s: I'd never clear away from there the cloud that never clears.


s: We buried what was left of it,--the bar, too, and the chains;


s: And only for the apple tree there's nothing that remains."


s: Forty years ago it was I heard the old man say,


s: "That's all, my son."--And here again I find the place to-day,


s: Deserted and told only by the tree that knows the most,


s: And overgrown with golden-rod as if there were no ghost.


s: May learn to count no thing too strange:


s: No fiddlers three were called or needed;


s: He seemed the more to court their candor;


s: That's good.  The sun will soon be rising."


s: Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford


s: You are a friend then, as I make it out,


s: As he would add a shilling to more shillings,


s: And I must wonder what you think of him--


s: All you down there where your small Avon flows


s: By Stratford, and where you're an Alderman.


s: Some, for a guess, would have him riding back


s: Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.


s: In you a kindling of the flame that saves--


s: The nimble element, the true phlogiston;


s: By our discriminate friend himself, no other.


s: As he would have it,--meaning, as I take it,


s: The sinew and the solvent of our Island,


s: You'd not be buying beer for this Terpander's


s: Approved and estimated friend Ben Jonson;


s: While he goes off rehearsing, as he must,


s: If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford.


s: And my words are no shadow on your town--


s: Far from it; for one town's as like another


s: As all are unlike London.  Oh, he knows it,--


s: And there's the Stratford in him; he denies it,


s: And there's the Shakespeare in him.  So, God help him!


s: I tell him he needs Greek; but neither God


s: Nor Greek will help him.  Nothing will help that man.


s: You see the fates have given him so much,


s: He must have all or perish,--or look out


s: Of London, where he sees too many lords;


s: They're part of half what ails him:  I suppose


s: There's nothing fouler down among the demons


s: Than what it is he feels when he remembers


s: The dust and sweat and ointment of his calling


s: With his lords looking on and laughing at him.


s: King as he is, he can't be king de facto,


s: And that's as well, because he wouldn't like it;


s: Than he has now; and after that would come


s: He can't be king, not even king of Stratford,--


s: Though half the world, if not the whole of it,


s: May crown him with a crown that fits no king


s: Where Naiads and their white arms are no more,


s: Shall he find home again.  It's all too bad.


s: But there's a comfort, for he'll have that House--


s: The best you ever saw; and he'll be there


s: He makes me lie awake o' nights and laugh.


s: He must have been to the few seeing ones--


s: Discovering a world with his man's eyes,


s: Quite as another lad might see some finches,


s: If he looked hard and had an eye for nature.


s: But this one had his eyes and their foretelling,


s: And he had you to fare with, and what else?


s: He must have had a father and a mother--


s: In fact I've heard him say so--and a dog,


s: As a boy should, I venture; and the dog,


s: Most likely, was the only man who knew him.


s: Old aches, and parturitions of what's coming,--


s: To wag his tail at him when he comes home,


s: And then to put his paws up on his knees


s: And say, "For God's sake, what's it all about?"


s: I don't know whether he needs a dog or not--


s: Or what he needs.  I tell him he needs Greek;


s: I'll talk of rules and Aristotle with him,


s: And if his tongue's at home he'll say to that,


s: And you mine that I don't know Aristotle."


s: And what's yet worse, it doesn't seem to matter;


s: He treads along through Time's old wilderness


s: Had left no roads--and there are none, for him;


s: He doesn't see them, even with those eyes,--


s: Accordingly we have him as we have him--


s: Going his way, the way that he goes best,


s: Have made of late his heart their dwelling place.


s: At some annoyance may be fanned up in him,


s: But soon it falls, and when it falls goes out;


s: He knows how little room there is in there


s: And how much for the joy of being whole,


s: And how much for long sorrow and old pain.


s: On our side there are some who may be given


s: To grow old wondering what he thinks of us


s: And some above us, who are, in his eyes,


s: Above himself,--and that's quite right and English.


s: Yet here we smile, or disappoint the gods


s: Who made it so:  the gods have always eyes


s: To see men scratch; and they see one down here


s: Albeit he knows himself--yes, yes, he knows--


s: The lord of more than England and of more


s: Than all the seas of England in all time


s: Shall ever wash.  D'ye wonder that I laugh?


s: He sees me, and he doesn't seem to care;


s: And why the devil should he?  I can't tell you.


s: I'll meet him out alone of a bright Sunday,


s: Trim, rather spruce, and quite the gentleman.


s: "What ho, my lord!" say I.  He doesn't hear me;


s: Wherefore I have to pause and look at him.


s: He's not enormous, but one looks at him.


s: For now, God save the mark, he's growing old;


s: He's five and forty, and to hear him talk


s: These days you'd call him eighty; then you'd add


s: More years to that.  He's old enough to be


s: "Ben, you're a scholar, what's the time of day?"


s: Says he; and there shines out of him again


s: An aged light that has no age or station--


s: Who laugh at him for what he wants the most,


s: And for his dukedom down in Warwickshire;--


s: By which you see we're all a little jealous....


s: Poor Greene!  I fear the color of his name


s: And he was one where there are many others,--


s: Some scrivening to the end against their fate,


s: Their puppets all in ink and all to die there;


s: And some with hands that once would shade an eye


s: Will reach by this time for a pot-house mop


s: To slush their first and last of royalties.


s: Poor devils! and they all play to his hand;


s: But that's not here or there; I've wandered off.


s: Greene does it, or I'm careful.  Where's that boy?


s: Yes, he'll go back to Stratford.  And we'll miss him?


s: Dear sir, there'll be no London here without him.


s: We'll all be riding, one of these fine days,


s: Down there to see him--and his wife won't like us;


s: And then we'll think of what he never said


s: With what he did say, would buy many horses.


s: Though nowadays he's not so much for women:


s: "So few of them," he says, "are worth the guessing."


s: But there's a work at work when he says that,


s: And while he says it one feels in the air


s: They've had him dancing till his toes were tender,


s: And he can feel 'em now, come chilly rains.


s: However, and we don't know much about it.


s: The Fitton thing was worst of all, I fancy;


s: And you in Stratford, like most here in London,


s: Have more now in the 'Sonnets' than you paid for;


s: He's put her there with all her poison on,


s: That's in his life a fact, and always will be.


s: But she's no care of ours, though Time, I fear,


s: Who seems to have decoyed him, married him,


s: And sent him scuttling on his way to London,--


s: With much already learned, and more to learn,


s: And more to follow.  Lord! how I see him now,


s: Pretending, maybe trying, to be like us.


s: Whatever he may have meant, we never had him;


s: He failed us, or escaped, or what you will,--


s: And there was that about him (God knows what,--


s: We'd flayed another had he tried it on us)


s: Than one another's noise and clap-your-shoulder.


s: But think you not, my friend, he'd never talk!


s: Talk?  He was eldritch at it; and we listened--


s: Irrelevant, or not prime to the purpose.


s: And there were some, of course, and there be now,


s: On everything that made him a young demon;


s: And one or two shot looks at him already


s: And once or twice he was, not knowing it,--


s: And saying nothing....  Yet, for all his engines,


s: Who strut and sun themselves and see around 'em


s: A world made out of more that has a reason


s: Than his, I swear, that he sees here to-day;


s: Though he may scarcely give a Fool an exit


s: A law that, given we flout it once too often,


s: Brings fire and iron down on our naked heads.


s: To me it looks as if the power that made him,


s: For fear of giving all things to one creature,


s: Left out the first,--faith, innocence, illusion,


s: Whatever 'tis that keeps us out o' Bedlam,--


s: And thereby, for his too consuming vision,


s: Empowered him out of nature; though to see him,


s: You'd never guess what's going on inside him.


s: He'll break out some day like a keg of ale


s: And all for cellaring what he knows won't keep,


s: And what he'd best forget--but that he can't.


s: You'll have it, and have more than I'm foretelling;


s: And there'll be such a roaring at the Globe


s: As never stunned the bleeding gladiators.


s: He'll have to change the color of its hair


s: Black hair would never do for Cleopatra.


s: But you and I are not yet two old women,


s: And you're a man of office.  What he does


s: Is more to you than how it is he does it,--


s: And that's what the Lord God has never told him.


s: They work together, and the Devil helps 'em;


s: He's peevish of a morning.  He seems old;


s: He's not the proper stomach or the sleep--


s: And they're two sovran agents to conserve him


s: But what's in that prodigious grand new House.


s: I gather something happening in his boyhood


s: Fulfilled him with a boy's determination


s: To make all Stratford 'ware of him.  Well, well,


s: I hope at last he'll have his joy of it,


s: And all his pigs and sheep and bellowing beeves,


s: And frogs and owls and unicorns, moreover,


s: Be less than hell to his attendant ears.


s: Oh, past a doubt we'll all go down to see him.


s: He may be wise.  With London two days off,


s: Down there some wind of heaven may yet revive him;


s: But there's no quickening breath from anywhere


s: Shall make of him again the poised young faun


s: From Warwickshire, who'd made, it seems, already


s: To blink before the last of his first lightning.


s: Whatever there be, they'll be no more of that;


s: Has made him a still man; and he has dreams


s: Were fair to think on once, and all found hollow.


s: He knows how much of what men paint themselves


s: Would blister in the light of what they are;


s: He sees how much of what was great now shares


s: He knows too much of what the world has hushed


s: May reach his heart, and high friends let him fall;


s: Bedevils him the worst:  his lark may sing


s: At heaven's gate how he will, and for as long


s: Save one whereat the spent clay waits a little


s: Before the churchyard has it, and the worm.


s: He gloomed and mumbled like a soul from Tophet,


s: His hands behind him and his head bent solemn.


s: "What is it now," said I,--"another woman?"


s: That made him sorry for me, and he smiled.


s: "No, Ben," he mused; "it's Nothing.  It's all Nothing.


s: We come, we go; and when we're done, we're done;


s: Spiders and flies--we're mostly one or t'other--


s: We come, we go; and when we're done, we're done."


s: "By God, you sing that song as if you knew it!"


s: Said I, by way of cheering him; "what ails ye?"


s: "I think I must have come down here to think,"


s: Says he to that, and pulls his little beard;


s: "Your fly will serve as well as anybody,


s: And what's his hour?  He flies, and flies, and flies,


s: And in his fly's mind has a brave appearance;


s: And then your spider gets him in her net,


s: And eats him out, and hangs him up to dry.


s: That's Nature, the kind mother of us all.


s: And then your slattern housemaid swings her broom,


s: And where's your spider?  And that's Nature, also.


s: It's Nature, and it's Nothing.  It's all Nothing.


s: It's all a world where bugs and emperors


s: Each in his time; and the old, ordered stars


s: That sang together, Ben, will sing the same


s: But lead him to some grateful nook like this


s: Where we be now, and there to make him drink.


s: He'll drink, for love of me, and then be sick;


s: Should be as large in liquor as in love,--


s: And our great friend is not so large in either:


s: One disaffects him, and the other fails him;


s: Whatso he drinks that has an antic in it,


s: He's wondering what's to pay in his insides;


s: He's fribbling all the time with that damned House.


s: We laugh here at his thrift, but after all


s: It may be thrift that saves him from the devil;


s: To-day the clouds are with him, but anon


s: He'll out of 'em enough to shake the tree


s: Of life itself and bring down fruit unheard-of,--


s: And, throwing in the bruised and whole together,


s: Prepare a wine to make us drunk with wonder;


s: And if he live, there'll be a sunset spell


s: That yesterday was all a black wild water.


s: God send he live to give us, if no more,


s: What now's a-rampage in him, and exhibit,


s: With a decent half-allegiance to the ages


s: Turned once on what he owes to Gutenberg,


s: Than are as yet a picture in our vision.


s: "There's time enough,--I'll do it when I'm old,


s: And we're immortal men," he says to that;


s: And then he says to me, "Ben, what's 'immortal'?


s: Than a small oblivion of component ashes


s: A moving atomy much like your friend here?"


s: Nothing will help that man.  To make him laugh,


s: I could have eat an eft then, on my knees,


s: Tail, claws, and all of him; for I had stung


s: The king of men, who had no sting for me,


s: He'll do it when he's old, he says.  I wonder.


s: Will do itself,--but there's a reckoning;


s: The sessions that are now too much his own,


s: The roiling inward of a stilled outside,


s: The churning out of all those blood-fed lines,


s: The nights of many schemes and little sleep,


s: The full brain hammered hot with too much thinking,


s: The vexed heart over-worn with too much aching,--


s: This weary jangling of conjoined affairs


s: Is not what makes a man to live forever.


s: There'll be time yet for God knows what explosions


s: Before he goes.  He'll stay awhile.  Just wait:


s: Sings in a man, he may then, if he's able,


s: Strike unafraid whatever strings he will


s: Nor out of his new magic, though it hymn


s: The shrieks of dungeoned hell, shall he create


s: A cleaving daylight, and a last great calm


s: Triumphant over shipwreck and all storms.


s: But surely would have given him his 'katharsis'.


s: He'll not be going yet.  There's too much yet


s: Unsung within the man.  But when he goes,


s: I'd stake ye coin o' the realm his only care


s: For a phantom world he sounded and found wanting


s: Will be a portion here, a portion there,


s: Of this or that thing or some other thing


s: Equivalence in those egregious shillings.


s: And yet he knows, God help him!  Tell me, now,


s: Like this mad, careful, proud, indifferent Shakespeare!


s: Where was it, if it ever was?  By heaven,


s: In Thebes or Nineveh, a thing like this!


s: No thing like this was ever out of England;


s: And that he knows.  I wonder if he cares.


s: Perhaps he does....  O Lord, that House in Stratford!


s: Between the gray Arch and the old Hotel.


s: "King Solomon was right, there's nothing new,"


s: Said he.  "Behold a ruin who meant well."


s: "My dreams have all come true to other men,"


s: Said he; "God lives, however, and why care?


s: "An hour among the ghosts will do no harm."


s: He laughed, and something glad within me sank.


s: For now his laugh was lost in what he drank.


s: "They chill things here with ice from hell," he said;


s: "I might have known it."  And he made a face


s: That showed again how much of him was dead,


s: And how much was alive and out of place,


s: That all the words of wise men who are skilled


s: What comes when memory meets the unfulfilled.


s: Had been at work with him to bring him back?


s: "You ponder like an owl," he said at last;


s: "You always did, and here you have a cause.


s: A vengeance, and a flowering of what was.


s: "Sorry?  Of course you are, though you compress,


s: As large as hope, in ink that shines by night.


s: At you, and you are not a pleasant sight.


s: "Forbear, forgive.  Ten years are on my soul,


s: "'Twas hope, though heaven I grant you knows of what--


s: The kind that blinks and rises when it falls,


s: That heard Broadway's hard-throated siren-calls;


s: "'Twas hope that brought me through December storms,


s: To shores again where I'll not have to be


s: "But what it was that hurried me down here


s: My thanks are yours, no less, for one thing clear:


s: Though you are silent, what you say is true.


s: "There may have been the devil in my feet,


s: To find the old room in Eleventh Street.


s: God save us!--I came here again to live."


s: We rose at that, and all the ghosts rose then,


s: We found it, and we shivered in the gloom.


s: The goods he took away from there were few,


s: And soon we found ourselves outside once more,


s: Bloomed white for miles above an iron floor.


s: He said, "and let your spleen be undeceived:


s: This ruin is not myself, but some one else;


s: I haven't failed; I've merely not achieved."


s: Whether he knew or not, he laughed and dined


s: Than many a child at forty would confess;


s: And after, when the bells in 'Boris' rang


s: He rocked himself, and I believe he sang.


s: "God lives," he crooned aloud, "and I'm the man!"


s: He was.  And even though the creature spoiled


s: Three weeks he fattened; and five years he toiled


s: In Yonkers,--and then sauntered into fame.


s: And he may go now to what streets he will--


s: But he would find the old room very still


s: Of evenings, and the ghosts would all be there.


s: His memories are like lamps, and they go out;


s: Or if they burn, they flicker and are dim.


s: Than growing old alone among the ghosts.


s: But we may still be glad that we were wrong:


s: He fooled us, and we'd shrivel to deny it;


s: Though sometimes when old echoes ring too long,


s: I wish the bells in 'Boris' would be quiet.


s: Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair.


s: And, having followed, you would find him


s: God knows what good it was to blind him,


s: He smiles, and her cold hush berates him


s: He blames her not, nor does he chide her,


s: Not even a smeared young Cyclops at his games


s: Would have you long,--and you are one of us.


s: Told of your deeds I shudder for your dreams,


s: And they, no doubt, are few and innocent.


s: Meanwhile, I marvel; for in you, it seems,


s: What lingering bit of Belial, unforeseen,


s: But not a friend of us would have him weep.


s: Admiring everything that lives and dies,


s: Sleep--sleep; and let us find another man


s: To laugh at them, were she to see them here,


s: Than theirs; but anguish has no eye for grace,


s: When time's malicious mercy cautions them


s: To think a while of number and of space.


s: The martyred humor, and the maimed allure,


s: But they, though others fade and are still fair,


s: Although they suffer, they may not forswear


s: Poor flesh, to fight the calendar so long;


s: Poor vanity, so quaint and yet so brave;


s: Poor folly, so deceived and yet so strong,


s: So far from Ninon and so near the grave.


s: To scorch him than hell's engines could awaken,


s: He scanned again, too far to be so near,


s: Than his to see with older sight behind them


s: Had known so long their one way to be wise,--


s: Was any other thing to do than mind them?


s: Confusion on his faith,--could he but wonder


s: If he were mad and right, or if he feared


s: God's fury told in shafted flame and thunder?


s: There fell one day upon his eyes a light


s: Ethereal, and he heard no more men speaking;


s: He saw their shaken heads, but no long sight


s: Was his but for the end that he went seeking.


s: The end he sought was not the end; the crown


s: Moreover, there was reason here to frown:


s: No fury thundered, no flame fell from heaven.


s: Think not, because I wonder where you fled,


s: That I would lift a pin to see you there;


s: So long as you show not your little head:


s: Would leave you less pernicious or less fair--


s: I cannot hate you, for I loved you then.


s: The woods were golden then.  There was a road


s: Through beeches; and I said their smooth feet showed


s: Like yours.  Truth must have heard me from afar,


s: That yours are cloven as no beech's are.


s: The few left who know where to find her--


s: With even the stopped ears of the strong


s: And would have scratched her for her face,


s: From her, whose losses are their pleasure;


s: Stays not the flight that others measure;


s: So there she waits, and while she lives,


s: For bits of childhood song they treasure.


s: From which there will be no more flying.


s: And to-night would have been as a knife,


s: In the leaves that are crinkled and curled


s: But he smiles, for no more shall his days


s: As you look from here are the first one sees


s: Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade


s: And a house like that, and the Briony gold,


s: Would have said, "There are still some gods to please,


s: And houses are built without hands, we're told."


s: There are the pillars, and all gone gray.


s: Where the garden was if you come this way.


s: That sun-dial scared him, he said to me;


s: And he never got that from the books he read.


s: But he knew too much for the life he led.


s: There's more to be known of his harvesting


s: When Time the thresher unbinds the sheaves;


s: And there's more to be heard than a wind that grieves


s: Driving the first of its withered leaves


s: Over the stones where the fountain broke.


s: Your eyes are dead, and your black hair,--


s: Eileen.  You saved him.  You are strong.


s: You might have said that word, Eileen,--


s: And you'll be old...  He liked you, too.


s: He built--she found them, and they fell.


s: And so, through frost and clicking leaves,


s: I've tried the world, and found it good,


s: Poor Finzer, with his dreams and schemes,


s: Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher,


s: With nothing on it for the flame to kill


s: Save one who moved and was alone up there


s: Dark, marvelous, and inscrutable he moved on


s: Till down the fiery distance he was gone,--


s: Like one of those eternal, remote things


s: When a sure music fills him and he knows


s: What he may say thereafter to few men,--


s: An echo and a glimpse of what he thought


s: For whether lighted over ways that save,


s: Even he, who stood where I had found him,


s: That seemed half ready with him to go down,


s: As if there were to be no last thing left


s: Even he who climbed and vanished may have taken


s: Down to the perils of a depth not known,


s: From death defended though by men forsaken,


s: The bread that every man must eat alone;


s: He may have walked while others hardly dared


s: Look on to see him stand where many fell;


s: To mount where more of him shall yet be given,


s: Who made himself so great that God, who heard,


s: Covered him with long feathers, like a bird.


s: And one to make the eyes of her who bore him


s: Why question of his ease of who before him,


s: Their names as far behind them as their bones,


s: And yet by dint of slaughter toil and theft,


s: No more than what his innocence requires,


s: And therefore to no other height aspires


s: Than one at which he neither quails nor tires?


s: He may, by seeing all things for the best,


s: The fires of time on equal terms and passed


s: His only kind of grandeur would have been,


s: To failure or to glory, and least of all


s: He may have been a player without a part,


s: Annoyed that even the sun should have the skies


s: He may have been a painter sick at heart


s: With Nature's toiling for a new surprise;


s: He may have been a cynic, who now, for all


s: Saw truth in his own image, rather small,


s: And in the sun saw power superbly wasted;


s: And when the primitive old-fashioned stars


s: Came out again to shine on joys and wars


s: More primitive, and all arrayed for doom,


s: He may have proved a world a sorry thing


s: Or, mounting with infirm unsearching tread,


s: He may have stumbled up there from the past,


s: And with an aching strangeness viewed the last


s: To burn but flame itself, by nothing fed;


s: May then have eased a painful going down


s: From pictured heights of power and lost renown,


s: Revealed at length to his outlived endeavor


s: Sick memories of a dead faith foiled and flawed


s: And anguish fallen on those he loved around him


s: May once have dealt the last blow to confound him,


s: And so have left him as death leaves a child,


s: There may be nothing kinder for him here


s: Or, seeing in death too small a thing to fear,


s: Where pangs and terrors in his pathway lie,--


s: Who might have stood aloft and looked ahead,


s: He may have built, unawed by fiery gules


s: And one for smiling when he might have sighed


s: A world without a meaning, and had room,


s: That should, or fail him in his vague intent,


s: Like once-remembered mighty trees go down


s: To ruin, of which by man may now be traced


s: And in the book of things that are forgotten


s: Is entered as a thing not quite worth while.


s: That satraps would have shivered at his frown,


s: And all he prized alive may rule a state


s: No larger than a grave that holds a clown;


s: Doomed here to swell by dangerous degrees,


s: Nahum's great grasshoppers were such as these,


s: Whatever the dark road he may have taken,


s: Whatever drove or lured or guided him,--


s: A crazed abhorrence of an old condition,


s: A blind attendance on a brief ambition,--


s: And we, with all our wounds and all our powers,


s: And there, of our poor self dominion reft,


s: What then were this great love of ours to say


s: For launching other lives to voyage again


s: A manifest end of ashes and eternal night?


s: So loud,--as if there might be no mistake


s: Are we no greater than the noise we make


s: Because our brains and bones and cartilage


s: If this we say, then let us all be still


s: Where was he going, this man against the sky?


s: And of our transience here make offering


s: To an orient Word that will not be erased,


s: A ruthless, veiled, implacable foretaste


s: Shall seem to move the world the way it goes;


s: And all for what, the devil only knows--


s: When infant Science makes a pleasant face


s: And waves again that hollow toy, the Race;


s: No planetary trap where souls are wrought


s: For nothing but the sake of being caught


s: Why man should hunger through another season


s: To find out why 'twere better late than soon


s: And those that root and trumpet and have wings,


s: Or dive and flash and poise in rivers and seas,


s: Hang screeching lewd victorious derision


s: Too vast an answer for the time-born words


s: We spell, whereof so many are dead that once


s: When Death let fall a feather from his wings


s: Falls here too sore and there too tedious,


s: And if we see the soul's dead end in death,


s: What folly is here that has not yet a name


s: Unless we say outright that we are liars?


s: What have we seen beyond our sunset fires


s: That lights again the way by which we came?


s: Why pay we such a price, and one we give


s: So clamoringly, for each racked empty day


s: That leads one more last human hope away,


s: As quiet fiends would lead past our crazed eyes


s: If after all that we have lived and thought,


s: 'Twere sure but weaklings' vain distress


s: To the dark tideless floods of Nothingness


s: Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation


s: Author of "The Man Against the Sky", "Merlin, A Poem", etc.


s: Several poems included in this book appeared originally


s: There were faces to remember in the Valley of the Shadow,


s: There were faces unregarded, there were faces to forget;


s: For at first, with an amazed and overwhelming indignation


s: At a measureless malfeasance that obscurely willed it thus,


s: There were blighted sons of wonder in the Valley of the Shadow,


s: Which had been, before the cradle, Time's inexorable tenants


s: Of what were now the dusty ruins of their father's dreams.


s: And they were going forward only farther into darkness,


s: Unrelieved as were the blasting obligations of their birth;


s: And among them, giving always what was not for their possession,


s: There were maidens, very quiet, with no quiet in their eyes:


s: There were daughters of the silence in the Valley of the Shadow,


s: Each an isolated item in the family sacrifice.


s: There were some who stirred the ruins with a solid imprecation,


s: While as many fled repentance for the promise of despair:


s: There were drinkers of wrong waters in the Valley of the Shadow,


s: There were some who knew the steps of Age incredibly beside them,


s: And their last of empty trophies was a gilded cup of nothing,


s: Which a contemplating vagabond would not have come to steal.


s: Long and often had they figured for a larger valuation,


s: But the size of their addition was the balance of a doubt:


s: There were gentlemen of leisure in the Valley of the Shadow,


s: Not allured by retrospection, disenchanted, and played out.


s: And among the dark endurances of unavowed reprisals


s: There were silent eyes of envy that saw little but saw well;


s: And over beauty's aftermath of hazardous ambitions


s: Dreaming rather less of heaven than of hell when they were old.


s: Now and then, as if to scorn the common touch of common sorrow,


s: There were some who gave a few the distant pity of a smile;


s: And another cloaked a soul as with an ash of human embers,


s: Having covered thus a treasure that would last him for a while.


s: There were many by the presence of the many disaffected,


s: Whose exemption was included in the weight that others bore:


s: There were seekers after darkness in the Valley of the Shadow,


s: And they alone were there to find what they were looking for.


s: And a question that has held us heretofore without an answer


s: May abide without an answer until all have ceased to mourn.


s: There are builders of new mansions in the Valley of the Shadow,


s: And among them are the dying and the blinded and the maimed.


s: When the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us


s: At last?  And is it you now that are gazing


s: That I should come to Rome?  I did say that;


s: On westward, where the gateway of the world


s: Lets in the central sea.  I did say that,


s: A voice made free.  If there be time enough


s: To live, I may have more to tell you then


s: Where Caesar waits for me, and I shall wait,


s: Had I stayed free of Caesar; but the word


s: Of God would have it as you see it is --


s: And here I am.  The cup that I shall drink


s: Is mine to drink -- the moment or the place


s: Be it now in Rome; and if your faith exceed


s: Too surely or too soon that years and shipwreck,


s: That are not named or regioned, have undone


s: Beyond the brevities of our mortal healing


s: Prone to the earth when he was nigh Damascus,


s: Where the great light came down; yet I am he


s: That fell, and he that saw, and he that heard.


s: For this pernicious feast of time and men --


s: Well, I have seen too much of time and men


s: To fear the ravening or the wrath of either.


s: For saying Something was beyond the Law,


s: And in ourselves.  I fed my suffering soul


s: Not knowing that I starved.  How should I know,


s: More then than any, that the food I had --


s: What else it may have been -- was not for me?


s: My fathers and their fathers and their fathers


s: Had found it good, and said there was no other,


s: And I was of the line.  When Stephen fell,


s: Among the stones that crushed his life away,


s: There was no place alive that I could see


s: For such a man.  Why should a man be given


s: To live beyond the Law?  So I said then,


s: Persist in living?  Is that what you ask?


s: No living answer; for Time writes of death


s: On men before they die, and what you see


s: Is not the man.  The man that you see not --


s: The man within the man -- is most alive;


s: Though hatred would have ended, long ago,


s: The bane of his activities.  I have lived,


s: Because the faith within me that is life


s: Endures to live, and shall, till soon or late,


s: Death, like a friend unseen, shall say to me


s: Have I said I should be with you in Rome!


s: Or comes too late, you may have told yourselves;


s: The wolves are coming.  Have an eye for them,


s: And a more careful ear for their confusion


s: Than you need have much longer for the sound


s: Of what I tell you -- should I live to say


s: Is down for you to read in what is written;


s: As time flays yet the remnant.  This you know;


s: With a sharp word that hurts, it is because


s: And I am of a race that feels.  Moreover,


s: The world is here for what is not yet here


s: For more than are a few; and even in Rome,


s: The music of your love and of your faith


s: How much of love you know, and if your faith


s: Be the shut fruit of words.  If so, remember


s: If they go long without it; and these Gentiles,


s: For the first time in shrieking history,


s: Have love and law together, if so they will,


s: In these last days.  Rome, if I know the name,


s: Will have anon a crown of thorns and fire


s: Made ready for the wreathing of new masters,


s: Should I go presently.  Let the word fall,


s: Of those who preach, fearing they preach in vain.


s: You are to plant, and then to plant again


s: Where you have gathered, gathering as you go;


s: For you are in the fields that are eternal,


s: Upon your mortal shoulders.  What you have


s: Is a light yoke, made lighter by the wearing,


s: Till it shall have the wonder and the weight


s: That if they be of men these things are nothing,


s: And you know, by the temper of your faith,


s: Or there, or not there, or not anywhere,


s: Is not the Word that lives and is the life;


s: And you, therefore, need weary not yourselves


s: With jealous aches of others.  If the world


s: Were not a world of aches and innovations,


s: Attainment would have no more joy of it.


s: There will be creeds and schisms, creeds in creeds,


s: And schisms in schisms; myriads will be done


s: To death because a farthing has two sides,


s: And is at last a farthing.  Telling you this,


s: I, who bid men to live, appeal to Caesar.


s: Once I had said the ways of God were dark,


s: Meaning by that the dark ways of the Law.


s: For the Law kills the flesh that kills the Law,


s: And we are then alive.  We have eyes then;


s: And we have then the Cross between two worlds --


s: Till we have eyes indeed.  The fire that smites


s: A few on highways, changing all at once,


s: Is not for all.  The power that holds the world


s: Away from God that holds himself away --


s: Farther away than all your works and words


s: Are like to fly without the wings of faith --


s: Was not, nor ever shall be, a small hazard


s: Or the cold road of knowledge.  When our eyes


s: Have wisdom, we see more than we remember;


s: May then become a smitten glimpse of ruin,


s: Like one where vanished hewers have had their day


s: Meanwhile, we suffer; and I come to you,


s: At last, through many storms and through much night.


s: My keepers in this instance are not hard.


s: I might indeed be curious of their mercy,


s: And fearful of their leisure while I wait,


s: A few leagues out of Rome.  Men go to Rome,


s: Not always to return -- but not that now.


s: Meanwhile, I seem to think you look at me


s: With eyes that are at last more credulous


s: No sort of leaping giant, though some words


s: Of mine to you from Corinth may have leapt


s: A little through your eyes into your soul.


s: Today; for there be none that shall indite


s: Who writes in the Lord's name for his name's sake


s: And has not in his blood the fire of time


s: If once the light is in him and endures --


s: Set free to sift the decencies and thereby


s: For sorrow, more of pleasure than of pain;


s: Though if his light be not the light indeed,


s: But a brief shine that never really was,


s: And fails, leaving him worse than where he was,


s: And here were not an issue for much ink,


s: Or much offending faction among scribes.


s: And when I say to you that we possess it


s: In such a measure as faith makes it ours,


s: Of having seen and heard, and seen again,


s: To the last hour that faith affords alone


s: The Kingdom entrance and an entertainment,


s: To man that he shall sit with folded hands


s: The clamoring word that is the word of life


s: Of their tomb-serving doubts.  If I have loosed


s: A shaft of language that has flown sometimes


s: A little higher than the hearts and heads


s: Of nature's minions, it will yet be heard,


s: Like a new song that waits for distant ears.


s: And while I own that earth is my affliction,


s: Are for the larger sowing; and your seed,


s: A little mixed, will have, as He foresaw,


s: And one without an end.  Many there are,


s: And are to be, that shall partake of it,


s: Though none may share it with an understanding


s: That is not his alone.  We are all alone;


s: And yet we are all parcelled of one order --


s: As names yet in a book.  And there are many,


s: Finding at last that words are not the Word,


s: And finding only that, will flourish aloft,


s: Like heads of captured Pharisees on pikes,


s: And there are many more will hang themselves


s: The friend of all who fail, and in their faith


s: As long as there are glasses that are dark --


s: And there are many -- we see darkly through them;


s: In words that have no shadow.  What is dark


s: And a way home from shipwreck to the shore;


s: And so, through pangs and ills and desperations,


s: There may be light for all.  There shall be light.


s: As much as that, you know.  You cannot say


s: On whom it falls; you are not here for that.


s: Be soon the fire itself.  The few at first


s: Before you, when the sick were lying down


s: In streets all night for Peter's passing shadow.


s: Fight, and say what you feel; say more than words.


s: Give men to know that even their days of earth


s: To come are more than ages that are gone.


s: Say what you feel, while you have time to say it.


s: Meanwhile, as dreams of hell.  See not your toil


s: And when you seem, as many a time you may,


s: To have no other friend than hope, remember


s: That you are not the first, or yet the last.


s: The shadows of ourselves (and they are less


s: Than even the blindest of indignant eyes


s: Would have them) is in what we do not know.


s: Make, then, for all your fears a place to sleep


s: With all your faded sins; nor think yourselves


s: Of youth and yesterday.  I was young once;


s: And there's a question if you played the fool


s: Or gave your necks to folly's conquering foot,


s: Or flung yourselves with an unstudied aim,


s: Less frequently than I.  Never mind that.


s: Man's little house of days will hold enough,


s: Sometimes, to make him wish it were not his,


s: But it will not hold all.  Things that are dead


s: Are best without it, and they own their death


s: By virtue of their dying.  Let them go, --


s: But think you not the world is ashes yet,


s: And you have all the fire.  The world is here


s: For there are millions, and there may be more,


s: Of its old ills and ashes, and the traps


s: That hear not yet, shall have ears given to them,


s: And then they shall hear strangely.  Many with eyes


s: Shall yet be driven to feel, and then to read


s: Where language has an end and is a veil,


s: Their kind are soon to know that without love


s: Their faith is but the perjured name of nothing.


s: See now no time for hate; I that have left,


s: That are to shine no more for my returning,


s: Home, friends, and honors, -- I that have lost all else


s: For wisdom, and the wealth of it, say now


s: To you that out of wisdom has come love,


s: That measures and is of itself the measure


s: Of works and hope and faith.  Your longest hours


s: Are not so long that you may torture them


s: And harass not yourselves; and the last days


s: Are on the way that you prepare for them,


s: And was prepared for you, here in a world


s: Where you have sinned and suffered, striven and seen.


s: Before they come that you consume yourselves,


s: Peace may attend you all in these last days --


s: And me, as well as you.  Yes, even in Rome.


s: Well, I have talked and rested, though I fear


s: My rest has not been yours; in which event,


s: From Caesar.  When I told you I should come,


s: You contemplate, for seeing beyond the Law


s: That which the Law saw not.  But this, indeed,


s: Was good of you, and I shall not forget;


s: To meet a man so dangerous.  Well, farewell.


s: With them.  I hope that we shall meet again,


s: But none may say what he shall find in Rome.


s: And least intent on what most I require,


s: Beware, I say, the failure and the shame


s: The gift that I was bringing when I came.


s: Whereby to see that with you there are some


s: Before the wrangling and the shrill delight


s: And shall not, if I fail you -- as I might.


s: That you see not how near you are the gates


s: Rather be then your prayer that you shall have


s: See not the great among you for the small,


s: But hear their silence; for the few shall save


s: Unyielding in the pride of his defiance,


s: Afloat with none to serve or to command,


s: Lord of himself at last, and all by Science,


s: Alone, by the one light of his one thought,


s: He steers to find the shore from which we came, --


s: Fearless of in what coil he may be caught


s: Into the night he sails; and after night


s: There is a dawning, though there be no sun;


s: Wherefore, with nothing but himself in sight,


s: Between the flood before him and the sky;


s: And then -- though he may curse the Power aloud


s: He steers himself away from what is haunted


s: By the old ghost of what has been before, --


s: and a few years before the political ingenuities of Burr --


s: who has been characterized, without much exaggeration,


s: Hamilton, if he rides you down, remember


s: That I was here to speak, and so to save


s: Your fabric from catastrophe.  That's good;


s: For I perceive that you observe him also.


s: But why be dusted -- when we're all alike,


s: All equal, and all happy.  Here he comes --


s: And there he goes.  And we, by your new patent,


s: Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside,


s: With our two hats off to his Excellency.


s: But you that weld our credit should have eyes


s: To see what's coming.  Bury me first if -I- do.


s: There's always in some pocket of your brain


s: With your concern.  Yes, Burr, we are two kings;


s: But owe me not your sceptre.  These are the days


s: When first a few seem all; but if we live,


s: That we have always been.  These are the days


s: When men forget the stars, and are forgotten.


s: But why forget them?  They're the same that winked


s: Cut off his dog's tail to induce distinction.


s: God knows; and I can hear them in my dreams.


s: Never a doubt.  But what you hear the most


s: Is your new music, something out of tune


s: With your intention.  How in the name of Cain,


s: I seem to hear you ask, are men to dance,


s: When all men are musicians.  Tell me that,


s: I hear you saying, and I'll tell you the name


s: Of Samson's mother.  But why shroud yourself


s: Before the coffin comes?  For all you know,


s: The tree that is to fall for your last house


s: So long as to be sorry; though I doubt it,


s: For you are not at home in your new Eden


s: A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders.


s: Give over thinking.  We are done with ermine.


s: But those who are to loop it with a string


s: That has one end in France and one end here.


s: That I could swear that more than half a score


s: Among us who see lightning see that ruin


s: Is not the work of thunder.  Since the world


s: Was ordered, there was never a long pause


s: I leave to you the names -- there are too many;


s: Yet one there is to sift and hold apart,


s: As now I see.  There comes at last a glimmer


s: That is not always clouded, or too late.


s: But I was near and young, and had the reins


s: To play with while he manned a team so raw


s: That only God knows where the end had been


s: There was a nation in the man who passed us,


s: If there was not a world.  I may have driven


s: Since then some restive horses, and alone,


s: And through a splashing of abundant mud;


s: But he who made the dust that sets you on


s: To coughing, made the road.  Now it seems dry,


s: From Hamilton.  Has your caution all at once,


s: And over night, grown till it wrecks the cradle?


s: When I was born, but there's a rustling of it


s: And fondled heretofore of your same caution.


s: But that's affairs, not feelings.  If our friends


s: Guessed half we say of them, our enemies


s: Would itch in our friends' jackets.  Howsoever,


s: And all are spilled -- unless you cling alone


s: We fish for lizards when we choose to ask


s: And we must eat the answer.  Where's the use


s: Of asking when this man says everything,


s: I dare say, but I won't.  One of those tongues


s: I'll borrow for the nonce.  He'll never miss it.


s: We mean his Western Majesty, King George.


s: I mean the man who rode by on his horse.


s: I'll beg of you the meed of your indulgence


s: If I should say this planet may have done


s: Then you concede his Majesty?  That's good,


s: And what of yours?  Here are two majesties.


s: Or you'll be floundering in the ditch that waits


s: For riders who forget where they are riding.


s: Must eat each other, what Caesar, if not yourself,


s: There may be a place waiting on your head


s: For laurel thick as Nero's.  You don't know.


s: I have not crossed your glory, though I might


s: If war is on the way, I shall be -- here;


s: And I've no vision of your distant heels.


s: To bed with me to-night to keep me warm.


s: Of him you lean on while he leans on you.


s: That you may win to lose.  I beg your pardon,


s: But you that have the sight will not employ


s: The will to see with it.  If you did so,


s: There might be fewer ditches dug for others


s: In your perspective; and there might be fewer


s: Between you and the man who made the dust.


s: But hold your disposition off the balance,


s: And weigh him in the light.  Once (I believe


s: Or to the tongues of towns and villages)


s: That I was, by the grace of honest fortune,


s: Where I might have observed, more than I did,


s: Patience and wholesome passion.  I was there,


s: Than some advice at which he may have smiled.


s: Or the rough interval between those days


s: And these would never have made for me my friends,


s: Or enemies.  I should be something somewhere --


s: I say not what -- but I should not be here


s: If he had not been there.  Possibly, too,


s: You might not -- or that Quaker with his cane.


s: Possibly, too, I should.  When the Almighty


s: Rides a white horse, I fancy we shall know it.


s: It was a man, Burr, that was in my mind;


s: No god, or ghost, or demon -- only a man:


s: Of those who would not feel it if it bit them;


s: And one who shapes an age while he endures


s: The genius that is one spark or is nothing:


s: That they may view him only through the mist


s: It seems to me the mystery that is in him


s: May be, as you -- so leave him with his fire:


s: God knows that I shall never put it out.


s: In his pursuit of me, though I have heard


s: Parts make a whole, if we've enough of them;


s: Of your republic.  But I must have erred.


s: You smile as if your spirit lived at ease


s: With error.  I should not have named it so,


s: To comb the tangled language of the people


s: As to be sure of anything in these days.


s: Have you, in the last region of your dreaming,


s: To do with "people"?  You may be the devil


s: In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals


s: Unless you steer it, but you'll find it irksome


s: Alone there in the stern; and some warm day


s: There'll be an inland music in the rigging,


s: And afterwards on deck.  I'm not affined


s: But there's a mighty swarming of new bees


s: If you hear something buzzing before long,


s: Be thoughtful how you strike, remembering also


s: There was a fellow Naboth had a vineyard,


s: And Ahab cut his hair off and went softly.


s: I don't remember that he cut his hair off.


s: But where, if I may ask it, are you tending


s: With your invidious wielding of the Scriptures?


s: Who fell to make him famous.  Would you fall


s: I shall acquaint myself a little further


s: With our new land's new language, which is not --


s: Peace to your dreams -- an idiom to your liking.


s: Could be decreed for a good man to vanish


s: Than about now for you, before you fade,


s: And even your friends are seeing that you have had


s: Your cup too full for longer mortal triumph.


s: Well, you have had enough, and had it young;


s: Than you are to the work that you are doing.


s: Of your blue back, which I for love pursued,


s: And in pursuing may have saved your life --


s: Also the world a pounding piece of news:


s: Or for your fame, I'd wish it might have been so.


s: So jealous for the other's fame.  How long


s: Of Demos -- and what for?  Have you a sword


s: No matter where you are, one of these days


s: I shall come back to you and tell you something.


s: This Demos, I have heard, has in his wrist


s: Counted and found the same, and in his mouth


s: For saying or not for saying what most it is


s: To tell you more of him and his opinions;


s: I shall not be so long out of your sight,


s: So?  Must I go so far?  And if so, why so?


s: I had not planned it so.  Is this the road


s: Though for your sake I would not have you now


s: God knows how much a stranger to my heart


s: Was any cold word that I may have written;


s: And you, poor woman that I made my wife,


s: You have had more of loneliness, I fear,


s: Than I -- though I have been the most alone,


s: And serve, and suffer, and withal be glad


s: When his old bones, that are a burden now,


s: Are saying what the man who carried them


s: Had not the power to say.  Bones in a grave,


s: Cover them as they will with choking earth,


s: May shout the truth to men who put them there,


s: More than all orators.  And so, my dear,


s: Since you have cheated wisdom for the sake


s: This last of nights before the last of days,


s: That is the most alive.  There is no death


s: For me in what they do.  Their death it is


s: They should heed most when the sun comes again


s: To make them solemn.  There are some I know


s: Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation,


s: For tears in them -- and all for one old man;


s: For some of them will pity this old man,


s: Because he pitied millions.  That will be


s: To say; for they can say no more than that,


s: And they can do no more than what the dawn


s: Of one more day shall give them light enough


s: And there are many men to give their blood,


s: As I gave mine for them.  May they come soon!


s: May they come soon, I say.  And when they come,


s: May all that I have said unheard be heard,


s: Proving at last, or maybe not -- no matter --


s: That made me strike, whether I found the mark


s: Or missed it.  Meanwhile, I've a strange content,


s: And when the Voice, that I have heard so long,


s: The coming work of death which is to be,


s: That life may be.  There is no other way


s: That will not know itself and is tonight


s: Till they are told and told, and told again;


s: For men are children, waiting to be told,


s: And most of them are children all their lives.


s: And shame them into deeds.  The major file


s: See only what their fathers may have seen,


s: Or may have said they saw when they saw nothing.


s: Now and again to some lone soul or other


s: God speaks, and there is hanging to be done, --


s: As once there was a burning of our bodies


s: Alive, albeit our souls were sorry fuel.


s: But now the fires are few, and we are poised


s: A few still minutes between heaven and earth.


s: The purpose is, when they have seen enough


s: To pluck me as an unripe fruit of treason,


s: And then to fling me back to the same earth


s: Of which they are, as I suppose, the flower --


s: Not given to know the riper fruit that waits


s: Yes, may they come, and soon.  Again I say,


s: May they come soon! -- before too many of them


s: Shall be the bloody cost of our defection.


s: When hell waits on the dawn of a new state,


s: Better it were that hell should not wait long, --


s: Than they who talk and tremble for me now,


s: That are for me no fear.  Too many fires


s: Have sought me out and seared me to the bone --


s: That will not sleep in history.  What men say


s: I was will cool no cannon, dull no sword,


s: And the long train is lighted that shall burn,


s: Though floods of wrath may drench it, and hot feet


s: May stamp it for a slight time into smoke


s: That shall blaze up again with growing speed,


s: To cleanse and shake a wounded hemisphere,


s: Tonight there are men saying many things;


s: Will answer first the coming call to death;


s: For death is what is coming, and then life.


s: Of speech what you have heard me say before,


s: Than man's alone.  I was not after glory,


s: But there was glory with me, like a friend,


s: Throughout those crippling years when friends were few,


s: And fearful to be known by their own names


s: When mine was vilified for their approval.


s: Yet friends they are, and they did what was given


s: Their will to do; they could have done no more.


s: And you, my dear, are not to mourn for me,


s: Or for your sons, more than a soul should mourn


s: In Paradise, done with evil and with earth.


s: There is not much of earth in what remains


s: For you; and what there may be left of it


s: For your endurance you shall have at last


s: In peace, without the twinge of any fear


s: With plans and actions that have heretofore


s: Made your days long and your nights ominous


s: That were between us.  When the silence comes,


s: Than I am now in fact.  What you see now


s: Older than years have made him.  Let him die,


s: And let him be a thing for little grief.


s: There was a time for service, and he served;


s: But a short gratefulness to those who gave


s: Their scared allegiance to an enterprise


s: That has the name of treason -- which will serve


s: There are some deeds of men that have no names,


s: And mine may like as not be one of them.


s: Until men gave him one; yet there He was,


s: Of which one, with His aid, is to be swept


s: And washed out of the world with fire and blood.


s: Once I believed it might have come to pass


s: With a small cost of blood; but I was dreaming --


s: Dreaming that I believed.  The Voice I heard


s: When I left you behind me in the north, --


s: To wait there and to wonder and grow old


s: Of loneliness, -- told only what was best,


s: And with a saving vagueness, I should know


s: Till I knew more.  And had I known even then --


s: After grim years of search and suffering,


s: After my sickening doubts and estimations


s: Of plans abandoned and of new plans vain --


s: For men with every virtue but the Vision --


s: Could I have known, I say, before I left you


s: That summer morning, all there was to know --


s: That would have blasted every mortal answer


s: I might have trembled on that summer morning;


s: I might have wavered; and I might have failed.


s: To say of me that I had best have wavered.


s: For those of us who give ourselves to die


s: They give us hardly time enough for that,


s: And thereby we gain much by losing little.


s: Than I who tell you this, or more to gain;


s: And whether I speak as one to be destroyed


s: For no good end outside his own destruction,


s: Time shall have more to say than men shall hear


s: Between now and the coming of that harvest


s: Which is to come.  Before it comes, I go --


s: By the short road that mystery makes long


s: I shall have more to say when I am dead.


s: "We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,


s: From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet.


s: "You may swear that we are solid, you may say that we are strong,


s: You may find an easy worship in acclaiming our indulgence,


s: But your large admiration of us now is not for long.


s: "If your doom is to adore us with a doubt that's never still,


s: And you pray to see our faces -- pray in earnest, and you will.


s: You may gaze at us and live, and live assured of our confusion:


s: For the False Gods are mortal, and are made for you to kill.


s: "And you may as well observe, while apprehensively at ease


s: With an Art that's inorganic and is anything you please,


s: That anon your newest ruin may lie crumbling unregarded,


s: Like an old shrine forgotten in a forest of new trees.


s: "Howsoever like no other be the mode you may employ,


s: There's an order in the ages for the ages to enjoy;


s: "When we promise more than ever of what never shall arrive,


s: And you seem a little more than ordinarily alive,


s: Make a note that you are sure you understand our obligations --


s: For there's grief always auditing where two and two are five.


s: "There was this for us to say and there was this for you to know,


s: If you doubt the only truth in all our perjured composition,


s: May the True Gods attend you and forget us when we go."


s: Where trespassers, whatever their degree,


s: Were soon frowned out again, was looking off


s: "My green hill yonder, where the sun goes down


s: By trees that injured him -- an evil trash


s: That made a cage, and held him while he bled.


s: "Gone fifty years, I see them as they were


s: Before they fell.  They were a crooked lot


s: In fifty years for crooked things to rot.


s: To God or man, for they were thieves of light.


s: So down they came.  Nature and I looked on,


s: And we were glad when they were out of sight.


s: "Trees are like men, sometimes; and that being so,


s: So much for that."  He twinkled in his chair,


s: And looked across the clover to the place


s: That he remembered when the trees were there.


s: If I were not their father and if you were not their mother,


s: And though I pray for them to cease, I know they never will;


s: "And what now in his holy name have you to do with mountains?


s: We're back to town again, my dear, and we've a dance tonight.


s: "God knows if I be right or wrong in saying what I tell you,


s: Or if I know the meaning any more of what I say.


s: All I know is, it will kill me if I try to keep it hidden --


s: Take a chair; and don't begin your stories always in the middle.


s: Was he man, or was he demon?  Anyhow, you've gone too far


s: "I know that you foreshadow the beginning of a scene.


s: Pray be careful, and as accurate as if the doors of heaven


s: Were to swing or to stay bolted from now on for evermore."


s: "Do you conceive, with all your smooth contempt of every feeling,


s: Is it worth a woman's torture to stand here and have you smiling,


s: No thing but one is wholly sure, and that's not one to scare me;


s: When I meet it I may say to God at last that I have tried.


s: And yet, for all I know, or all I dare believe, my trials


s: Henceforward will be more for you to bear than are your own;


s: And you must give me keys of yours to rooms I have not entered.


s: Do you see me on your threshold all my life, and there alone?


s: "Will you tell me what intrinsic and amazing sort of nonsense


s: With a civet and a fish-net, and with you to pay the rent.


s: My dear, before you tell me, in a language unbecoming


s: To a lady, what you plan to tell me next.  If I complain,


s: If I seem an atom peevish at the preference you mention --


s: Or imply, to be precise -- you may believe, or you may not,


s: That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are.


s: But I shouldn't throw that at you.  Make believe that I forgot.


s: When you see me standing helpless on a plank above a whirlpool,


s: Do I drown, or do I hear you when you say it?  Make believe?


s: How much more am I to say or do for you before I tell you


s: That I met him!  What's to follow now may be for you to choose.


s: "If at last you have a notion that I mean what I am saying,


s: Do I seem to tell you nothing when I tell you I shall try?


s: "Do you fancy me the one man who has waited and said nothing


s: While a wife has dragged an old infatuation from a tomb?


s: Give the thing a little air and it will vanish into ashes.


s: It seemed as if I saw the place, and you there at your table,


s: As you are now at this moment, for the last time in my life;


s: And I told myself before I came to find you, `I shall tell him,


s: If I can, what I have learned of him since I became his wife.'


s: And if you say, as I've no doubt you will before I finish,


s: That you have tried unceasingly, with all your might and main,


s: To teach me, knowing more than I of what it was I needed,


s: I believed, if I intruded nothing on you that I cared for,


s: I'd be half as much as horses, -- and it seems that I was wrong;


s: I believed there was enough of earth in me, with all my nonsense


s: Over things that made you sleepy, to keep something still awake;


s: I have said that you must open other doors than I have entered,


s: But I wondered while I said it if I might not be obscure.


s: Is there anything in all your pedigrees and inventories


s: With a value more elusive than a dollar's?  Are you sure


s: That if I starve another year for you I shall be stronger


s: To endure another like it -- and another -- till I'm dead?"


s: "He may not; for they say that even God himself is growing.


s: I wonder if he makes believe that he is growing young;


s: I wonder if he makes believe that women who are giving


s: All they have in holy loathing to a stranger all their lives


s: Are the wise ones who build houses in the Bible. . . ."


s: And if at last I lied my starving soul away to nothing,


s: Are you sure you might not miss it?  Have you come to such a pass


s: One who sees the end already of so much that one end more


s: Would have now the small importance of one other small illusion,


s: For the dancing after dinner.  We shall have to shine tonight.


s: We shall dance, and be as happy as a pair of merry spectres,


s: On the grave of all the lies that we shall never have to tell;


s: We shall dance among the ruins of the tomb of our endurance,


s: And I have not a doubt that we shall do it very well.


s: There! -- I'm glad you've put it back; for I don't like it.


s: No -- no -- don't cancel anything.  I'll dance until I drop.


s: I can't walk yet, but I'm going to. . . .  Go away somewhere,


s: "Whether all towns and all who live in them --


s: So long as they be somewhere in this world


s: Are more or less the same, I leave to you.


s: I should say less.  Whether or not, meanwhile,


s: We've all two legs -- and as for that, we haven't --


s: There were three kinds of men where I was born:


s: The good, the not so good, and Tasker Norcross.


s: Who talked himself at last out of the world


s: He censured, and is therefore silent now,


s: Agreed indifferently:  "My friends are dead --


s: I said, protesting.  "Honor him for his ears;


s: Treasure him also for his understanding."


s: Ferguson sighed, and then talked on again:


s: For saying nothing much and hearing less;


s: And I've a thankless wonder, at the start,


s: What I have now to say of Tasker Norcross,


s: And how much to the air that is around you.


s: Horrors, in fact, if you've a skilful eye


s: To know them at their firesides, or out walking, --"


s: And I would have them, for their best effect,


s: "The wisest of us are not those who laugh


s: Before they know.  Most of us never know --


s: Would not be done.  Most of us never know --


s: In God, if you may have no other.  Norcross,


s: Was given to know more than he should have known,


s: And only God knows why.  See for yourself


s: An old house full of ghosts of ancestors,


s: Who did their best, or worst, and having done it,


s: Died honorably; and each with a distinction


s: That hardly would have been for him that had it,


s: Had honor failed him wholly as a friend.


s: Whether or not we love him, still we have him;


s: And we must live somehow by what we have,


s: Then you must have your molecules in motion,


s: And in their right abundance.  Failing either,


s: You have not long to dance.  Failing a friend,


s: For as much longer than you like as may be.


s: Myself a more or less remembered phantom --


s: Again, I should say less -- how many times


s: A day should I come back to you?  No answer.


s: Forgive me when I seem a little careless,


s: Without them; and I question your adherence


s: As this of mine, without the personal hook."


s: For divers works," I told him.  "Is there one


s: For saying nothing in return for nothing?


s: If not, there should be."  I could feel his eyes,


s: And they were like two cold inquiring points


s: To see them shine, the cold that I had felt


s: Could never quench with kindness or with lies.


s: I should have done whatever there was to do


s: For Ferguson, yet I could not have mourned


s: The loss of him, for my sake or for his,


s: Try as I might; nor would his ghost approve,


s: The road that was behind him -- and without


s: The faith, or friend, or genius, or the madness


s: "It may be quite as well we don't," he said;


s: "As well, I mean, that we don't always say it.


s: You know best what I mean, and I suppose


s: You might have said it better.  What was that?


s: Well, it's a word; and a word has its use,


s: Or, like a man, it will soon have a grave.


s: May be, for all I know, the word for Norcross.


s: See for yourself that house of his again


s: That he called home:  An old house, painted white,


s: Square as a box, and chillier than a tomb


s: To look at or to live in.  There were trees --


s: Too many of them, if such a thing may be --


s: There was a road, a railroad, and a river;


s: Then there were hills behind it, and more trees.


s: The thing would fairly stare at you through trees,


s: Like a pale inmate out of a barred window


s: With a green shade half down; and I dare say


s: People who passed have said:  `There's where he lives.


s: There you have all we know and all we care.'


s: They might have said it in all sorts of ways;


s: And then, if they perceived a cat, they might


s: Or might not have remembered what they said.


s: And maybe the same one the Lord left out


s: Of Tasker Norcross, who, for lack of it,


s: Saw the same sun go down year after year;


s: Enlightens one more darkness.  You have known


s: All round you, all your days, men who are nothing --


s: Nothing, I mean, so far as time tells yet


s: Than to make sextons hardy -- but no less


s: Are to themselves incalculably something,


s: And therefore to be cherished.  God, you see,


s: Being sorry for them in their fashioning,


s: Of self, and with illusions long as life.


s: You know them well, and you have smiled at them;


s: And they, in their serenity, may have had


s: Their time to smile at you.  Blessed are they


s: That see themselves for what they never were


s: Or were to be, and are, for their defect,


s: At ease with mirrors and the dim remarks


s: That we are not yet all on fire for shouting.


s: We should have nothing then that we could scratch.


s: The picture smarts.  Cover it, if you please,


s: And do so rather gently.  Now for Norcross."


s: Ferguson closed his eyes in resignation,


s: While a dead sigh came out of him.  "Good God!"


s: If one were there to listen:  "Have I said nothing --


s: Nothing at all -- of Norcross?  Do you mean


s: Is all you need, arrange an honest column


s: That you have never liked.  You'll have enough;


s: And you'll have mine, moreover.  No, not yet.


s: I pay, and I alone, for their assumption;


s: By which, if I assume a darker knowledge


s: Of Norcross than another, let the weight


s: That is not on your shoulders.  When I came


s: To know this fellow Norcross in his house,


s: I found him as I found him in the street --


s: No more, no less; indifferent, but no better.


s: `Worse' were not quite the word:  he was not bad;


s: He was not . . . well, he was not anything.


s: That even the early bird would shake his head


s: And fly on farther for another breakfast?"


s: "But why forget the fortune of the worm,"


s: Salvation centred and endured?  Your Norcross


s: May have been one for many to have envied."


s: "Salvation?  Fortune?  Would the worm say that?


s: He might; and therefore I dismiss the worm


s: With all dry things but one.  Figures away,


s: With all the vacant horrors of his outline


s: For you to fill with more than it will hold?


s: If so, you needn't crown yourself at once


s: With epic laurel if you seem to fill it.


s: Horrors, I say, for in the fires and forks


s: Of a new hell -- if one were not enough --


s: I doubt if a new horror would have held him


s: More to be feared than his before he died.


s: You smile, as if in doubt.  Well, smile again.


s: The four square sombre things that you see first


s: Around you are four walls that go as high


s: As to the ceiling.  Norcross knew them well,


s: And he knew others like them.  Fasten to that


s: With all the claws of your intelligence;


s: And hold the man before you in his house


s: And one that knew himself to be no other.


s: I tell you twice that he knew all about it,


s: That you may not forget the worst of all


s: Could Norcross only not have known, I wonder


s: How many would have blessed and envied him!


s: Could he have had the usual eye for spots


s: That might as well as not have clogged the town


s: In honor of his end.  For there was gold,


s: You see, though all he needed was a little,


s: And what he gave said nothing of who gave it.


s: There might have been a more sufficient face


s: To greet him when he shaved.  Though you insist


s: It is the dower, and always, of our degree


s: Not to be cursed with such invidious insight,


s: Remember that you stand, you and your fancy,


s: Now in his house; and since we are together,


s: See for yourself and tell me what you see.


s: Tell me the best you see.  Make a slight noise


s: That you would not as lief read upside down


s: As otherwise, for example.  If there you fail,


s: Observe the walls and lead me to the place,


s: Where you are led.  If there you meet a picture


s: That holds you near it for a longer time


s: Than you are sorry, you may call it yours,


s: And hang it in the dark of your remembrance,


s: Where Norcross never sees.  How can he see


s: That has no eyes to see?  And as for music,


s: Of his infrequent forced endurance of it;


s: And having had no pleasure, paid no more


s: For needless immolation, or for the sight


s: Of those who heard what he was never to hear.


s: To make him suffer; and to watch worn eyes,


s: Their sorrows and their failures and themselves


s: And all for seeing what he was never to see,


s: Here was a wonder that was more profound


s: Than any that was in fiddles and brass horns.


s: "He knew, and in his knowledge there was death.


s: He knew there was a region all around him


s: That lay outside man's havoc and affairs,


s: And yet was not all hostile to their tumult,


s: Where poets would have served and honored him,


s: And saved him, had there been anything to save.


s: But there was nothing, and his tethered range


s: Are not for thrones in deserts.  Towers of sound


s: And flowers of sense are but a waste of heaven


s: Where there is none to know them from the rocks


s: That makes earth less than earth.  He could see that,


s: And he could see no more.  The captured light


s: That may have been or not, for all he cared,


s: The song that is in sculpture was not his,


s: Where all was mortal, or had best be so,


s: And so be done with.  `Art,' he would have said,


s: `Is not life, and must therefore be a lie;'


s: He would have controverted and dismissed


s: The benefit of the Greeks.  He had heard of them,


s: In his esteem, of either.  `Faith,' he said,


s: Or would have said if he had thought of it,


s: `Lives in the same house with Philosophy,


s: Where the two feed on scraps and are forlorn


s: As orphans after war.  He could see stars,


s: To see beyond them.  He could hear spoken words,


s: He could eat food of which he knew the savor,


s: But had no palate for the Bread of Life,


s: That human desperation, to his thinking,


s: And I was nearer than I should have been


s: To laughing at his malign inclusiveness,


s: When I considered that, with all our speed,


s: As it was good for him, that I was quiet;


s: For Time's eye was on Ferguson, and the shaft


s: Of its inquiring hesitancy had touched him,


s: Before he told of Norcross.  When the word


s: Of his release (he would have called it so)


s: Made half an inch of news, there were no tears


s: That are recorded.  Women there may have been


s: To wish him back, though I should say, not knowing,


s: The few there were to mourn were not for love,


s: And were not lovely.  Nothing of them, at least,


s: Was in the meagre legend that I gathered


s: Years after, when a chance of travel took me


s: That a few miles of leisure brought me there;


s: Square as a box and chillier than a tomb


s: It was indeed, to look at or to live in --


s: All which had I been told.  "Ferguson died,"


s: The stranger said, "and then there was an auction.


s: I live here, but I've never yet been warm.


s: I knew him -- as a man may know a tree --


s: For twenty years.  He may have held himself


s: A little high when he was here, but now . . .


s: But none of them had heard of Tasker Norcross.


s: Two men came out of Shannon's having known


s: As they had listened there to an old song,


s: By some unhappy night-bird, who had flown


s: Too many times and with a wing too strong


s: To save himself, and so done heavy wrong


s: More light than was before them.  Neither met


s: Went his own way, and with his own regret,


s: Not knowing what the other may have heard.


s: A vanished house that for an hour I knew


s: By some forgotten chance when I was young


s: And shadowy hydrangeas reached and swung


s: The moths and mysteries, a blurred bat flew.


s: Somewhere within there were dim presences


s: Of days that hovered and of years gone by.


s: And though a child, I knew it was the voice


s: We told of him as one who should have soared


s: Whereof there is not either day or night,


s: And shared with us the glamour of the Word


s: Of ills obscured aggrieved him and the might


s: Assured somehow that he would make us wise,


s: Our pleasure was to wait; and our surprise


s: Was hard when we confessed the dry return


s: Of his regret.  For we were still to learn


s: That earth has not a school where we may go


s: For wisdom, or for more than we may know.


s: They seek each other's eyes at intervals


s: Of gratefulness to firelight and four walls


s: And bowered as few may be, their joy recalls


s: No snake, no sword; and over them there falls


s: The blessing of what neither says aloud.


s: Wiser for silence, they were not so glad


s: Were she to read the graven tale of lines


s: Nor were they more content could he have had


s: Her thoughts a moment since of one who shines


s: Apart, and would be hers if he had known.


s: The day was here when it was his to know


s: How fared the barriers he had built between


s: The sight of them, insidious and serene,


s: Where they were delving always and had been


s: And there were the new tenants who had come,


s: Into his house, and were so much at home


s: There now that he would hardly have to guess,


s: By the slow guile of their vindictiveness,


s: What ultimate insolence would soon be theirs.


s: Would not have had him in another place,


s: The coffin where I could not see him then


s: As I had seen him and appraised him when


s: For there was more of him than what I saw.


s: And there was on me more than the old awe


s: I might as well have heard him:  "Never mind;


s: We pitied him, or scorned him, or deplored


s: Who shaped as one of us a thing so mean --


s: Who made him human when he might have been


s: Say less of rats and rather more of men.


s: Note. --  Rahel Robert and Varnhagen von Ense were married,


s: Now you have read them all; or if not all,


s: As many as in all conscience I should fancy


s: To be enough.  There are no more of them --


s: Or none to burn your sleep, or to bring dreams


s: Of devils.  If these are not sufficient, surely


s: You are a strange young man.  I might live on


s: Or not quite forty, -- are you happier now? --


s: Always to ask if there prevailed elsewhere


s: Another like yourself that would have held


s: These aged hands as long as you have held them,


s: How they are like your mother's.  Well, you have read


s: His letters now, and you have heard me say


s: That in them are the cinders of a passion


s: That was my life; and you have not yet broken


s: Your way out of my house, out of my sight, --


s: Into the street.  You are a strange young man.


s: I know as much as that of you, for certain;


s: That you be not too strange.  Too much of that


s: May lead you bye and bye through gloomy lanes


s: To a sad wilderness, where one may grope


s: That wait for men and eat them in the dark.


s: Why do you sit there on the floor so long,


s: Do you not hear it said for your salvation,


s: When I say truth?  Are you, at four and twenty,


s: So little deceived in us that you interpret


s: Or a man-child, has wet shoes on his feet


s: I shall not have to make you tell me lies


s: To know the letters you have not been reading.


s: I see now that I may have had for nothing


s: A most unpleasant shivering in my conscience


s: The wealth of my worn casket.  If I did,


s: The fault was not yours wholly.  Search again


s: This wreckage we may call for sport a face,


s: And you may chance upon the price of havoc


s: That shine and have no light -- yet once were stars,


s: And sparkled on a crown.  Little and weak


s: They seem; and they are cold, I fear, for you.


s: But they that once were fire for me may not


s: In being ourselves.  How, then, are we to lose it?


s: You that are sure that you know everything


s: There is to know of love, answer me that.


s: Well? . . .  You are not even interested.


s: Once on a far off time when I was young,


s: I felt with your assurance, and all through me,


s: Of love's inventions.  There was a boy who brought


s: The sun with him and woke me up with it,


s: I tried to dream of him, but never could,


s: More than I might have seen in Adam's eyes


s: Was brief, but was eternal while it lasted;


s: For whom the sky had shaken and let stars


s: Rain down like diamonds.  Then there were clouds,


s: Despair came, like a blast that would have brought


s: Tears to the eyes of all the bears in Finland,


s: And love was done.  That was how much I knew.


s: Poor little wretch!  I wonder where he is


s: This afternoon.  Out of this rain, I hope.


s: Dressed all alike, and in their marching order,


s: Go by me that I would not always count them,


s: One stopped -- shattering the whole file of Time,


s: Or so it seemed; and when I looked again,


s: There was a man.  He struck once with his eyes,


s: And then there was a woman.  I, who had come


s: To wisdom, or to vision, or what you like,


s: By the old hidden road that has no name, --


s: I, who was used to seeing without flying


s: So much that others fly from without seeing,


s: Still looked, and was afraid, and looked again.


s: And after that, when I had read the story


s: Told in his eyes, and felt within my heart


s: I knew the fear was his.  If I had failed him


s: And flown away from him, I should have lost


s: Ingloriously my wings in scrambling back,


s: And found them arms again.  If he had struck me


s: Not only with his eyes but with his hands,


s: And then gone mad.  I, who have been so strong --


s: Why don't you laugh? -- might even have done all that.


s: I, who have learned so much, and said so much,


s: For one who rules herself -- why don't you cry? --


s: Among the blind, who see no more than ever,


s: But like my voice, -- I would have tossed it all


s: To Tophet for one man; and he was jealous.


s: I would have wound a snake around my neck


s: And then have let it bite me till I died,


s: That one man might have lived; and he was jealous.


s: I would have driven these hands into a cage


s: That held a thousand scorpions, and crushed them,


s: I could have crushed his doubt.  I would have wrung


s: Would have made one man sure.  I would have paid


s: For him the tiresome price of body and soul,


s: Fall as it might upon my blistered name;


s: And while it fell I could have laughed at it,


s: Where the wrong was.  But there was evil in him


s: That would have made no more of his possession


s: And there was honor -- if you call it honor


s: That hoods itself with doubt and wears a crown


s: Of lead that might as well be gold and fire.


s: As any there is that fits.  I see myself


s: Without the power to swear to this or that


s: That I might be if he had been without it.


s: Whatever I might have been that I was not,


s: Meanwhile, you might seem to be listening:


s: My treasure, I shall not say this again.


s: Look up once more into my poor old face,


s: Where you see beauty, or the Lord knows what,


s: On this one.  Not a mask?  I thank you, sir,


s: But you see more with your determination,


s: I fear, than with your prudence or your conscience;


s: No, I shall never call you strange again:


s: May the blind lead the blind, if that be so?


s: And we shall need no mirrors?  You are saying


s: What most I feared you might.  But if the blind,


s: She might at last, without her meaning it,


s: Lead on the other, without his knowing it,


s: Until the two of them should lose themselves


s: That sometimes I would wreck it.  Then I pause,


s: Remembering there is a King in Weimar --


s: The realm where they should rule.  I think of him,


s: Where love, being locked alone, was nigh to burning


s: House and himself together.  Yes, you are strange,


s: Room for new love to live in.  Are you laughing?


s: No?  Well, you are not crying, as you should be.


s: For your escape, and had no other story,


s: In seeing for you, through my close gate of years


s: Your forty ways to freedom.  Why do you smile?


s: And while I'm trembling at my faith in you


s: In giving you to read this book of danger


s: That only one man living might have written --


s: These letters, which have been a part of me


s: So long that you may read them all again


s: And hear them when I speak to you, and feel them


s: Whenever you have to touch me with your hand, --


s: Why do you still believe in me?  But no,


s: That says it better, and means anything.


s: There is no other way that could be worse?


s: For lies, when there is nothing in my well


s: But shining truth, you say?  How do you know?


s: Truth has a lonely life down where she lives;


s: And many a time, when she comes up to breathe,


s: She sinks before we seize her, and makes ripples.


s: Than a few ripples; and they may soon be gone,


s: Leaving you then with all my shining truth


s: Drowned in a shining water; and when you look


s: You may not see me there, but something else


s: That never was a woman -- being yourself.


s: You say to me my truth is past all drowning,


s: And safe with you for ever?  You know all that?


s: How do you know all that, and who has told you?


s: You know so much that I'm an atom frightened


s: Because you know so little.  And what is this?


s: You know the luxury there is in haunting


s: The blasted thoroughfares of disillusion --


s: If that's your name for them -- with only ghosts


s: For company?  You know that when a woman


s: Is blessed, or cursed, with a divine impatience


s: (Another name of yours for a bad temper)


s: She must have one at hand on whom to wreak it


s: (That's what you mean, whatever the turn you give it),


s: Effect a mutual calm?  You know that wisdom,


s: Who are without it, will be seen at last,


s: And even at last only by those who gave it,


s: That others leave?  You know that men's applause


s: That I go hungry, having at home no fare


s: But the same changeless bread that I may swallow


s: Only with tears and prayers?  Who told you that?


s: You know that if I read, and read alone,


s: Too many books that no men yet have written,


s: I may go blind, or worse?  You know yourself,


s: Of all insistent and insidious creatures,


s: For me their flaming language?  And you know


s: That's in me never to be quite sure that even


s: Through all those years of storm and fire I waited


s: And on, and on alone, through smoke and ashes,


s: As that about me? . . .  Well, I believe you do.


s: At such a false and florid and far drawn


s: No longer, though I may have led you on.


s: So much is told and heard and told again,


s: You knew him, and you must have known his eyes, --


s: How deep they were, and what a velvet light


s: Came out of them when anger or surprise,


s: Or laughter, or Francesca, made them bright.


s: No, you will not forget such eyes, I think, --


s: And you say nothing of them.  Very well.


s: Sometimes, or if my tale be one to tell.


s: For they began to lose their velvet light;


s: Their fire grew dead without and small within;


s: And many of you deplored the needless fight


s: That somewhere in the dark there must have been.


s: All fights are needless, when they're not our own,


s: Remember me -- and think what I have thought.


s: Now, mind you, I say nothing of what was,


s: Bring not suspicion's candle to the glass


s: Of what you see, see all, -- but see no more;


s: For what I show you here will not be there.


s: The devil has had his way with paint before,


s: And he's an artist, -- and you needn't stare.


s: There was a painter and he painted well:


s: He'd paint you Daniel in the lions' den,


s: The painter put the devil in those eyes,


s: Unless the devil did, and there he stayed;


s: And there's your fact.  The lady was afraid.


s: She must have been afraid, or may have been,


s: I'll trust the man as long as he can smile.


s: I trust him who can smile and then may live


s: In my heart's house, where Nimmo is today.


s: God knows if I have more than men forgive


s: To tell him; but I played, and I shall pay.


s: The calm of women who have loved and changed.


s: But there are ways that are beyond our ways,


s: Or he would not be calm and she be mute,


s: Pass without even the warmth of a dispute.


s: God help us all when women think they see;


s: God save us when they do.  I'm fair; but though


s: And what of Nimmo?  Little would you ask


s: Of being what he was born to be -- a man.


s: Of what your tortured memory may disclose;


s: Would count as much as nothing, I suppose.


s: Meanwhile, I trust him; and I know his way


s: I'm painting here a better man, you say,


s: Than I, the painter; and you say the truth.


s: Confused, he found her lavishing feminine


s: Gold upon clay, and found her inscrutable;


s: And yet she smiled.  Why, then, should horrors


s: Be as they were, without end, her playthings?


s: And why were dead years hungrily telling her


s: Lies of the dead, who told them again to her?


s: If now she knew, there might be kindness


s: Clamoring yet where a faith lay stifled.


s: Out of the sand what a child has drawn there.


s: God, what a shining handful of happiness,


s: Could he but have what a ghost had stolen!


s: What was a man before him, or ten of them,


s: While he was here alive who could answer them,


s: Harder than agates against an egg-shell?


s: But now the man was dead, and would come again


s: Out of a dream with his wand of absence.


s: And if the truth were now but a mummery,


s: Save her or fail, there was conscience always.


s: Meanwhile, a few misgivings of innocence,


s: Whether she struggled or not, he saw them.


s: Also, he saw that while she was hearing him


s: Her eyes had more and more of the past in them;


s: Told him was all he had best be sure of,


s: He wondered once or twice, inadvertently,


s: Where shifting winds were driving his argosies,


s: "If men were not for killing so carelessly,


s: He said, "we might have yet a world here


s: "If Truth were not so strange in her nakedness,


s: And we were less forbidden to look at it,


s: We might not have to look."  He stared then


s: Down at the sand where the tide threw forward


s: Its cold, unconquered lines, that unceasingly


s: Foamed against hope, and fell.  He was calm enough,


s: Out of all calm; and the night was coming.


s: That you may choose your fall if you cling to it.


s: All you have left of a dream defends you:


s: As it was needful now for the two of us.


s: Tell me to go, and I go."  -- She pondered:


s: "What you believe is right for the two of us


s: Makes it as right that you are not one of us.


s: Spare me, and let me have lies hereafter."


s: She gazed away where shadows were covering


s: The whole cold ocean's healing indifference.


s: Fell, she was there, and alone, still gazing.


s: You ask?  And have you nothing more to ask?


s: I do you wrong?  I do not hear your praise


s: To God for giving you me to share your task?


s: "Jealous -- of Her?  Because her cheeks are pink,


s: And she has eyes?  No, not if she had seven.


s: If you should only steal an hour to think,


s: Sometime, there might be less to be forgiven.


s: "No, you are never cruel.  If once or twice


s: I found you so, I could applaud and sing.


s: Jealous of -- What?  You are not very wise.


s: Does not the good Book tell you anything?


s: Jealous of God?  Well, if you like it so."


s: You that in vain would front the coming order


s: With eyes that meet forlornly what they must,


s: Be sure you like it always in your faces,


s: Longer ago than cave-men had their changes


s: Our fathers may have slain a son or two,


s: May have reduced their doubts, and in addition


s: Farther away than feet shall ever travel


s: Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State;


s: But there are mightier things than we to lead us,


s: And we go on with none to tell us whether


s: And it is well, since we must go together,


s: If the old wrong and all its injured glamour


s: Haunts you by day and gives your night no peace,


s: You may as well, agreeably and serenely,


s: For should you nourish a too fervid yearning


s: May give you qualms -- and one or two concerning


s: "No, Mary, there was nothing -- not a word.


s: Yourself, and he may listen -- or at least


s: Look up at you, and let you see his eyes.


s: I might as well have been the sound of rain,


s: Or nothing.  Mary, make him look at you;


s: And even if he should say that we are nothing,


s: To know that you have heard him will be something.


s: And yet he loved us, and it was for love


s: The Master gave him back.  Why did He wait


s: So long before He came?  Why did He weep?


s: I thought He would be glad -- and Lazarus --


s: To see us all again as He had left us --


s: Mary, who felt her sister's frightened arms


s: Like those of someone drowning who had seized her,


s: Fearing at last they were to fail and sink


s: Together in this fog-stricken sea of strangeness,


s: Fought sadly, with bereaved indignant eyes,


s: That she had seen but now could see no longer.


s: Now she could only gaze into the twilight,


s: And in the dimness know that he was there,


s: Like someone that was not.  He who had been


s: Their brother, and was dead, now seemed alive


s: Only in death again -- or worse than death;


s: Though sad were certain.  There was nothing certain


s: For there they were alone, and there was he --


s: The Master -- who had come to them so late,


s: Only for love of them and then so slowly,


s: And was for their sake hunted now by men


s: Who feared Him as they feared no other prey --


s: For the world's sake was hidden.  "Better the tomb


s: For Lazarus than life, if this be life,"


s: She thought; and then to Martha, "No, my dear,"


s: Where Time has been.  Here there is more than Time;


s: From home, since he is with us here again,


s: Are farther now from him and from ourselves


s: Than we are from the stars.  He will not speak


s: And we must wait for all we are to know,


s: Or even to learn that we are not to know.


s: Martha, we are too near to this for knowledge,


s: And that is why it is that we must wait.


s: Our friends are coming if we call for them,


s: To make him warmer.  We are too young, perhaps,


s: Try to believe that we need have no fear.


s: Let me, the selfish and the careless one,


s: Down at her sister's feet and there sat watching


s: The name of what she saw now in its brief


s: And infinite mystery that so frightened her


s: Flooded her eyes and overflowed.  "No, Mary,"


s: She murmured slowly, hating her own words


s: Before she heard them, "you are not so eager


s: And this was all for me."  She stared again


s: Who seemed to be a man who was not there,


s: Might have been one more shadow among shadows,


s: If she had not remembered.  Then she felt


s: The cool calm hands of Mary on her face,


s: And shivered, wondering if such hands were real.


s: "The Master loved you as He loved us all,


s: That children say when they have had no sleep.


s: You know that I am here, and that our friends


s: Where they stood looking off at the same place,


s: And at the same shape that was always there


s: And always would be there.  "Mary, go now,


s: Before the dark that will be coming hides him.


s: What sleep is.  Go now -- make him look at you --


s: And I shall hear him if he stirs or whispers.


s: Go! -- or I'll scream and bring all Bethany


s: To come and make him speak.  Make him say once


s: That he is glad, and God may say the rest.


s: Though He say I shall sleep, and sleep for ever,


s: Almost as if an angry child had pushed her,


s: Went forward a few steps; and having waited


s: As long as Martha's eyes would look at hers,


s: Went forward a few more, and a few more;


s: Who crouched with his face hidden in his hands,


s: Like one that had no face.  Before she spoke,


s: Feeling her sister's eyes that were behind her


s: As if the door where Martha stood were now


s: Once more to see that she was there.  Then, softly,


s: What his first word might be, said, "Lazarus,


s: And having spoken, pitied her poor speech


s: That had so little seeming gladness in it,


s: There was no sign from him that he had heard,


s: Or that he knew that she was there, or cared


s: There at his feet.  "We love you, Lazarus,


s: We need not be afraid.  Will you not say


s: To me that you are glad?  Look, Lazarus!


s: Look at my face, and see me.  This is Mary."


s: She found his hands and held them.  They were cool,


s: Like hers, but they were not so calm as hers.


s: Through the white robes in which his friends had wrapped him


s: When he had groped out of that awful sleep,


s: She felt him trembling and she was afraid.


s: At last he sighed; and she prayed hungrily


s: To God that she might have again the voice


s: Of Lazarus, whose hands were giving her now


s: That was almost a language.  When he spoke,


s: Came from his lips, and that word was her name.


s: "I heard them saying, Mary, that He wept


s: Before I woke."  The words were low and shaken,


s: Until there should be more . . . "Who made Him come,


s: That He should weep for me? . . .  Was it you, Mary?"


s: The questions held in his incredulous eyes


s: Were more than she would see.  She looked away;


s: But she had felt them and should feel for ever,


s: She thought, their cold and lonely desperation


s: That had the bitterness of all cold things


s: That were not cruel.  "I should have wept," he said,


s: His hands above her hair -- the same black hair


s: That once he made a jest of, praising it,


s: While Martha's busy eyes had left their work


s: To flash with laughing envy.  Nothing of that


s: Was to be theirs again; and such a thought


s: Seen through a shadowy doorway in the twilight.


s: For now she felt his hands upon her head,


s: Like weights of kindness:  "I forgive you, Mary. . . .


s: You did not know -- Martha could not have known --


s: Only the Master knew. . . .  Where is He now?


s: May the good God forgive Him. . . .  I forgive Him.


s: The burden of all this. . . .  Martha was here --


s: But I was not yet here.  She was afraid. . . .


s: Was it for you? . . .  Where are the friends I saw?


s: I made them go away. . . .  Where is He now? . . .


s: What do I see down there?  Do I see Martha --


s: Down by the door? . . .  I must have time for this."


s: And shivered at his feet.  All she had feared


s: That he was here?  And what had Martha meant?


s: Why had the Master waited?  What was coming


s: To Lazarus, and to them, that had not come?


s: What had the Master seen before He came,


s: Lazarus asked again.  "Where did He go?"


s: Once more he gazed about him, and once more


s: At Mary for an answer.  "Have they found Him?


s: That, I could understand. . . .  Where is He, Mary?"


s: "I do not know," she said.  "Yet in my heart


s: I know that He is living, as you are living --


s: Living, and here.  He is not far from us.


s: He will come back to us and find us all --


s: All as it was before.  Martha said that.


s: Lazarus closed his eyes while on his face


s: Flickered an instant.  "All as it was before,"


s: He murmured wearily.  "Martha said that;


s: And He said you were not to be afraid . . .


s: Not you . . .  Not you . . .  Why should you be afraid?


s: Give all your little fears, and Martha's with them,


s: "If you had frightened me in other ways,


s: Not willing it," Mary said, "I should have known


s: You still for Lazarus.  But who is this?


s: No sign of a new joy that shall be coming


s: To this house that He loved.  Are you afraid?


s: Are you afraid, who have felt everything --