Edgar Lee Masters

“ Life’s impulse at the heart of Life, to strive
For men to be, for cities, nobler states
Moving foreshadowed in your dreams at night,
And realized some hundred years to come.
When this Fort Dearborn, you and all of you,
And I who sit with pipe and son on knee,
Regretting a dear daughter, who this hour [12]
Is somewhere in the darkness (like our souls
Which move in darkness, listening to the beat
Of our mysterious hearts, or with closed eyes
Sensing a central Purpose) shall be dust—
Our triumphs, sorrows, even our names forgotten. ”

“ May the grace of Diana be with you in strength undiminished.
Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were wrought in with stipples.
The Ephesian goddess is nature and these are her bountiful nipples.
So then do I fear for my trade? No, never! It’s past my conceiving.
There’ll be work for the artist while gods change to win our believing.
Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry and tell us and show us—
Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never was known in Corinth or Troas.
They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble a story that palters. ”

“ So John Cowper Powys
You stand before us gesturing, shoulder bent
A little like King Richard, frizzed of hair,
Rolling your eye for secrets, for the word.
The thresher of your mind is eloquent
With hulls and flakes of words, until at last
The kernel itself pops out, not long deferred....
Here is our wrestler then,
Hunter of secrets of creative souls.
Eluded he may be, he tries again.
His hand slips clutching at the irised shoals
Of rapturous thought. And at times his eyes
Are blinded by a light, or a disguise. ”

“ If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes of her temples’ beholder!
For centuries gone—when these Jews prayed to serpents of bronze and calves that were golden
In Ephesus, Arcady, Athens, our reverent love was beholden
To the goddess of prophecy, music, the lyre, of light, inspiration,
Who guarded and watches the city and lays the foundation [220]
Of nations and laws. What works we have done, yea still we would heed her—
And look at your barbarous ark in your temple of jewels and cedar!
What is our pollution, our idols, our sacrificed things which are strangled? ”

“ Where all the serious gods, removed from stress
And interruption, build, as we conceive,
In fellowship that knows not that reserve
Which clouds the hearts of those who wish to live
As they, in that large realm of perfect mind.
[131] THE GARDEN
I do not like my garden, but I love
The trees I planted and the flowers thereof.
How does one choose his garden? O with eyes
O’er which a passion or illusion lies.
Perhaps it wakens memories of a lawn
You knew before somewhere. Or you are drawn
By an old urn, a little gate, a roof
Which soars into a blue sky, clear, aloof. ”

“ Why, what are temples, cities, cultures, ages
Of beauty, glory, but the work of genius?
What earth and stone and flesh but plastic stuff
Responsive to the touch of prophet hands?
What Winston Prairie, what America
And all this turbulence of bobbing heads
In fields and markets, temples, halls across
This continent of sovereign states but puppets
Which may be changed in flesh, in deepest spirit,
Made more erect, heroic, God-like, wise
By genius’ hands, not revolutionists’,
Nor shepherds’. ”

“ A church-spire at the roadway’s bend,
And barns and cribs and twinkling mills,
And neighbor friends like Mrs. Gray,
And endless days of dream and play.
It was a world so guarded, safe,
So cherished by a God-watched sky
Seeing the summers come and pass,
A world so quiet it appeared
Like to the mimic world ensphered
By witchery of the old field glass
Which from an uncle’s drawer I took
Upon the distant hills to look. ”

“ But study it. First, then, observe the eyes,
And tell me how within their gaze events
Or men could lose their true proportions! Here
No visions swarm, no dreams with flashing wings
Throw light upon them. No, they only look
Across a boundless prairie, that is all. [57]
And in that brow and nose we see a strength
Slow, steady, wary, cautious—why this man
Is your conservative, perhaps your best,
Which is one reason why he loved the Union,
And even said at last that government
Of the people meant the Union—how absurd!—
Would perish, if it perished, clearly false! ”

“ For this Fort Dearborn, where to-night we sit
Warming ourselves against a roaring hearth.
And what’s our part? It is not less than theirs.
And what’s the part of those to come? Not less
Than ours has been! And what’s the life of man?
To live up to the God in him, to obey
The Voice which says: You shall not live and rest. ”

“ Who prompt, suggest, applaud, are passionate
For the right word, the soaring thought to beat
At heaven’s gate in a last burst of song.
And here am I a part of this psychic circle,
Bound with soft loops of gold in a charméd band
Of a brood of youthful archangels fiery and strong....
Then thrilled with love of a land that can grow such souls
I turn and ask them questions:
How old are you, who were your father and mother?
What chance have you had in life? ”

“ Like this, Chicago! O ye men who wield
Small strength or great or none, too apt at sneers
For men who did too little, you must yield
Your names for judgment soon, have you done more
To make this city great than Marshall Field? ”

“ In thought around my sick bed, with contempt, [215]
Or pained compassion written on your brows,
And words like these: He has deserted us,
He has surrendered, cringed before the gods.
And so my sacrifice is this: You’ll be
The first to know my second birth, you can
In such case never charge it up to fear,
Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spirit
That lost the human touch through the effects
Of some delirium. What mind so clear,
Or will so strong to die with this denial
For your sakes? For it may be best for you
To live the rebel out of you. ”

“ An altar for my genius, something true
And near in flesh to triumph for, or brave
The world or evil for. Genius is love.
It cannot bear itself alone to save;
It must another rescue, it must prove
Its growing strength in ministry. ”

“ He braved the misunderstanding of friends,
He faced the enmity of the powerful small of soul,
And the insidious power of the churches;
He put aside worldly honours,
And the sovereignty of place,
He stripped off the armor of institutional friendships
To dedicate his soul
To the terrible deities of Truth and Beauty!
And he went down into age and into the shadow
With love of men for a staff,
And the light of his soul for a light—
And with these alone! ”

“ The craft of the maker of images fail through the speech of these fellows?
And the temple of Artemis perish? Oh, well, however they hate us
Can they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch Herostratus?
But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty and wonder—
Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and roaring of thunder!
Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar is older! ”

“ There never yet was such joy in a heart, [242]
Such strength to live whatever the fate,
Such love to love,
Such thought to see how life is good,
Such maternal passion,
Such breasts eager to nurse child after child—
And I shall never see you again! ”

“ You sit in a little office there in Springfield,
Feet on the desk and brood. What are you thinking?
You’re forty-one; around you spears are whacking
The wind-mills of the day, you watch and weigh.
The sun-light of your mind quivers about
The darkness every thinking soul must know,
And lights up hidden things behind the door,
And in dark corners. You have fathomed much,
Weighed life and men. ”

“ To make your living felt, your labor known?
Sometimes I see silk banners in the sky,
And hear the sound of silver trumpets blown,
And bells high turreted. And passing by
This firmament of rolling blue great throngs
Stream in an air of brilliant sun where I
A century gone am of it, when my songs
Are but a record of a day that died,
And saw the end of desecrating wrongs. [52]
How sweet bells are borne on the evening tide
High up where heaven is flushed and the moon’s sphere
Looks down on temples, arches, where the wide
Eternal waters thunder round the Pier! ”

“ He made Linkern appear
As bein’ against the law.
But just think, for a minute, young man:
Here is The Little Giant the greatest figure in all the land
And the wheel of fortune turns
And he stands by Linkern’s side and holds
His hat while Linkern takes the oath
As president!
Then the war comes and his leadership
Has left him, and millions who followed him [32]
Turn from him, and then Death comes,
And sits by him and says: Your time’s up! ”

“ Poet and wag, [232]
Prophet, magician taking from a bag
Eggs, rabbits, silver globes; the old engram!
Scoffer with reverence, visioned, quick to damn,
Yet laugh at, looking keenly through the sham.
Confessing his own sins, devoid of shame.
He knows himself and laughs,
Or blames himself as he would others blame.
A naughty boy who kicks away the staff
Which poor decrepits walk by, nearly blind,
Then hurrying up with varied thought to find
Medicinal clay with which dim eyes to heal.
What is the human secret but Proteus’?
And who can catch the old man but his kind? ”

“ For your own hanging in the Philippines!
Who with one hand grabs off the widow’s mite,
And with the other tosses golden coins
Into the beggar’s cup.
The black-snake whip in one hand, in the other
A plentiful supply of surgeon’s tape. Oh you!
A hard oppressor, charitably inclined,
And keen to see and take the outward image—
Devoid of categories to reduce
Its truth and meaning.
No seed of old world thistles should be sown here,
Or let to fly upon this soil. [46]
Yet dogma has been sown here
Men rise thereby who sow the seed again;
Accessory spirits keep the ground well stirred. ”

“ You’ve reached your fiftieth year, your occultation
Should pass. If ever, we should see a light:
In all your life you have not seen a city.
But now our Springfield giant strides Broadway,
Thrills William Cullen Bryant, sets a wonder
Going about the East, that Kirkham’s grammar
Can give a man such speech at Cooper Union,
Which even Alfred’s, trained to Virgil’s style,
Cannot disdain for matching in the thought
With faultless clearness. [40]
And still in 1860 all the Brahmins
Have fear to give you power. ”

“ Crumbs from your feast you scarce can countermand,
And crumbs are all I ask, and just the meed
Of friendly interest. I abase my pride.
The strong can suffer silently and bleed
As long as strength lasts, keep the blood inside,
Until one weakens when it spurts and drips. ”

“ A good place for two men like us to meet:
Here’s where luxurious souls have their abodes.
That’s Sallust’s garden there. They do not care
So much about us as some others do.
There is a tolerance comes from being rich,
An urbane soul is fashioned by a villa.
Our faith is not to these a wicked thing,
A deadly superstition as some deem it.
But Mark, my son, there’s Rome below you there—
What temples, arches, under the full moon! ”

“ Some strings too loose to catch the vibrate waves
Of a great Harp whose music you have sensed.
You are a mathematician using symbols
Like Justice, Truth, with keenness to perceive [39]
Disturbance of equations, a logician
Who sees invariable laws, and beauty born
Of finding out and following the laws.
You are a Plato brooding there in Springfield.
You are a poet with a voice for Truth,
And never to be claimed by visionaries
Who chant the theme of bread and bread alone. ”

“ For that dull infamy of filth whose cloak
Is law, hiding the greedy hands that doom
To long delay with bribery. He is gone
These several years into the narrow room
Where beauty is no more of walk or lawn,
Or arch or peristyle, but still he says:
“Work quickly into form what I have drawn,
And give Chicago of these middle days
The glory which it merits: To this Pier
Make wide the marble way, build new the quays
Give to the swimmers depths made fresh and clear,
Lay out the flowering gardens, founts and pools [51]
Such as Versailles knows. ”

“ Stirred up to waves slate-colored by the wind;
Some Indians loitering about the fort.
They knew this was James Abbott’s wedding day,
And Sarah’s day of leaving.
Soldiers! Comrades!
What is most real, our waking hours, our dreams?
Where was I in this sleep? What are our dreams
But lands which lie below our hour’s horizon,
Yet still are seen in a reflecting sky,
And which through earth and heaven draw us on? ”

“ The universe—
Build cities with it, letter precious scrolls,
Plan for the race to be and have the vision
To labor for of ages half elysian,
Is that a benediction or a curse?
Is it a good or evil to have strength
To soar beyond the sun, or planets even
If none of us at length
Reach heaven?
If none of our infatuate souls
Sip the bright fire of God?
If it be all a flying in a dream,
A lying down at last in deeper night,
To enrich the prodigal sod,
To breed new wings
For the same flight?
[218] THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS
Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered isfinished. ”

“ One might have hope left for a row of box.
Why is it that some silent places thrill
With elfin comradeship, and others fill
The heart with sickening loneliness? My breast
Seems hollow for great emptiness, unrest
Casting my eyes about my garden where
I still must live, breathing its lifeless air.
Why should I have a garden anyway?
I have so many friends who pass the day
In streets or squares, or little barren courts,
I fancy there are gardens of all sorts,
Far worse than mine. ”