The poet in the desert
Wood, Charles Erskine Scott, 1852-1944
^V^ \J'^?S-\/^ "V^'^V^ \J'^^V'' % vV^ ^^ ^W^.' /\ -.^IK-' *^"^* °'W^'". . V- V "I'^- 0* ''<'- "^ ^^' .... '^^ """ *\^ * J' %. • ^^. ^q, **Trr-*\.o'' V V* .»\ ^ .?.::/♦ "<? ^o^^- v-s' "Cp«b- ' °o • '**o< i • ''bv* ■V V^\/ V^*/ V^\/ % ,^^ "'^.. •- V N* ^oV° <i>^ V-O^ 'oK o_ * ^°-t. - • * ,0 rt~ .... V*^v * > - » • « _ *>\ ,0^ . • • • r V » * * »- < I-'HE POET IN THE DESERT BY CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD PORTLAND^OREGON MCMXV COPYRIGHT BY CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT ^3700D, 191S M -7 1915 THE POET IN THE DESERT PROLOGUE POET: I have entered into the Desert, the place of desolation. The Desert confronts me haughtily and assails me with solitude. She sits on a throne of light, Her hands clasped, her eyes solemnly questioning. I have come into the lean and stricken land Which fears not God, that I may meet my soul Face to face, naked as the Desert is naked ; Bare as the great silence is bare : I will question the Silent Ones who have gone before and are forgotten, And the great host which shall come after. By whom I also shall be forgot. As the Desert is defiant unto all gods. So am I defiant of all gods. Shadows of Man cast upon the fogs of his ignorance. As a helpless child follows the hand of its mother. So I put my hand into the hand of the Eternal. I have come to lose myself in the wide immensity and know my littleness. I have come to lie in the lap of my mother and be comforted. I am alone but not alone — I am with myself. My soul is my companion above all companions. Behold the signs of the Desert : A buzzard, afloat on airy seas, Alone, between the two immensities, as I am alone between two immensities ; A juniper-tree on a rocky hillside ; A dark signal from afar off, where the weary may rest in the shade ; A monastery for the flocks of little birds which by night hurry across the Desert and hide in the heat of the day ; A basaltic-cliff, embroidered with lichens and illuminated by the sun, orange and yellow, The work of a great painter, careless in the splash of his brush. In its shadow lie timid antelope, which flit through the sage-brush and are gone ; But easily they become fearless unto love. The sea of sage-brush, breaking against the purple hills far away. And the white alkali-flats which shimmer in the mirage as beautiful blue lakes, constantly retreating. The mirage paints upon the sky, rivers with cool, willowy banks ; You can almost hear the lapping of the water. But they flee mockingly, leaving the thirsty to perish. I lie down upon the warm sand of the Desert and it seems to me Life has its mirages, also. I sift the sand through my fingers. Behold the signs of the Desert : The stagnant water-hole, trampled with hoofs; About it shine the white bones of those who came too late. The whirling dust-pillar, waltz of Wind and Earth, The dust carried up to the sky in the hot, furious arms of the wind, as I also am lifted up. The glistening black wall of obsidian, where the wild tribes came to fashion their arrows, knives, spearheads. The ground is strewn with the fragments, just as they dropped them, the strokes of the maker undimmed through the desperate years. But the hunters have gone forever. The Desert cares no more for the death of the tribes than for the death of the armies of black crawling crickets. Silence. Invincible. Impregnable. Compelling the soul to stand forth to be questioned. Dazzling in the sun, whiter than snow, I see the bones Of those who have existed as I now exist. The bones are here; where are they who lived? Like a thin veil, I see a crowd of gnats, buzzing their hour. I know that they are my brethren, I am less than the shadow of this rock, For the shadow returneth forever. Night overwhelms me. The coyotes bark to the stars. Upon the warm midnight sand I lie thoughtfully sifting the earth through my fingers. I am that dust. I look up unto the stars, knowing that to them my life is not more valuable than that of the flowers ; The little, delicate flowers of the Desert, Which, like a breath, catch at the hem of Spring and are gone. I have come into the Desert because my soul is athirst as the Desert is athirst; My soul which is the soul of all ; universal ; not different. We are athirst for the waters which make beautiful the path And entice the grass, the willows and poplars. So that in the heat of the day we may lie in a cool shadow, Soothed as by the hands of quiet women, listening to the discourse of running waters as the voices of women, exchanging the confidences of love. The little rivers run away from the rugged Titans who are wrapped in cloaks of azure. They steal out from the mountains into the bosom of the Desert ; And the willows follow after them, waving their hands, calling that they run not so fast away. The river builds a safe fortress where the birds hide and the antelopes come for shelter. The carpet is a weaving of sweet grasses ; But at last the impatient life-givers marry The marshes which in the Springtime are green with tule-rush and in Autumn copper-red; Vast sanctuaries for the herons, ducks, pelicans and plover. Here breed the stately cranes which in the fading year mount high to the cloudless heavens and circle about calling for the Southland. Who is their monitor? Who is their pilot? The mountains afar girdle the Desert as a zone of amethyst ; Pale, translucent walls of opal, Girdling the Desert as Life is girt by Eternity, They lift their heads high above our tribulation Into the azure vault of Time; Theirs are the airy castles which are set upon foundations of sapphire. My soul goes out to them as the bird to her secret nest. They are the abode of peace. The vexed soul's brooding place. Behind them, Creation slumbers, a naked god ; His head pillowed on a rock, molten in the fires of chaos ; He dreams of gods to come. Who shall awake him? Shall the flowers awake him with their tender fingers, or with the fairy music of their tremulous bells? Larkspur and blue-bells, lupins, spikes of lapislazuli ; Wild sweet-william, pink as Aurora's bed? Sunflowers which on rocky hillsides flaunt the banners of their conquest? And golden seas of rabbit-brush which roll to the sunset, commingling ? 6 The flowers bloom in the Desert joyously. They do not weary themselves with questioning ; They are careless whether they be seen, or praised. They blossom unto life perfectly and unto death perfectly, leaving nothing unsaid. They spread a voluptuous carpet for the feet of the Wind And to the frolic Breezes which overleap them, they whisper: "Stay a moment. Brother ; plunder us of our passion ; "Our day is short, but our beauty is eternal." Never have I found a place, or a season, without beauty. Neither the sea, where the white stallions champ their bits and rear against their bridles. Nor the Desert, bride of the Sun, which sits scornful, apart, Like an unwooed Princess, careless ; indifferent. She spreads her garments, wonderful beyond estimation. And embroiders continually her mantle. She is a queen, seated on a throne of gold In the Hall of Silence. She insists upon humility. She insists upon meditation. She insists that the soul be free. She requires an answer. She demands the final reply to thoughts which cannot be answered. She lights the Sun for a torch And sets up the great cliffs as sentinels ; The morning and the evening are curtains before her chambers. She displays the stars as her coronet. She is cruel and invites victims. Restlessly moving her wrists and ankles, Which are loaded with sapphires. Her brown breasts flash with opals. She slays those who fear her, But runs her hand lovingly over the brow of those who know her, Soothing with a voluptuous caress. She is a courtesan, wearing jewels. Enticing, smiling a bold smile ; Adjusting her brilliant raiment negligently, Lying brooding upon her floor which is richly carpeted ; Her brown thighs beautiful and naked. She toys with the dazzlry of her diadems, Smiling inscrutably. She is a nun, withdrawing behind her veil; Gray, subdued, silent, mysterious, meditative ; unapproachable. She is fair as a goddess sitting beneath a flowering peach- tree, beside a clear river. Her body is tawny with the eagerness of the Sun And her eyes are like pools which shine in deep canyons. She is beautiful as a swart woman, with opals at her throat. Rubies on her wrists and topaz about her ankles. Her breasts are like the evening and the day stars ; She sits upon her throne of light, proud and silent, indifferent to her wooers. The Sun is her servitor, the Stars are her attendants ; running before her. She sings a song unto her own ears, solitary, but it is sufficient. It is the song of her being. O if I may sing the song of my being it will be sufficient. She is like a jeweled dancer, dancing upon a pavement of gold; Dazzling, so that the eyes must be shaded. She wears the stars upon her bosom and braids her hair with the constellations. I know the Desert is beautiful, for I have lain in her arms and she has kissed me. I have come to her, that I may know Freedom; 8 That I may lie upon the breast of the Mother and breathe the air of primal conditions. I have come out from the haunts of men ; From the struggle of wolves upon a carcass, To be melted in Creation's crucible and be made clean ; To know that the law of Nature is freedom. These are the signs of the Desert : Light, brilliant and blinding. Sky and earth ; the pale rim of mountains ; and here, by my feet, The skull of him that was. I will go out from the Desert while yet I am. I will cast off my fetters and even in rags I will, like a street singer, sing my song. I will sing my song of meditation and defiance ; But even as I go I look back and see the Desert smiling scornfully. I hear her mocking whisper. Only Man has enforced his brother; Only Man has compelled servitude. Only Man has dwarfed his own godhood, cherished Poverty and exalted Ugliness. Only Man has defied Nature and set up the idols of his ignorance. He has denied Freedom and Beauty. I will not climb unto the Morning peaks and, like a lark, Shoot my exultant song down into the shadows where the millions drudge and the children are born unto Labor, But I will lie like a mourner upon the bare and barren bosom of the Great Mother. I will chant a dirge unto Civilization. I cannot sing a song of Beauty, for Man has put a scar upon her forehead and twisted her exquisite limbs. I cannot sing a song of Truth, for Man has never yet perceived the flashing of her eyes. I cannot sing a song of Justice, for Justice stands on a great height, scornful, like a thunder-cloud brooding on a dark mountain. I cannot sing a song of Freedom, for Freedom is beyond this present Night, like a distant star kissing the edge of the world. Poets have sung of Freedom, but never has Freedom pressed Man's pale lips. Poets have sung of Justice, but Justice has not dwelt in the haunts of men. Poets have sung of Beauty, but who has perceived her, or been folded to the resilient perfection of her bosom? Unless all rejoice in beauty, there is no beauty. A palace is not beautiful if it rest upon a sewer which defiles its pavements. The gilding gildeth not a charnel-house. Poets have sung of Truth, but who has been burned by the lightnings of his eyes, or swept by the rushing of his wings? I have come into the primal solitude to seek Truth ; To lie at ease upon the breast of my Mother, And to be athirst amid the primal conditions. Nothing will I sing of quaint conceit or purring softness. Wresting my thought unto a rhyming word, But I will sing a dirge unto Civilization. It is a brazen mirror wherein all is distorted ; A chattering of monkeys who are foolish proud Because they have put on clothes. They imitate each other in the follies of their ignorance ; And all is falsity. They mould all to a false pattern. The blind correcting the blind. The more ignorant compelling the less ignorant. The dumb sheep ordered not with a shepherd's crook, but with a sword ; The souls of the Rare Ones ruled by the drooling Many, lO Or the souls of the hungry hordes ruled by their Oppressors. Neither the freedom of the primal struggle, Nor the freedom of the ultimate peace. Society, a hoofed monster, trampling to death the race. Truth, dweller in the starry places, More elusive than moonlight upon the sea, tremulous. Let me behold your brow which is vague as night, infinite. Let me look into your eyes which are deeper than the skies of this Desert. Where are you. Truth, where are you? Shadowy, appearing, disappearing, ever retreating. As the mirage of the Desert which lures to the glittering Death-spaces ; always advancing, never overtaken. Your smile is serene as death. And your hand is comforting. Where are you, Truth, where are you? The Desert is empty, vague, vast and terrifying ; Its stillness is as the spaces between the stars. So that I hear the murmur of my own heart and am afraid. I look up to the sky, which is eternal, And down to the hot sand, which is eternal, And I am afraid of my littleness. I know the brevity of my existence. Which is like the passing of the shadow of a cloud. I salute the little mottled lizard which intently watches me; I salute you. Brother ; Yet I know I am greater than you ; greater than all else. I am to myself greater than the Desert, or the world. Or the curiously peering stars. I feel that I am, in a mysterious way, Part of Time ; part of Eternity. When I have saluted Death and taken him by the hand, I shall be absolved and know no more ; Even as these white skulls and ribs know no more. Nevertheless, I am now a part of Time and I shall then be II As fully as the sun or the stars. Indestructibly a part of Eternity. Where are you, Truth, where are you? The Desert is pitiless. I am frightened of its bigness and its indifference. I am alone, an atom thrown out from Eternity, Allotted to do my part. I will do my part, and it shall be my own. I refuse to be moulded in the common mould, None different from another. I refuse to step regularly according to custom ; To measure myself among the monotonous patterns laid out before me. I will be myself and obey the voice within me Which impetuously cries to be free ; To wander imperiously, destroying the paths, The moulds and the patterns. O Truth discover yourself unto me. [£h/er Truth, <a»//A shining loingsJ] TRUTH: Ask, and I will answer. I. POET: Your face is pale, like the earliest dawn, before the birds have awakened. Your feet are like lilies by the rim of a pool. And your wings the mist of a cataract wherein the sun plays. Making a delicate glory ; fleeting ; iridescent. Your face is calm, the abiding-place of Sorrow. TRUTH: I am Truth, the sword-bearer ; Never to be possessed by Man. 12 POET: Of my heart, I desire you. TRUTH: Let me touch your eyes. POET: I see a dark cloud covering the earth, Eating up the sunlight of the world. I hear a distant thunder. At which my flesh shudders. TRUTH: The groans of the poor. POET: I see a monster. His feet are of gold ; his hands are of gold ; Golden is his head ; his legs are golden ; But his heart is of clay. His eyes are red as rubies, And his golden hands are folded upon his swollen belly, which is of gold ; Into his open maw flows an endless procession: Men with gray faces ; women with sunken eyes, And the little children who have never laughed. TRUTH: Moloch insatiable! POET: He sits upon a crimson pedestal. TRUTH: The blood of men. POET: It rests upon a great darkness. TRUTH: The Soul of Man. 13 POET: He is hideous black against the world. He sits within a dark temple ; And squatting upon the roof is a vulture Whose wings touch the horizon. TRUTH: Civilization! POET: The idolaters crowd into the Temple. They circle about the pedestal, praying. Their prayer is loud, so that it blows into the street And, like the dust, is whirled into every comer : "Oh, God of Gold, let nothing be changed. "Thou art our only God. "Thou hast decreed the Things that Are which must not be changed. "Thou hast ordered all things perfectly ; "We thank thee, God of Gold, for the perfection of thy ordering. Let nothing be changed; "We are comfortable. "Let the wicked, who seek to change the Things that Are, be crucified ; "Anarchists ! TRUTH: World-old lie ! Up from primeval slime till now The soul of Man has slowly crept. Shall this then be the end? POET: Is not Man of Nature, too? TRUTH: Her child, whom she so loveth that if he heeds not her voice She will lay him in his grave, as a loving mother her child in the cradle. 14 She makes no laws ; she utters no commands ; Only she establishes her eternal conditions. The Thun- ders and the Waters, Night and Day; Health and Death; the inevitable Seasons praise her. Her ultimate condition is freedom. By freedom, she has created Man's wondrous body, And shall create his wondrous soul. Continually, without pause, he has urged toward his soul. Noble is the struggle and great the hope. His soul, the soul of Nature and he its nursery. The best to live ; the worse to die. Not worms and butterflies, but butterflies from worms ; Body and soul, one ultimate progression. The hunger of the body to be fed, and the hunger of the soul to be fed. Food, the mother of the body and Leisure, the mother of the soul. POET: The air is thick with tired eyes which look hungrily toward me. TRUTH: The eyes of the poor ; disinherited before they were born. Who has right to partition out the sea, fence the invisible air, Or claim monopoly in the benediction of the rain? Is the solid earth less the general and maternal gift than these? A monster devours you. POET: Where is this monster? TRUTH: Within yon azure vault ; upon the moving air ; In Earth's deepest heart ; In the brooding alcoves of the Forest Whose columns are rooted on the breast of Time ; Upon the wide, rebellious sea. 15 It is hatched in a dragon's nest, thick with bones. It is the mother of Poverty ; the breeder of all crime. POET: Where is this devourer of the world? TRUTH: It blows its fetid breath against the Soul ; It hatches war and with its filthy talons rends the just. It snatches men out of the healing air, Away from the cool waters, And denies to them the blessed breast of the Mother, except for a grave. It hates the voice of Nature and fashions the sword. POET: Oh, that I had a sword of the gods to set men free ! TRUTH: You are the deliverer. POET: Where is this monster? TRUTH: The people are dumb before it and stretch out their throats for its teeth. POET: Show me this harpy of the world. TRUTH: The State ! Force ! Authority ! Hater of freedom ; oppressor of the poor ; creator of poverty ; Foster-mother of crime. The unsated monster which devours The men with despairful eyes; the women with tired faces, And the little children whose fingers are so soft; i6 Rose-petals, delicately pink. It feeds upon babes, blinking innocently e'er they have waked to the morning. It gluts upon the breasts of mothers, which are so white. And upon the hearts of resolute men, which are so red. Its wings are death ; its eyes are graves ; Destroyer of the Soul. POET: And if the State should die, whore of Force and prostitute of Privilege? TRUTH: Then peace in freedom, and in freedom, peace. The law of Self made beautiful. Man shaking out his plumes unto the sun. Poets whose songs shall hold the ages listening ; Painters of visions, Sculptors of gods, for men shall be as gods In temples of grandeur; Where happily the people shall worship Beauty. Brotherhood shall be one with selfishness, Gone war; gone violence; gone brutal brows; Gone poverty, oppression, crime and degradation. Across the earth shall gleam Freedom, As welcome unto men of weary soul as waking of a summer day Unto the dawn-mad anarchy of birds. POET: But see the earth stretches black, a putrid swamp. Whence waves continually a forest of thin reeds. ^ TRUTH: The arms of the drowning Poor, reaching up for life. POET: Why, even birds do sing and lambs do laugh. 17 TRUTH: But not the children of the Poor. POET: The black-gowned men delicately fold their hands And groan through the nose, "The will of God." TRUTH: The long and backward path is marked with martyred skulls For which the black-robed men have said "The will of God." Man makes his God and thinks his God makes him. There is no God but Nature, no hell but of man's making. POET: I know not my beginning, neither whence nor whither ; But I perceive my own littleness and my own greatness ; I am one with the mole, blind beneath the grass, And I am one, also, with the limitless skies ; I am not only myself, but I am child of the generations. And father unto those to come. TRUTH: Who is not father to the children? Who is not brother unto all who live? POET: Murderers, thieves and prostitutes. All you criminals, You are my brothers and my sisters. I have consented to the conditions which lay with you in your mother's womb. Before you were bom, I prepared you for The brothel and the gallows; And I have prepared them for you. My little children, Oh, my little children ; You are mine as much as you are your father's, and more ; i8 Yea, more beyond the count of suns. I will not desert you. Though I could weigh the soul and balance it And know the very beginning of Life and ending of Death, I would not desert you. My little helpless children, It is not right that you be born to die Before you have lived. I will not make a song of balmy Spring, Which lifts so shyly her veil, Jeweled and odorous ; Nor will I sing of voluptuous Summer, Charming with her vague discourse when the birds have sunk into silence, Nor celebrate the beauty of bough-bending Autumn, Rich caparisoned, whirling the painted leaves about, Like a strong youth at play ; nor honest Winter, The mimicry to man of immaculate Death. I will not tell of the great playground. While you, my little children, know it not But look continually downward into a grave. I will sing a psalm of affliction and of tears. I will sing a dirge of darkest night When the stars hide their faces before the thunder. I will chant a paean of vengeance and of deluge. Against the sky, I see Justice On a skyey crag, holding his sword, motionless, point down ; Not yet uplifted. Here in the wilderness, in the lonely abode of meditation and unannoyed of men. Let me speak so men must listen ; Those who buzz this little hour, and those to come. TRUTH: Speak, Poet. They will listen. 19 POET: I see a great fen, which, beloved Mother, you have not made. It spreads upon the darkened earth like a foul blot. Here and there flowers arise slowly upon it and bloom for a moment. Then sink back into rottenness. I hear a long, low moan, which bubbles from the great Morass. I see that its blackness covers the face of the earth. Above it, towering on a dizzy crag, eternal Justice stands. Holding in one hand a torch and in the other a bright sword, point down. His face is calm as the mountains. But I tremble at his voice saying slowly, without anger: "Man ! Man ! This fetid fen is all your deed. "You have put a blight upon the earth. "It is nothing that you have touched the sky with your towers of Babylon, "Leveled the mountains, harnessed the cataracts "And put the ocean into bonds. "You have snatched joy from the lips of children ; "You have made the mothers unfit, hating motherhood ; "And the fathers unfit, cursing fatherhood. "Who has given unto you possession of your brother? "Or said to you, 'The earth is yours,' "To be preserved to you by force, and your brother shall become your tenant? "Who has declared the fruit of your brother's toil is yours, "And that you shall drain off his blood for your fatness? "What Power has set a few as governors above their brethren, "Or made a majority to be tyrants?" TRUTH: Greater than the building of great cities Is the building of the soul of Man. ao POET: I had rather taste the common lot and know myself a man, full-statured, Than live like a louse upon the backs of the Poor. TRUTH: Better a tent with Justice than a Palace with Wrong. POET: Oh, for clean-limbed, clean-souled men and women. TRUTH: The body perfectly evolved in the freedom of the back- ward aeons of all time. And the soul to be evolved perfectly In the freedom of the forward aeons. POET: Who can set a limit to Man's soul? TRUTH: Who can set bounds unto the sky? Stars beyond stars ; systems beyond systems. He who shall look upon the last sunset, May say he has known the soul of man. POET: The Idolaters run about like sheep before a rainstorm. Stirring up a great dust and continually bleating : "Let nothing be changed ; we are comfortable." With a confused clamor, as of wild geese which fly up suddenly From the salt lakes of the Desert, They cry out continually : "God of Gold, our righteousness is thy righteousness ; "We are good in our own sight ; "We are well-dressed ; we are respectable." Like the angry Sea which snarls upon the sands, They call: "Stone those who dare to be different; crucify the anarchists ; "To the gallows with the agitators." 21 TRUTH: Behold the gowned priests, the preachers. Somber is their garb, And their teaching is somber. In their ignorance they preach love with their lips and rejoice in force in their hearts ; they think their will is the will of God, and by law they would change the foundations of the earth. Their eyes raised to heaven, see nothing ; And their mouths are filled with noise. They are a flock of crows which tear up the sprouting corn Before it reaches the light, And suck the egg before it has wings. POET: They affect a garb of Darkness, And their souls are clouded in night. TRUTH: Each sees his narrow shadow, and thinks it is God. But is blind to the handwriting of the buds, The teaching of the little calves ; Deaf to the instruction of the birds. And hears not the sermons of the Seasons. They refuse to drink from Nature's cup ; But are swollen in their own conceit. So that they will not drink from the same chalice With the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. POET: In their ignorance, they cry "Agitators" against those Who stand upon the street-corners, saying : "Go to, now, ye rich men ; weep and howl, "For your miseries which shall come upon ye. "For your gold and silver is cankered, "Behold the hire of the laborers which have reaped down your fields, "Which is of you kept back by fraud crieth : 22 " 'Ye have condemned and killed the just.' "If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, "And one of ye say unto them : " 'Depart in peace ; be warmed and filled,' "Notwithstanding ye give them not those things "Which are needful to the body, "What doth it profit?" TRUTH: Though a Christ died daily, they would not understand him. They are slaves unto material things ; Worshippers of the things that were. Always eager to crucify the Masters of the Soul. POET: Beloved Nature, lay on your cool and benedictive hands ; Wrap me in your infinity, Bathe me in your eternal pools. Wash me clean of the turmoil, And draw into your bosom all my fever. Give into my hand the stars rising above this world. And from their invisible fountains shed on me the dews of Peace. Breathe Beauty as a cloud, surpassing all. You have made nothing sacred; And in your everlasting temples, none need kneel. TRUTH: Man has declared a sanctity in garments, But not in the flesh of babes. The Patriot must bare his head before a holy rag. But in its fluttering shadow his striving soul Is stricken down with clubs of Authority. POET: Holier to me than any flag, the tatters of her Who should be a full-bosomed mother. More eloquent to me than banners, 23 The pathetic rags of Labor. Why should I, who will soon drink the comfortable cup, Sing of Joy, or shower words like rose-petals Upon the toilers whose backs are bent? Shall I twitter a morning song, While millions lie cold in darkness? Or sing the rhapsodies of Love, While my sisters barter for bitter bread, or brittle pleasure. That sacred fire, more elder than the Sun, Lit in Eternity, purer than Purity, And sheltered by the old, dead gods? TRUTH: Sing of manhood. Poet, Of straight-lipped manhood, Which, wide-eyed, with uplifted brows. Fearless, grips the gods and cries : "Hail, comrades, I am your fellow." .^ '^■' k, IL \ POET: Nature, flawless, without error in her turning. TRUTH: What is Man, that he should oppose himself to her eternity. Or think to know her infinite perfection? Shall the child understand the mother? To one who stands upon the promontory of a star, Are not the ants and bees as precious? Their knowledge admirable? Nature is wonderful in the infinity of her largeness, And of her smallness; The clod of the field as mysterious as a star ; And a grain of dust as the mountains. Are not the grasses, the fruits, the vari-colored flowers, from the dust? 24 Continually expanding; Continually returning to the source. Man, not more nor less than the lowliest of these. The weeds have the benignant care of the Mother perfectly as the wide-spreading oaks and lofty firs. And the children of men not any more her solicitude than the babies of the beetle Which tenderly she feeds in their dark and earthy lodgings. She holds the suns lightly between her fingers, Yet delights in the infinite atoms which our eyes cannot see. She has established eternal conditions whose penalty is death, but leaves all free to seek life. She governs nothing ; commands nothing ; enforces nothing. How then shall the smallest soul be governed by another? POET: The ant-hill as dear to Nature as the vastest city. TRUTH: Yea, dearer, for the little folk know freedom. With them. Justice plays awhile. The curious architects, The ants, will yet build in the streets of the proudest city, If the city finds not freedom. POET: The peace of Life which is Justice has not yet come to men. But the peace of Death is insistent. TRUTH: Man considers only what his eyes see. Yet the things unseen destroy his body ; And the things unseen destroy his soul. He lives and dies upon a world he cannot see ; Yet he would control the soul of his brother. 25 POET: The laws of Man are futile. They are engines of Tyranny ; Encumbrances against Nature ; Meddling obstructions. TRUTH: They proclaim, "Ye shall," and "Ye shall not." And who dares say so? The Great Mother commands nothing ; prohibits nothing. Tender and pitiless, she permits all things. But the penalty of error is death. POET: As a little child winking in its cradle, I gaze up at the roof she has put over me ; I see it is frosted with the sparks of eternity. It is forever beyond my finger reach and beautiful beyond my comprehension, I do not seek to control it ; Yet I seek to control the soul of my brother, Which also is inaccessible, infinite, beyond my comprehension. I find no flaw in the marching of the worlds ; The unseen gathering of the crystal dew. Or the raging of the relentless sea. The glow-worms, which bear their lamps humbly. As perfect as the sky-flooding moon. The tempest which tears the rooted pillars of the world. Not different from the wanton winds Which negligently play their airy flutes unto the leaves. Yet I instruct my mother. I look upon the swift rivers which hurry From the breasts of the mountains. Rolling the boulders with dull noises And carrying the wreckage of Time Upon their foaming frontlets. Though they obliterate a city, 26 Shall that impeach their operations? Carvers of the eternal channels, Levelers of the hills, Jubilantly tossing sun-jewels in their hands ; Bearing poppy wreaths and chaplets of wheat to the goddesses aw^aiting in the meadows. Because sailors sink in the deep And throw up vain arms unto the void. Shall the moving battlements of the sea be fixed? Or the winds sleep forever? Because we lift our frightened hands Unto a mocking sky, shall the earth cease from her travail or the chariots of the stars be stayed? Continually Nature drapes her wrecks with beauty, And out of destruction brings new life, But the wrecks of Man are cherished by him. He preserves studiously his errors. Continually he renews disease. He will not hearken to the voice of his mother. TRUTH: He has weighed the stars. Caught the lightning in its course. Peered like a curious child into his own cradle. But never yet has he controlled the eternal conditions. These are beyond him forever, yet he will not recognize them. He will not swim with the benevolent current. But hobbles like a blind man After the fatal falsities of Nineveh and Babylon. He does not understand that though he may not control Nature's conditions. He may surrender himself to their harmony ; As the willow-leaf, in September, floats happily On the force of the river. Never has he understood Freedom, Nor dug to the root of Evil, 27 Or looked deep into that cave of chrysoprase where a golden cloud veils the altar and behind which is Himself. He is always arguing about those things which do not matter, And accepting deep festered fetters on his soul. POET: When I look upon the roof of Night, I marvel that there be one who cares for what another thinks, Or in the bigness of this universe there be a soul so small to Feel the sting of ignorant opinion ; the contemptible multitude. I know for every one, were he but bold, Surely along some starry path, his soul awaits him. TRUTH: You, too, are part of the cosmos And should sweep free in your orbit as the stars in theirs. ,/ POET: The Desert terrifies me. I am penetrated by its awe, vast and solitary. Humbly I take my place with yon little lizard, As the child of Creation. Dimly, I begin to know that Nature has designed Freedom for every one, without exception; Each in the possession of his own soul, Under eternal conditions which envelop all As the air envelopes the Earth. TRUTH: Freedom is the air of the soul. To be uncontrolled is the life of the race. POET: Your thoughts penetrate me even as the insistent sap penetrates to the tips of the leaves, unfolding their tender fingers. 28 TRUTH: Man, dull brute, mistaking the thud of his feet for the rolling of the spheres, is willing the Great Mother Should go about her work freely in his poor body, Casting out the poisons which destroy him, But he is not willing she should freely Cast out the poisons of the greater body. Even the beasts accept the impenetrabilities of Nature, But Man has substituted an image of himself, Who for prayers and bribes pretends To modify those edicts which lift the fires of Creation, And guide the stars in their wandering ; Which weave the wings of the winds and shape the crystal orbs of the rain, Not caring if the fields have sinned ; Which nurse the silver spawn of the herring Amid the brown and undulant seaweed As tenderly as the spawn of Man. POET: Nature is simple ; yet inscrutable, eternally impregnable ; But her own insect would control her With the infirmity of his ignorance. The blind beetle seeks to order his brother's footsteps. TRUTH: Nature is like the stars, unvarying ; determined ;. She has set her conditions, equal unto all. She is merciless and full of mercy. POET: She claims no authority ; she invokes no force. TRUTH: She knows no rulers. POET: She seems deaf, but her deafness is wisdom. 29 TRUTH: She seems blind, but her blindness is vision. POET: She seems cruel, but her cruelty is mercy. TRUTH: Who breaks her conditions is his own executioner. POET: The merciful mother is merciful as a mother. TRUTH: She keepeth the race. III. POET: Behold, the silver-kirtled Dawn, The Life-renewer, sure Harvester of Gloom, And Bright Bringer of good hope. The skies are listening to Earth's silence And the Comforter casts abroad her gossamer mantle. The Desert sleeps, but her children, like fretful babies. Stir upon her bosom. TRUTH: The lean coyote, prowler of the night. Slips to his rocky fastnesses. Jack-rabbits noiselessly shuttle among the sage-brush. And from the castellated cliffs Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails upon the day. The wild horses troop back to their pastures. POET: The poplar-trees watch beside the irrigation-ditches. Orioles, whose nests sway in the cottonwood-trees by the ditch-side, begin to twitter. All shy things, breathless, watch The thin, white skirts of Dawn, 30 The dancer of the sky, Who trips daintily down the distant mountain-side Emptying her crystal chalice. TRUTH: And a red-bird, dipped in sunrise, cracks from a poplar's top His exultant whip above a silver world. POET: Yet are my eyes afflicted by the coming of the day. I see like a mirage of the desert an endless procession flowing from life unto death, Smileless, submissive; thin ghosts, starvation-carved. Life-marred, soul-stunted ; blurred unto death. TRUTH: The army of the God of Gold. POET: So pitiful-eager to snatch a crust that they may live ; To live, to work ; to work, to live. TRUTH: Civilization ! POET: In the life-renewing Morning, The stony dragons vomit their smoke into the face of God. The smoke of a hearth-stone is beautiful, But the smoke of furnaces, wherein are consumed The souls of men, is a blot against the luster of the day. TRUTH: Civilization ! POET: I hear the hungry roar of fiery furnaces ; The clang of hammers and the clank of chains ; 31 The clash and clamor of steel-plates ; The evil rattle of steel-cranes. I am deaf with the bellowing of monsters which feed on men. They belch their smoke against the resentful sky And below, in the steam, I see men naked, sweating like the damned ; Grimy alchemists, with wan, smutted faces. Who dully change dull iron to dull gold. TRUTH: Slaves to the demons which they guide. POET: An iron world without a soul; The patient sky above waiting ; The patient men below waiting ; The blue sky above forever listening, inviting, expectant ; The tired men below forever listening, hopeful, expectant ; The flaming sun above ordering abundance ; The flaming hell below denying enough ; Forever clamoring; forever devouring; Devouring the men who are mates for mothers; Fathers, steel-muscled, broad-chested, dominant ; The women, mothers of children ; The innocent children with white bodies, fluent, Morning glories bearing the Seeds of the unknowable Future. Mothers, undulant, flexible ; crypts of the ages ; alabaster vessels of life. In the dim dawn, before the whistles command, I see an army, ever hungry, never full ; They bend gray faces above their pauper bowls, And suck up eagerly Starvation's dole. TRUTH: Your brothers, whom you have disinherited; Your sisters, whom you have destroyed. 3a POET: In the grim dawn, the miners swarm from their hovels, Lusterless faces, bent backs. And swinging in their hands, tin-buckets, Censers of the God of Gold. Their faces are patient, as the dog's before his master; Their faces which are blanched so pitiful That the grime upon them is dark, Like the tally-mark of Death. Into the galleries of doom They bear the little torches which are all The sun and moon their long life knows ; And in their souls they bear the little torches Which are all the light their dark life knows ; They go down into the dripping corridors. Into the dark womb of the Earth, their mother ; The mother who devours her children ; Nay, not the Earth, their mother, devours them, But they are devoured of men, their brethren ; They go down into the caverns of the Earth, And sitting on the shoulder of each. Crouching close at his ear, is Death. They rain gold into the laps of their owners Who bask in the sun and breathe the bright air Sifted by the leaves ; But unto these toilers is tossed only enough Of the spoil of their combat to keep Life's poor, gray smoke ascending. TRUTH: Revolution ! Revolution ! POET: I cannot hear the roll-call of the woodpecker, Drumming Pan and his little goat-mouthed satyrs From the forest to the orchard. I cannot hear the melancholy note of the cuckoo Hid in the oak-tree, which calls plaintively before the rain, 33 Nor the mournful cooing of the dove from the rocky hillside, Near the spring, which is bordered with cresses. I only hear the reverberation of the riveter, That iron woodpecker, which perches upon the steel- girders. High against the sky, with iron-bill Tapping, rattling, reverberant, deafening. I see men running about on beams and girders, Human spiders, weaving the iron-cobwebs of the sky- scrapers. I see them running about recklessly as if the air were their home. A sudden slip, a swift rush to Eternity, On the pavement, the blood trickling from his nostrils, A spider of the iron-web lies still. A coat blots out the sight. TRUTH: Nothing is ever blotted. Even the grass-roots remember when they have fed on blood. POET: Justice is blind. TRUTH: Justice, immortal, relentless, clear-visioned ; Red drop for drop, carefully insisting that the debt be paid. POET: There lies the accusing thing, Shouting its loud, dumb challenge to the sky. TRUTH: Dead for a wage so pitiful. 34 POET: )And fledglings in the nest, J Waiting with open mouths, \ Fining the vacant air with cries. I A clang of bells. An ambulance. ! The thing is gone. tOh, where is God? TRUTH: Make better gods. POET: I see my white-faced sisters of the foul tenements Stooping over their needles, the devil's playthings, Which flash faster than the wings of the dragon-fly, Or the fangs of the quick-coiling serpent. Their fingers are yellow, like those of the dead ; The thin fingers of those who have died of hunger. Without pause, not daring to lose a moment. They snatch at the crust of their starvation while they labor. They bend close above their work with dim eyes. And the murmur of their hearts is continually: "Lest we starve ! Lest we starve !" I see my haggard sisters of the mind-madding factories. Their eyes sunken and their mouths drawn down. What anguish do they suffer? Their sallow hands are like talons; thin and yellow like the foot of an eagle. l They stand forever where the clamorous looms catch up J the souls of the workers and weave them into cloth, ! The souls of submissive women, woven into cloth for \ the masters, And they left standing, empty husks. Oh, the din of the mind-madding looms. The devil-dance of the shuttles. They weave up Youth, Freshness, Joy. They weave up the morning-thread of children's lives ; The roses of maidens' cheeks, 35 The whiteness of the sacred breasts of mothers, Those pure ivory bowls of far Eternity, Which should be beautiful. TRUTH: Civilization. Moloch insatiable. ^ POET: My little sisters, my pretty little sisters, With Life's morning in your cheeks ; Your eyes asparkle with the morning stars; Your bodies bathed in the wine unpurchasable. My girlish sisters, trusting, smiling, unafraid ; Chattering like children, flitting thoughtlessly, to the market Where you yourselves are merchandise; You sell bright ribbons and your brighter selves. I have seen innocent, pretty birds walk into the trap which shall destroy them. They twitter joyously, preening themselves, Glossy and beautiful; Turning their heads gracefully, Ere they pick up the corn which betrays them. TRUTH: The daughters of the Poor for sale. The Devil's auction. POET: Three dollars a week; three and a half; Four ; five ; five and a half. Gone ! Five dollars and a half a week for all the call of • the universe! Gone ! The thoughtless, trusting little birds. The innocent young mothers, sold at the Devil's auction. Eyes more precious than agates or sapphires. Shining like the pools of evening. Wherein the stars dance and along the border of which runs the liquid moon, 36 Cheeks more delicate than the wild-rose of the Desert- canyons ; Bosoms soft, white and fragrant as pond-lilies ; Lips dewy as Aurora new-bathed In the flattery of orient seas. TRUTH: Profit! Profit! Shall not the young mothers be slain for profit? POET: Souls leaning upon Hope With all the yearning of a woman's love. TRUTH: Profit! Profit! Shall not souls be sold for profit? POET: My little sisters, my trusting little sisters. Shall you not snatch at roses which droop heavy for the picking? Shall you not walk in the poppied paths? Shall you be an-hungered and not taste of the grapes? Has the vaunted God baited you only for destruction? TRUTH: Shirk not your work upon your pasteboard God. POET: Yea, I am guilty, for I have consented. Oh, the little children who should be the flowers of the Future, But their eyes are already weary and their lids droop toward oblivion. When I walk alone and look up into the sky I do not see the watchful orbs of night. But only the melancholy eyes of the Unborn Which stare at me, saying: "Must we, too, die not knowing Joy?" 37 When I hear the soughing of the winter wind in the leafless trees, It is the voices of little children without childhood; The sobbing of the brooks which quarrel to their stones Is to me the sobbing of mothers who curse motherhood ; The hissing of the imperious ocean Is to me the savagery of men who hate manhood. And the roar of the tempest is the fury of those Who will some day shake their fists against God. TRUTH: Bellied God! Moloch insatiable. POET: Everywhere, thicker than the stars of Heaven, I see melancholy eyes which stare at me ; Everywhere, like hissing rain, I hear the hot, salt rain of women's tears Which make the earth more salt and barren than this desert. Nature's desert is clean, and the bones of the dead Shine in the sun, white as pearls; But the desert of Man is filled with dead men's bones Rotting in darkness. TRUTH: Revolution ! Revolution ! POET: Everywhere I hear the hesitating footsteps of the wind Which brings unto my ears the moans of the Poor. More melancholy than the wail of the curlew upon the waste Is the cry of the disinherited : Those who were disinherited before they were bom. TRUTH: Before the day of their birth They are outcasts in the home of their Mother. 38 POET: Even the silent stars whisper unto me, "Thou art consenting." The waters and the many-tongued leaves Call continually to me, "How long? How long? "How long, brother, ere you come?" Out of the shadows an army of ghosts beckon to me, With twisted limbs and distorted mouths. "How long, brother, ere you come?" TRUTH: Will you come, or will you deny your divine vocation? POET: I will come, oh my brothers and sisters ; I will come. IV. POET: Hark to the laughers. Here, where Silence has sat down with covered head, I am pursued by mocking laughter. TRUTH: Your weak and helpless sisters Whom the Holy Ones have cast out. POET: I, too, have cast them out. I have consented. Oh, my sisters, fountains of Life, Wondrous weavers of the soul ; Lamps of the Future and mysterious moulds Of the generations. You are the torch-bearers who, in infinite procession, Approach from the sunrise. And in infinite procession diminish afar, into the sunset. 39 TRUTH: Man's falsities have made the lips of beautiful women Poisonous, as the bite of a seq)ent. POET: My sisters, so madly merry; With lamps you have blotted out the stars. You have made the cool, kind night to shiver with your laughter ; Your mad and reckless laughter; Your mad and reckless songs. 