins forgiven.The thoughts that we must suffer with and die withAre worth the care of all the days of life.All life should be directed to this end,Lest when the mind lies fallen, vultures swoop,And with their wings blot out the sun of faith,And with their croakings drown the voice of God.'"He ceased, became delirious. So he died,And I still unrepentant buried himThere in Montreaux, and with what gold remainedWent on to Paris."See how I was markedFor God's salvation."There I went to seeThe celebrated teacher Jean Strakosch,Who looked at me with insolent, calm eyes,And face impassive, let me sing a scale,Then shook his head. A diva, as I thought,Came in just then. They talked in French, and I,Prickling from head to foot with shame, ignored,Left standing like a fool, passed from the room.So music turned on me, but God received me,And I came back to Springfield. But the LordMade life too hard for me without the fold.I was so shunned and scorned, I had no placeSave with the fallen, with the mockers, drinkers.Thus being in conviction, after struggles,And many prayers I found salvation, foundMy work in life: which is to talk to girlsAnd stand upon this platform and relateMy story for their good."She ceased. AmensWent up about the room. The big drum boomed,And the raucous brass horns mingled with the cymbals,The silver triangle and the singing voices.My friend and I arose and left the room.
"Then what is life?" I cried. And with that cryI woke from deeper slumber—was it sleep?—And saw a hooded figure standing byThe bed whereon I lay."Why do you keep,O spirit beautiful and swift, this guardAbout my slumber? Shelley, from the deepWhy do you come with veiled face, mighty bard,As that unearthly shape was veiled to youAt Casa Magni?"Then the room was starredWith light as I was speaking, and I knewThe god, my brother, from whose face the veilMelted as mist."What mission fair and true,While I am sleeping, brings you? For I paleAmid this solemn stillness, for your faceUnutterably majestic."As when the daleAt midnight echoes for a little space,The night-bird's cry, the god responded "Come,"And nothing more. I left my bed apace,And followed him with wings above the gloomOf clouds like chariots driven on to war,Between whose wheels the swift moon raced and swum.A mile beneath us lay the earth, afarWere mountains which as swift as thought drew nearAs we passed over pines, where many a starAnd heaven's light made every frond as clearAs through a glass or in the lightning's flash. ...Yet I seemed flying from an olden fear,A bulk of black that sought to sting or gnashMy breast or side—which was myself, it seemed,The flesh or thinking part of me grown rashAnd violent, a brain soul unredeemed,Which sometime earlier in the grip of DeathForgot its terror when my soul which streamedLike ribbons of silk fire, with quiet breathSaid to the body, as it were a thingSeparate and indifferent: "How uneathThat fellow turns, while I am safe yet clingClose to him, both another and the same."Now was this mood reversed: That self must wingIts fastest flight to fly him, lest he maimWith fleshly hands my better, stronger part,As dragon wings my flap and quench a flame. ...But as we passed o'er empires and athwartA bellowing strait, beholding bergs and floesAnd running tides which made the sinking heartRise up again for breath, I felt how closeThe god, my brother, was, who would sustainMy wings whatever dangers might oppose,And knowing him beside me, like a strainOf music were his thoughts, though nothing yetWas spoken by him.When as out of rainSuddenly lights may break, the earth was setBeneath us, and we stood and paused to seeThe Düssel river from a parapetOf earth and rock. Then bending curiously,As reaching, in a moment with his handHe scraped the turf and stones, pried up a keyOf harder granite, and at his command,When he had made an opening, I slidAnd sank, down, down through the Devonian landUntil with him I reached a cavern hidFrom every eye but ours, and where no lightBut from our faces was, a pyramidOf hills that walled this crypt of soundless night.Then in a mood, it seemed more fanciful,He bent again and raked, and to my sightUpheaved and held the remnant of a skull—Gorilla's or a man's, I could not guess.Yet brutal though it was, it was a hullToo fine and large to house the nakednessOf a beast's mind.But as I looked the godBegan these words: "Before the iron stressOf the north pole's dominion fell, he trodThe wastes of Europe, ere the Nile was madeA granary for the east, or ere the clodIn Babylon or India baked was laidFor hovels, this man lived. Ten thousand yearsBefore the earliest pyramid cast its shadeUpon the desolate sands this thing of fears,Lusts, hungers, lived and hunted, woke and slept,Mated, produced its kind, with hairy ears,And tiger eyes sensed all that you acceptIn terms of thought or vision as the proofOf immanent Power or Love. But this skull keptThe intangible meaning out. This heavy roofOf brutish bone above the eyes was deadEven to lower ethers, no behoofOf seasons, stars or skies took, though they bredSuspicions, fears, or nervous glances, thought,Which silent as a lizard's shadow fledBefore it graved itself, passed over, wroughtNo vision, only pain, which he deemed pangsOf hunger or of thirst."As you have soughtThe meaning of life's riddle, since it hangsIn waking or in slumber just aboveThe highest reach of prophecy, and fangsWith poison of despair all moods but love,Behold its secret lettered on this browPlaced by your own!This is the word thereof:Change and progression from the glazed slough,Where life creeps and is blind, ascending upThe jungled slopes for prey till spirits bowOn Calvaries with crosses, take the cupOf martyrdom for truth's sake.It may beMen of to-day make monstrous war, sleep, sup,Traffic, build shrines, as earliest historyRecords the earliest day, and that the raceIs what it was in virtue, charity,And nothing better. But within this faceNo light shone from that realm where Hindostan,Delving in numbers, watching stars took graceAnd inspiration to explore the planOf heaven and earth. And of the scheme the testIs not five thousand years, which leave the vanJust where it was, but this change manifestIn fifty thousand years between the mindNeanderthal's and Shelley's.Man progressedAlong these years, found eyes where he was blind,Put instinct under thought, crawled from the cave,And faced the sun, till somewhere heaven's windMixed with the light of Lights descending, gaveTo mind a touch of divinity, making wholeAn undeveloped growth.As ships that braveGreat storms at sea on masts a flaming coalFrom heaven catch, bear on, so man was wreathedSomewhere with lightning and became a soul.Into his nostrils purer fire was breathedThan breath of life itself, and by a leap,As lightning leaps from crag to crag, what seethedIn man from the beginning broke the sleepThat lay on consciousness of self, with eyesAwakened saw himself, out of the deepAnd wonder of the self caught the surmiseOf Power beyond this world, and felt it throughThe flow of living.And so man shall riseFrom this illumination, from this clueTo perfect knowledge that this Power exists,And what man is to this Power, even as youHave left Neanderthal lost in the mistsAnd ignorance of centuries untold.What would you say if learned geologistsOut of the rocks and caverns should unfoldThe skulls of greater races, records, booksTo shame us for our day, could we beholdTherein our retrogression? Wonder looksIn vain for these, discovers everywhereProof of the root which darkly bends and crooksFar down and far away; a stalk more fairUpspringing finds its proof, buds on the stalkThe eye may see, at last the flowering flareOf man to-day!I see the things which balk,Retard, divert, draw into sluices small,But who beholds the stream turned back to mock,Not just itself, but make equivocalA Universal Reason, Vision? No.You find no proof of this, but prodigalProof of ascending Life!So life shall flowHere on this globe until the final fruitAnd harvest. As it were until the glowOf the great blossom has the attributeIn essence, color of eternal things,And shows no rim between its hues which suitThe infinite sky's. Then if the dead earth swingsA gleaned and stricken field amid the voidWhat matters it to you, a soul with wings,Whether it be replanted or destroyed?Has it not served you?"Now his voice was still,Which in such discourse had been thus employed.And in that lonely cavern dark and chillI heard again, "Then what is life?" And wokeTo find the moonlight on the window sillThat which had seemed his presence. And a cloak,Whose hood was perked upon the moonbeams, madeThe skull of the Neanderthal. The smokeBlown from the fireplace formed the cavern's shade.And roaring winds blew down as they had tunedThe voice which left me calm and unafraid.