IWhen the sea has devoured the ships,And the spires and the towersHave gone back to the hills.And all the citiesAre one with the plains again.And the beauty of bronze,And the strength of steelAre blown over silent continents,As the desert sand is blown—My dust with yours forever.
IIWhen folly and wisdom are no more,And fire is no more,Because man is no more;When the dead world slowly spinningDrifts and falls through the void—My light with yoursIn the Light of Lights forever!
Amid the din of cars and automobiles,At the corner of a towering pile of granite,Under the city's soaring brick and stone,Where multitudes go hurrying by, you standWith eyeless sockets playing on a flute.And an old woman holds the cup for you,Wherein a curious passer by at timesCasts a poor coin.You are so blind you cannot see us menAs walking trees!I fancy from the tuneYou play upon the flute, you have a visionOf leafy trees along a country road-side,Where wheat is growing and the meadow-larksRise singing in the sun-shine!In your darknessYou may see such things playing on your fluteHere in the granite ways of mad Chicago!And here's another on a farther corner,With head thrown back as if he searched the skies,He's selling evening papers, what's to himThe flaring headlines? Yet he calls the news.That is his flute, perhaps, for one can call,Or play the flute in blindness.Yet I thinkIt's neither news nor music with these blind ones—Rather the hope of re-created eyes,And a light out of death!"How can it be," I hear them over and over,"There never shall be eyes for me again?"
—His Own WordsIN MEMORY OF KIFFIN ROCKWELL
Eagle, whose fearlessFlight in vast spacesClove the inane,While we stood tearless,White with rapt facesIn wonder and pain. ...Heights could not awe you,Depths could not stay you.Anguished we saw you,Saw Death way-lay youWhere the storm flingsBlack clouds to thickenRound France's defender!Archangel strickenFrom ramparts of splendor—Shattered your wings! ...But Lafayette called you,Rochambeau beckoned.Duty enthralled you.For France you had reckonedHer gift and your debt.Dull hearts could hardenHalf-gods could palter.For you never pardonIf Liberty's altarYou chanced to forget. ...Stricken archangel!Ramparts of splendorKeep you, evangelOf souls who surrenderNo banner unfurledFor ties ever living,Where Freedom has bound them.Praise and thanksgivingFor love which has crowned them—Love frees the world! ...
Who is that calling through the night,A wail that dies when the wind roars?We heard it first on Shipley's Hill,It faded out at Comingoer's.Along five miles of wintry roadA horseman galloped with a cry,"'Twas two o'clock," said Herman Pointer,"When I heard clattering hoofs go by.""I flung the winder up to listen;I heerd him there on Gordon's Ridge;I heerd the loose boards bump and rattleWhen he went over Houghton's Bridge."Said Roger Ragsdale: "I was doctorin'A heifer in the barn, and thenMy boy says: 'Pap, that's Billy Paris.''There,' says my boy, it is again.""Says I: 'That kain't be Billy Paris,We seed 'im at the Christmas tree.It's two o'clock,' says I, 'and BillyI seed go home with Emily.'"'He is too old for galavantin'Upon a night like this,' says I.'Well, pap,' says he, 'I know that frosty,Good-natured huskiness in that cry.'"'It kain't be Billy,' says I, swabbin'The heifer's tongue and mouth with brine,'I never thought—it makes me shiver,And goose-flesh up and down the spine.'"Said Doggie Traylor: "When I heard itI 'lowed 'twas Pin Hook's rowdy new 'uns.Them Cashner boys was at the schoolhouseDrinkin' there at the Christmas doin's."Said Pete McCue: "I lit a candleAnd held it up to the winder pane.But when I heerd again the holler'Twere half-way down the Bowman Lane."Said Andy Ensley: "First I knowedI thought he'd thump the door away.I hopped from bed, and says, 'Who is it?''O, Emily,' I heard him say."And there stood Billy Paris tremblin',His face so white, he looked so queer.'O Andy'—and his voice went broken.'Come in,' says I, 'and have a cheer.'"'Sit by the fire,' I kicked the logs up,'What brings you here?—I would be told.'Says he. 'My hand just ... happened near hers,It teched her hand ... and it war cold."'We got back from the Christmas doin'sAnd went to bed, and she was sayin',(The clock struck ten) if it keeps snowin'To-morrow there'll be splendid sleighin'.'"'My hand teched hers, the clock struck two,And then I thought I heerd her moan.It war the wind, I guess, for EmilyWar lyin' dead. ... She's thar alone.'"I left him then to call my womanTo tell her that her mother died.When we come back his voice was steady,The big tears in his eyes was dried."He just sot there and quiet likeTalked 'bout the fishin' times they had,And said for her to die on ChristmasWas somethin' 'bout it made him glad."He grew so cam he almost skeered us.Says he: 'It's a fine Christmas over there.'Says he: 'She was the lovingest womanThat ever walked this Vale of Care.'"Says he: 'She allus laughed and sang,I never heerd her once complain.'Says he: "It's not so bad a ChristmasWhen she can go and have no pain.'"Says he: 'The Christmas's good for her.'Says he: ... 'Not very good for me.'He hid his face then in his mufflerAnd sobbed and sobbed, 'O Emily.'"
IWhat will happen, Widow La Rue?For last night at three o'clockYou woke and saw by your window againAmid the shadowy locust groveThe phantom of the old soldier:A shadow of blue, like mercury light—What will happen, Widow La Rue?
What may not happenIn this place of summer loneliness?For neither the sunlight of July,Nor the blue of the lake,Nor the green boundaries of cool woodlands,Nor the song of larks and thrushes,Nor the bravuras of bobolinks,Nor scents of hay new mown,Nor the ox-blood sumach cones,Nor the snow of nodding yarrow,Nor clover blossoms on the dizzy crestOf the bluff by the lakeCan take away the lonelinessOf this July by the lake!
Last night you saw the old soldierBy your window, Widow La Rue!Or was it your husband you saw,As he lay by the gate so long ago?With the iris of his eyes so black,And the white of his eyes so china-blue,And specks of blood on his face,Like a wall specked by a shake a brush;And something like blubber or pinkish wax,Hiding the gash in his throat——The serum and blood blown up by the breathFrom emptied lungs.
IISo Widow La Rue has gone to a friendFor the afternoon and the night,Where the phantom will not come,Where the phantom may be forgotten.And scarcely has she turned the road,Round the water-mill by the creek,When the telephone rings and daughter FloraSprings up from a drowsy chairAnd the ennui of a book,And runs to answer the call.And her heart gives a bound,And her heart stops still,As she hears the voice, and a faintness coursesQuick as poison through all her frame.And something like bees swarming in her breastComes to her throat in a surge of fear,Rapture, passion, for what is the voiceBut the voice of her lover?And just because she is here aloneIn this desolate summer-house by the lake;And just because this man is forbiddenTo cross her way, for a taint in his bloodOf drink, from a father who died of drink;And just because he is in her thoughtBy night and day,The voice of him heats her through like fire.She sways from dizziness,The telephone falls from her shaking hand. ...He is in the village, is walking out,He will be at the door in an hour.
IIIThe sun is half a hand above the lakeIn a sky of lemon-dust down to the purple vastness.On the dizzy crest of the bluff the balls of cloverBow in the warm wind blowing across a meadowWhere hay-cocks stand new-piled by the harvestersClear to the forest of pine and beech at the meadow's end.A robin on the tip of a poplar's spireSings to the sinking sun and the evening planet.Over the olive green of the darkening forestA thin moon slits the sky and down the roadTwo lovers walk.It is night when they reappearFrom the forest, walking the hay-field over.And the sky is so full of stars it seemsLike a field of buckwheat. And the lovers look up,Then stand entranced under the silence of stars,And in the silence of the scented hay-fieldBlurred only by a lisp of the listless waterA hundred feet below.And at last they sit by a cock of hay,As warm as the nest of a bird,Hand clasped in hand and silent,Large-eyed and silent.
O, daughter Flora!Delicious weakness is on you now,With your lover's face above you.You can scarcely lift your hand,Or turn your headPillowed upon the fragrant hay.You dare not open your moistened eyesFor fear of this sky of stars,For fear of your lover's eyes.The trance of nature has taken youRocked on creation's tide.And the kinship you feel for this man,Confessed this night—so often confessedAnd wondered at—Has coiled its final sorcery about you.You do not know what it is,Nor care what it is,Nor care what fate is to come,—The night has you.You only move white, fainting handsAgainst his strength, then let them fall.Your lips are parted over set teeth;A dewy moisture with the aroma of a woman's bodyMaddens your lover,And in a swift and terrible momentThe mystery of love is unveiled to you. ...Then your lover sits up with a sigh.But you lie there so still with closed eyes.So content, scarcely breathing under that ocean of stars.A night bird calls, and a vagrant zephyrStirs your uncoiled hair on your bare bosom,But you do not move.And the sun comes up at lastFinding you asleep in his arms,There by the hay cock.And he kisses your tears away,And redeems his word of last night,For down to the village you goAnd take your vows before the Pastor there,And then return to the summer house. ...All is well.
IVWidow La Rue has returnedAnd is rocking on the porch—What is about to happen?For last night the phantom of the old soldierAppeared to her again—It followed her to the house of her friend,And appeared again.But more than ever was it her husband,With the iris of his eyes so black,And the white of his eyes so china-blue.And while she thinks of it,And wonders what is about to happen,She hears laughter,And looking up, beholds her daughterAnd the forbidden lover.
And then the daughter and her husbandCome to the porch and the daughter says"We have just been married in the village, mother;Will you forgive us?This is your son; you must kiss your son."And Widow La Rue from her chair arisesAnd calmly takes her child in her arms,And clasps his hand.And after gazing upon himImperturbably as Clytemnestra lookedUpon returning Agamemnon,With a light in her eyes which neither fathomed,She kissed him,And in a calm voice blessed them.Then sent her daughter, singing,On an errand back to the villageTo market for dinner, saying:"We'll talk over plans, my dear."
VAnd the young husbandRocks on the porch without a thoughtOf the lightning about to strike.And like Clytemnestra, Widow La RueEnters the house.And while he is rocking, with all his spirit in a rythmic rapture,The Widow La Rue takes a seat in the roomBy a window back of the chair where he rocks,And drawing the shadeShe speaks:"These two nights past I have seen the phantom of the old soldierWho haunts the midnightsOf this summer loneliness.And I knew that a doom was at hand. ...You have married my daughter, and this is the doom. ...O, God in heaven!"Then a horror as of a writhing whitenessWinds out of the July glareAnd stops the flow of his blood,As he hears from the re-echoing roomThe voice of Widow La RueMoving darkly between banksOf delirious fear and woe!"Be calm till you hear me through. ...Do not move, or enter here,I am hiding my face from you. ...Hear me through, and then fly.I warned her against you, but how could I tell herWhy you were not for her?But tell me now, have you come together?No? Thank God for that. ...For you must not come together. ...Now listen while I whisper to you:My daughter was born of a lawless loveFor a man I loved before I married,And when, for five years, no child cameI went to this manAnd begged him to give me a child. ...Well then ... the child was born, your wife as it seems. ...And when my husband saw her,And saw the likeness of this man in her faceHe went out of the house, where they found him laterBy the entrance gateWith the iris of his eyes so black,And the white of his eyes so china-blue,And specks of blood on his face,Like a wall specked by a shake of a brush.And something like blubber or pinkish waxHiding the gash in his throat—The serum and blood blown up by the breathFrom emptied lungs. Yes, there by the gate, O God!Quit rocking your chair! Don't you understand?Quit rocking your chair! Go! Go!Leap from the bluff to the rocks on the shore!Take down the sickle and end yourself!You don't care, you say, for all I've told you?Well, then, you see, you're older than Flora. ...And her father died when she was a baby. ...And you were four when your father died. ...And her father died on the very dayThat your father died,At the verv same moment. ...On the very same bed. ...Don't you understand?"
VIHe ceases to rock. He reels from the porch,He runs and stumbles to reach the road.He yells and curses and tears his hair.He staggers and falls and rises and runs.And Widow La RueWith the eyes of ClytemnestraStands at the window and watches himRunning and tearing his hair.VIIShe seems so calm when the daughter returns.She only says: "He has gone to the meadow,He will soon be back. ..."But he never came back.And the years went on till the daughter's hairWas white as her mother's there in the grave.She was known as the bride whom the bridegroom leftAnd didn't say good-bye.
I lectured last upon the morbus sacer,Or falling sickness, epilepsy, of oldIn Palestine and Greece so much ascribedTo deities or devils. To resumeWe find it caused by morphologicalChanges of the cortex cells. Sometimes,More times, indeed, the anatomicalBasis, if one be, escapes detection.For many functions of the cortex areUnknown, as I have said.And now rememberMercier's analysis of heredity:Besides direct transmission of unstableNervous systems, there remains the lawHereditary of sanguinity.Then here's another matter: Parents mayHave normal nervous systems, yet produceChildren of abnormal nerves and minds,Caused by unsuitable sexual germs.Let me repeat before I leave the matterThe factors in a perfect organization:First quality in the germ producing matter;Then quality in the sperm producing force,And lastly relative fitness of the two.We are but plants, however high we rise,Whatever thoughts we have, or dreams we dreamWe are but plants, and all we are and doDepends upon the seed and on the soil.What Mendel found in raising peas may leadTo perfect knowledge of the human mind.There is one law for men and peas, the lawMakes peas of certain matter, and makes menAnd mind of certain matter, all dependsNot on a varying law, but on a lawVaried in its course by matter, asThe arm, which is a lever and which worksBy lever principle cannot make useAnd form cement with trowel to the formsIt makes of paint or marble.To resume:A child may take the qualities of one parentIn some respects, and of the other parentIn some respects. A child may have the traitsOf father at one period of his life,The mother at one period of his life.And if the parents' traits are similarTheir traits may be prepotent in a child,Thus giving rise to qualities convergent.So if you take a circle and draw offA line which would become another circleIf drawn enough, completed, but is leftHalf drawn or less, that illustrates a mindOf cumulative heredity. Take John,My gardener, John, within his sphere is perfect,John has a mind which is a perfect circle.A perfect circle can be small, you know.And so John has good sense within his sphere.But if some force began to work like yeastIn brain cells, and his mind shot forth a lineTo make a larger thinking circle, sayAbout a great invention, heaven or God,Then John would be abnormal, till this lineShot round and joined, became a larger circle.This is the secret of eccentric genius,The man is half a sphere, sticks out in spaceDoes not enclose co-ordinated thought.He's like a plant mutating, half himselfHalf something new and greater. If we lookedTo John's heredity we'd find this changeWas manifest in mother or in fatherAbout the self-same period of life,Most likely in his father. AttributesOf fathers are inherited by sons,Of mothers by the daughters.Now this morningI take up paranoia. ParanoicsAre often noted for great gifts of mind.Mahomet, Swedenborg were paranoics,Joan of Arc, and Ossawatomie Brown,Cellini, many others. All who thinkThemselves inspired of God, and all who seeThemselves appointed to a work, the subjectsOf prophecies are paranoics. AllWho visions have of God or archangels,Hear voices or celestial music, theseAre paranoics. And whether it be they riseEnough above the earth to look alongA longer arc and see realities,Or see strange things through atmospheric strataWhich build up or distort the things they seeRemains the question. Let us wait the proof.Last week I told you I would have to-dayThe skull and brain of Jacob Groesbell here,And lecture on his case. Here is the brain:Weight sixteen hundred grammes. Students may lookAfter the lecture at the brain and skull.There's nothing anatomical at faultWith this fine brain, so far as I can find.You'll note how deep the convolutions are,Arrangement quite symmetrical. The skullIs well formed too. The jaws are long you'll note,The palate roof somewhat asymmetrical.But this is scarce significant. Let me tellHow Jacob Groesbell looked:The man was tall,Had shapely hands and feet, but awkward limbs.His hair was brown and fine, his forehead high,And ran back at an angle, temples full.His nose was long and fleshy at the point,Was tilted to one side. His eyes were gray,The iris flecked. They looked as if a lightAs of a sun-set shone behind them. EarsWere very large, projected at right angles.His neck was slender, womanish. His skinOf finest texture, white and very smooth.His voice was quiet, musical. His mannerPatient and gentle, modest, reasonable.His parents, as I learned through inquiry,Were Methodists, devout and greatly loved.The mother healthy both in mind and body.The father was eccentric, perhaps insane.They were first cousins.I knew Jacob GroesbellTen years before he died. I knew him firstWhen he was sent to mend my porch. A workmanWith saw and hammer never excelled him. ThenAs time went on I saw him when he cameAt my request to do my carpentry.I grew to know him, and by slow degreesHe told me of his readings in the Bible,And gave me his interpretations. At lastAged forty-six, had ulcers of the stomach,Which took him off. He sent for me, and saidHe wished me to attend him, which I did.He told me I could have his body and brainTo lecture on, dissect, since some had saidHe was insane, he told me, and if soI should find something wrong with brain or body.And if I found a wrong then all his visionsOf God and archangels were just the fanciesThat come to madmen. So he made provisionTo give his brain and body for this cause,And here's his brain and skull, and I am lecturingOn Jacob Groesbell as a paranoic.As I have said before, in making testsAnd observations of the patient, haveHis conversation taken stenographically,In order to preserve his speech exactly,And catch the flow if he becomes excited.So we determine if he makes new words,If he be incoherent, or repeats.I took my secretary once to makeA stenographic record. Strange enoughHe would not talk while she was writing down.And when I asked him why, he would not tell.So I devised a scheme: I took a satchel,And put in it a dictaphone, and whenA cylinder was full I'd stoop and putMy hand among my bottles in the satchel,As if I was compounding medicine,Instead I'd put another cylinder on.And thus I got his story in his voice,Just as he talked, with nothing lost at all,Which you shall hear. For with this megaphoneThe students in the farthest galleryCan hear what Jacob Groesbell said to me,And weigh the thought that stirred within the brainHere in this jar beside me. Listen nowTo Jacob Groesbell's voice:"Will you repeatFrom the beginning connectedly the storyOf your religious life, illumination,Vhat you have called your soul's escape?""I will,Since I shall never tell it again.""I grew upTimid and sensitive, not very strong,Not understood of father or of mother.They did not love me, and I never feltA tenderness for them. I used to quote:'Who is my mother and who are my brothers?'At school I was not liked. I had a chumFrom time to time, that's all. And I rememberMy mother on a day put with my luncheonA bottle of milk, and when the noon hour cameI missed it, found some boys had taken it,And when I asked for it, they made the cry:'Bottle of milk, bottle of milk,' and IFlushed through with shame, and cried, and to this hourIt hurts me to remember it. Such days,All misery! For all my clothes were patched.They hooted at me. So I lived alone.At twelve years old I had great fears of death,And hell, heard devils in my room. One nightDuring a thunderstorm heard clanking chains,And hid beneath the pillows. One spring dayAs I was walking on the village streetClose to the church I heard a voice which said'Behold, my son'—and falling on my kneesI prayed in ecstacy—but as I prayedSome passing school boys laughed, threw stones at me.A heat ran through me, I arose and fled.Well, then I joined the church and was baptized.But something left me in the ceremony,I lost my ecstacy, seemed slipping backInto the trap. I took to wanderingIn solitary places, could not bearTo see a human face. I slept for nightsIn still ravines, or meadows. But one timeReturning to my home, I found the roomFilled up with visitors—my heart stopped short,And glancing at the faces of my parentsI hurried, bolted through, and did not speak,Entered a bed-room door and closed it. SoI tell this just to illustrate my shyness,Which cursed my youth and made me miserable,Something I fought but could not overcome.And pondering on the Scriptures I could seeHow I resembled the saints, our Saviour even,How even as my brothers called me madThey called our Saviour so."At fourteen yearsMy father taught me carpentry, his trade,And made me work with him. I seemed to beThe butt for jokes and laughter with the men—I know not why. For now and then they'd dropA word that showed they knew my secrets, knewI had heard voices, knew I loathed the lustsOf women, drink. Oh these were sorry years,God was not with me though I sought Him everAnd I was persecuted for His sake. My brainSeemed like to burst at times, saw sparkling lights,Heard music, voices, made strange shapes of leaves,Clouds, trunks of trees,—illusions of the devil.I was turned twenty years when on an eveningCalm, beautiful in June, after a dayOf healthful toil, while sitting on the porch,The sun just sinking, at my left I heardA voice of hollow clearness: "You are Christ."My eyes grew blind with tears for the evilOf such a thought, soul stained with such a thought,So devil stained, soul damned with blasphemy.I ran into my room and seized a pistolTo end my life. God willed it otherwise.I fainted and awoke upon the floorAfter some hours. To heap my suffering fullA few days after this while in the villageI went into a store. The friendly clerk—I knew him always—said 'What will you have?I wait first always on the little boys.'I laughed and went my way. But in an hourHis saying rankled, I began to broodOn ways of vengeance, till it seemed at lastHis life must pay. O, soul so full of sin,So devil tangled, tortured—which not prayerNor watching could deliver. So I thoughtTo save my soul from murder I must fly—I felt an urging as one does in sleepPursued by giant things to fly, to flyFrom terror, death, from blankness on the scene,From emptiness, from beauty gone. The worldSeemed something seen in fever, where the stepsOf men are muffled, and a futile schemeImpels all steps. So packing up my kit,My Bible in my pocket, secretlyI disappeared. Next day took up my lifeIn Barrington, a village thirty milesFrom all I knew, besides a lovely lake,Reached by a road that crossed a bridgeOver a little bay, the bridge's endsClustered with boats for fishermen. And hereNight after night I fished, or stood and watchedThe star-light on the water.I grew calmerAlmost found peace, got work to do, and livedUnder a widow's roof, who was devoutAnd knew my love for God. Now listen, doctor,To every word: I was now twenty-five,In perfect health, no longer persecuted,At peace with all the world, if not my soulHad wholly found its peace, for truth to tellIt had an ache which sometimes I could feel,And yet I had this soul awakening.I know I have been counted mad, so watchEach detail here and judge.At four o'clockThe thirtieth day of June, my work being done,My kit upon my back I walked this roadToward the village. 'Twas an afternoonOf clouds, no rain, a little breeze, the tinkleOf cow bells in the air, a heavenly silencePervading nature. Reaching the hill's footI sat down by a tree to rest, enjoyThe greenness of the forests, meadows, flatsAlong the bay, the blueness of the lake,The ripple of the water at my feet,The rythmic babble of the little boatsTied to the bridge. And as I sat there musing,Myself lost in the self, in time the cloudsLifted, blew off, to let the sun go downOver the waters gloriously to rest.So as I stared upon the sun on the water,Some minutes, though I know not for how long,Out of the splendor of the shining sunUpon the water, Jesus of NazarethClothed all in white, the nimbus round his brow,His face all wisdom, love, rose to my view,And then he spake: 'Jacob, my son, ariseAnd come with me.'"And in an instant thereSomething fell from me, I became a cloud,A soul with wings. A glory burned about me.And in that glory I perceived all things:I saw the eternal wheels, the deepest secretsOf creatures, herbs and grass, and stars and sunsAnd I knew God, and knew all things as God:The All loving, the Perfect One, the Perfect Wisdom,Truth, love and purity. And in that instantAtoms and molecules I saw, and faces,And how they are arranged order to order,With no break in the order, one harmoniousWhole of universal life all blendedAnd interfused with universal love.And as it was with Shelley so I cried,And clasped my hands in ecstacy and roseAnd started back to climb the hill again,Scarce knowing, neither caring what I did,Nor where I went, and thinking if this beA fancy only of the Saviour thenHe will not follow me, and if it beHimself, indeed, he will not let me fallAfter the revelation. As I reachedThe brow of the hill, I felt his presence with meAnd turned, and saw Him. 'Thou hast faith, my son,Who knowest me, when they who walked with meToward Emmaus knew me not, to whom I toldAll secrets of the scriptures beginning at Moses,Who knew me not till I brake bread and then,As after thought could say, Did not our heartWithin us burn while he talked. O, Jacob Groesbell,Thou carpenter, as I was, greatly blessedWith visions and my Father's love, this walkIs your walk toward Emmaus.' So he talked,Expounding all the scriptures, telling meAbout the race of men who live and moveAlong a life of meat and drink and sleepAnd comforts of the flesh, while here and thereA hungering soul is chosen to lift upAnd re-create the race. 'The prophet, poetMust seek and must find God to keep the raceAwake to the divine and to the ordersOf universal and harmonious life,All interfused with Universal love,Which love is God, lest blindness, atheism,Which sees no order, reason, no intentBeat down the race to welter in the mireWhen storms, and floods come. And the sons of God,The leaders of the race from age to ageAre chosen for their separate work, each workFits in the given order. All who sufferThe martyrdom of thought, whether they thinkThemselves as servants of my Father, or evenMock at the images and ritualsWhich prophets of dead creeds did symbolizeThe mystery they sensed, or whether they beSpirits of laughter, logic, divinationOf human life, the human soul, all menWho give their essence, blindly or in visionIn faith that life is worth their utmost love,They are my brothers and my Father's sons.'So Jesus told me as we took my walkToward my Emmaus. After a time we turnedAnd walked through heading rye and purple vetchInto an orchard where great rows of pearsSloped up a hill. It was now evening:Stretches of scarlet clouds were in the west,And a half moon was hanging just aboveThe pears' white blossoms. O, that evening!We came back to the boats at last and loosedOne of them and rowed out into the bay,And fished, while the stars appeared. He only said'Whatever they did with me you too shall do.'A haziness came on me now. I seemTo find myself alone there in that boat.At mid-night I awoke, the moon was sunk,The whippoorwills were singing. I walked homeBack to the village in a silence, peace,A happiness profound."And the next morningI awoke with aching head, spent body, yetWith spiritual vision so intense I lookedThrough things material as if they wereBut shadows—old things passed away or grewA lovelier order. And my heart was full.Infinitely I loved, and infinitely was loved.My landlady looked at me sharply, askedWhat hour I entered, where I was so late.I only answered fishing. For I toldNo person of my vision, went my wayAt carpentry in silence, in great joy.For archangels and powers were at my side,They led me, bore me up, instructed meIn mysteries, and voices said to me'Write' as the voice in Patmos said to John.I wrote and printed and the village read,And called me mad. And so I grew to seeThe deepest truths of God, and God Himself,The geniture of all things, of the WordBecoming flesh in Christ. I knew all ages,Times, empires, races, creeds, the human weaknessWhich makes life wearisome, confused and pained,And how the search for something (it is God)Makes divers worships, fire, the sun, and beastsTakes form in Eleusinian mysteriesOr festivals where sex, the vine, the EarthAt harvest time have praise or reverence.I knew God, talked with God, and knew that GodIs more than Thought or Love. Our twisted brainsAre but the wires in the bulb which stays,Resists the current and makes human thought.As the electric current is not lightBut heat and power as well. Our little brainsResist God and make thought and love as well.But God is more than these. Oh I heard muchOf music, heard the whirring as of wheels,Or buzzing as of ears when a room is still.That is the axis of profoundest lifeWhich turns and rests not. And I heard the cryAnd hearing wept, of man's soul, heard the ages,The epochs of this earth as it were the feetOf multitudes in corridors. And I knewThe agony of genius and the woeOf prophets and the great."From that next morningI searched the scriptures with more fervid zealThan I had ever done. I could not openIts pages anywhere but I could findMyself set forth or mirrored, pointed to.I could not doubt my destiny was boundWith man's salvation. Jeremiah said'Take forth the precious from the vile.' Those wordsTo me were spoken, and to no one else.And so I searched the scriptures. And I foundI never had a thought, experience, pang,A state in human life our Saviour had not.He was a carpenter, and so was I.He had his soul's illumination, so had I.His brethren called him mad, they called me mad.He triumphed over death, so shall I triumph.For I could, I can feel my way alongDeath's stages as a man can reach and feelAhead of him along a wall. I knowThis body is a shell, a butterfly'sExcreta pushed away with rising wings."I searched the scriptures. How should I believePaul's story, not my own? Did he not seeAt mid-day in the way a light from heavenAbove the brightness of the sun and hearThe voice of Jesus saying to him 'Saul,'Why persecutest thou me?' And did not Festus,Before whom Paul stood speaking for himself,Call Paul a mad man? Even while he spakeSuch words as none but men inspired can speak,As well as words of truth and soberness,Such as myself speak now."And from the scripturesI passed to studies of the men who cameTo great illuminations. You will seeThere are two kinds: One's of the intellect,The understanding, one is of the soul.The x-ray lets the eye behind the fleshTo see the ribs, or heart beat, choose! So menIn their illumination see the frame-workOf life or see its spirit, so alignThemselves with Science, Satire, or alignThemselves with Poetry or Prophecy.So being Aristotle, Rabelais,Paul, Swedenborg."And as the yearsWent on, as I had time, was fortunateIn finding books I read of many menWho had illumination, as I had it. ReadOf Dante's vision, how he found himselfSaw immortality, lost fear of death.Read Swedenborg, who left the intellectAt fifty-four for God, and entered heavenBefore he quitted life and saw behindThe sun of fire, a sun of love and truth.Read Whitman who exclaimed to God: 'Thou knowestMy manhood's visionary meditationsWhich come from Thee, the ardor and the urge.Thou lightest my life with rays ineffableBeyond all signs, descriptions, languages.'Read Blake, Spinoza, Emerson, read WordsworthWho wrote of something 'deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue skies, and in the mind of man—A motion and a spirit that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thoughtAnd rolls through all things.'"And at last they called meThe mad, and learned carpenter. And then—I'm growing faint. Your hand, hold ..."At this pointHe fainted, sank into a stupor. ThereI watched him, to discover if 'twas death.But soon I saw him rally, then he spoke.There was some other talk, but not of moment.I had to change the cylinder—the talkWas broken, rambling, and of trifling things,Throws no light on the case, being sane enough.He died next morning.Students who desireTo examine the skull and brain may do so nowAt their convenience in the laboratory.