Recorded in the Code Justinian,
Till Pagan Justice shelters man from man.
Fanatics snarl like mongrel dogs; the code
Will build each custom like a Roman Road,
Direct as daylight, clear-eyed as the sun.
God grant all crazy world-disturbers cease.
God give us honest peace.
THE VOICE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
I saw St. Francis by a stream
Washing his wounds that bled.
The aspens quivered overhead.
The silver doves flew round.
Weeping and sore dismayed
“Peace, peace,” St. Francis prayed.
But the soft doves quickly fled.
Carrion crows flew round.
An earthquake rocked the ground.
“War, war,” the west wind said.
IN WHICH ROOSEVELT IS COMPARED TO SAUL
_Written and published in 1913, and republished five years
later, in The Boston Transcript, on the death of Roosevelt._
Where is David?... Oh God’s people
Saul has passed, the good and great.
Mourn for Saul, the first anointed,
Head and shoulders o’er the state.
He was found among the prophets:
Judge and monarch, merged in one.
But the wars of Saul are ended,
And the works of Saul are done.
Where is David, ruddy shepherd,
God’s boy-king for Israel?
Mystic, ardent, dowered with beauty,
Singing where still waters dwell?
Prophet, find that destined minstrel
Wandering on the range today,
Driving sheep, and crooning softly
Psalms that cannot pass away.
“David waits,” the prophet answers,
“In a black, notorious den,
In a cave upon the border,
With four hundred outlaw men.
“He is fair and loved of women,
Mighty hearted, born to sing:
Thieving, weeping, erring, praying,
Radiant, royal rebel-king.
“He will come with harp and psaltry,
Quell his troop of convict swine,
Quell his mad-dog roaring rascals,
Witching them with tunes divine.
“They will ram the walls of Zion,
They will win us Salem hill,
All for David, shepherd David,
Singing like a mountain rill.”
HAIL TO THE SONS OF ROOSEVELT
“_Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came
forth sweetness._”--_Samson’s riddle._
There is no name for brother
Like the name of Jonathan
The son of Saul.
And so we greet you all:
The sons of Roosevelt--
The sons of Saul.
Four brother Jonathans went out to battle.
Let every Yankee poet sing their praise
Through all the days--
What David sang of Saul
And Jonathan, beloved more than all.
God grant such sons, begot of our young men,
To make each generation glad again.
Let sons of Saul be springing up again:
Out of the eater, fire and power again.
From the lost lion, honey for all men.
I hear the sacred Rocky Mountains call,
I hear the Mississippi Jordan call:
“_Stand up, America, and praise them all,
Living and dead, the fine young sons of Saul!_”
THE SPACIOUS DAYS OF ROOSEVELT
These were the spacious days of Roosevelt.
Would that among you chiefs like him arose
To win the wrath of our united foes,
To chain King Mammon in the donjon-keep,
To rouse our godly citizens that sleep
Till as one soul, we shout up to the sun
The battle-yell of freedom and the right--
“Lord, let good men unite.”
Nay, I would have you lonely and despised.
Statesmen whom only statesmen understand,
Artists whom only artists can command,
Sages whom all but sages scorn, whose fame
Dies down in lies, in synonyms for shame
With the best populace beneath the sun.
God give us tasks that martyrs can revere,
Still too much hated to be whispered here.
Would we might drink, with knowledge high and kind
The hemlock cup of Socrates the king,
Knowing right well we know not anything,
With full life done, bowing before the law,
Binding young thinkers’ hearts with loyal awe,
And fealty fixed as the ever-enduring sun--
God let us live, seeking the highest light,
God help us die aright.
Nay, I would have you grand, and still forgotten,
Hid like the stars at noon, as he who set
The Egyptian magic of man’s alphabet;
Or that far Coptic, first to dream in pain
That dauntless souls cannot by death be slain--
Conquering for all men then, the fearful grave.
God keep us hid, yet vaster far than death.
God help us to be brave.
FIFTH SECTION
RHYMES OF THE MIDDLE WEST AND SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
WHEN THE MISSISSIPPI FLOWED IN INDIANA
_Inscribed to Bruce Campbell, who read_ Tom Sawyer _with me in the old
house_
Beneath Time’s roaring cannon
Many walls fall down.
But though the guns break every stone,
Level every town:--
Within our Grandma’s old front hall
Some wonders flourish yet:--
The Pavement of Verona,
Where stands young Juliet,
The roof of Blue-beard’s palace,
And Kublai Khan’s wild ground,
The cave of young Aladdin,
Where the jewel-flowers were found,
And the garden of old Sparta
Where little Helen played,
The grotto of Miranda
That Prospero arrayed,
And the cave, by the Mississippi,
Where Becky Thatcher strayed.
On that Indiana stairway
Gleams Cinderella’s shoe.
Upon that mighty mountainside
Walks Snow-white in the dew.
Upon that grassy hillside
Trips shining Nicolette:--
That stairway of remembrance
Time’s cannon will not get--
That chattering slope of glory
Our little cousins made,
That hill by the Mississippi
Where Becky Thatcher strayed.
Spring beauties on that cliffside,
Love in the air,
While the soul’s deep Mississippi
Sweeps on, forever fair.
And he who enters in the cave,
Nothing shall make afraid,
The cave by the Mississippi
Where Tom and Becky strayed.
THE FAIRY FROM THE APPLE-SEED
Oh apple-seed I planted in a silly shallow place
In a bowl of wrought silver, with Sangamon earth within it,
Oh baby tree that came, without an apple on it,
A tree that grew a tiny height, but thickened on apace,
With bossy glossy arms, and leaves of trembling lace.
One night the trunk was rent, and the heavy bowl rocked round,
The boughs were bending here and there, with a curious locust sound,
And a tiny dryad came, from out the doll tree,
And held the boughs in ivory hands,
And waved her black hair round,
And climbed, and ate with merry words
The sudden fruit it bore.
And in the leaves she hides and sings
And guards my study door.
She guards it like a watchdog true
And robbers run away.
Her eyes are lifted spears all night,
But dove-eyes in the day.
And she is stranger, stronger
Than the funny human race.
Lovelier her form, and holier her face.
She feeds me flowers and fruit
With a quaint grace.
She dresses in the apple-leaves
As delicate as lace.
This girl that came from Sangamon earth
In a bowl of silver bright
From an apple-seed I planted in a silly shallow place.
A HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN
Guns salute, and crows and pigeons fly,
Bronzed, Homeric bards go striding by,
Shouting “Glory” amid the cannonade:--
It is the cross-roads
Resurrection
Parade.
Actors, craftsmen, builders, join the throng,
Painters, sculptors, florists tramp along,
Farm-boys prance, in tinsel, tin and jade:--
It is the cross-roads
Love and Laughter
Crusade.
The sun is blazing big as all the sky,
The mustard-plant with the sunflower climbing high,
With the Indian corn in fiery plumes arrayed:--
It is the cross-roads
Love and Beauty
Crusade.
Free and proud and mellow jamboree,
Roar and foam upon the prairie sea,
Tom turkeys sing the sun a serenade:--
It is the cross-roads
Resurrection
Parade.
Our sweethearts dance, with wands as white as milk,
With veils of gold and robes of silver silk,
Their caps in velvet pansy-patterns made:--
It is the cross-roads
Resurrection
Parade.
Wandering ’round the shrines we understand,
Waving oak-boughs cheap and close at hand,
And field-flowers fair, for which no man has paid:--
It is the cross-roads
Love and Beauty
Crusade.
Hieroglyphic marchers here we bring.
Rich inscriptions strut and talk and sing.
A scroll to read, a picture-word brigade:--
It is the cross-roads
Love and Laughter
Crusade.
Swans for symbols deck the banners rare,
Mighty acorn-signs command the air,
For hearts of oak, by flying beauty swayed:--
It is the cross-roads
Resurrection
Parade.
The flags are big, like rainbows flashing ’round,
They spread like sails, and lift us from the ground,
Star-born ships, that have come in masquerade:--
It is the cross-roads
Resurrection
Parade.
THE DREAM OF ALL THE SPRINGFIELD WRITERS
I’ll haunt this town, though gone the maids and men,
The darling few, my friends and loves today.
My ghost returns, bearing a great sword-pen
When far off children of their children play.
That pen will drip with moonlight and with fire.
I’ll write upon the church-doors and the walls.
And reading there, young hearts shall leap the higher
Though drunk already with their own love-calls.
Still led of love and arm in arm, strange gold
Shall find in tracing the far-speeding track
The dauntless war-cries that my sword-pen bold
Shall carve on terraces and tree-trunks black--
On tree-trunks black beneath the blossoms white:--
Just as the phosphorent merman, bound for home
Jewels his fire-path in the tides at night
While hurrying sea-babes follow through the foam.
And in December when the leaves are dead
And the first snow has carpeted the street
While young cheeks flush a healthful Christmas red
And young eyes glisten with youth’s fervor sweet--
My pen shall cut in winter’s snowy floor
Cries that in channelled glory leap and shine,
My Village Gospel, living evermore
Amid rejoicing, loyal friends of mine.
THE SPRINGFIELD OF THE FAR FUTURE
Some day our town will grow old.
“She is wicked and raw,” men say,
“Awkward and brash and profane.”
But the years have a healing way.
The years of God are like bread,
Balm of Gilead and sweet.
And the soul of this little town
Our Father will make complete.
Some day our town will grow old,
Filled with the fullness of time,
Treasure on treasure heaped
Of beauty’s tradition sublime.
Proud and gay and grey
Like Hannah with Samuel blest.
Humble and girlish and white
Like Mary, the manger guest.
Like Mary the manger queen
Bringing the God of Light
Till Christmas is here indeed
And earth has no more of night,
And hosts of Magi come,
The wisest under the sun
Bringing frankincense and praise
For her gift of the Infinite One.
AFTER READING THE SAD STORY OF THE FALL OF BABYLON
Oh Lady, my city, and new flower of the prairie,
What have we to do with this long time ago?
Oh lady love,
Bud of tomorrow,
With eyes that hold the hundred years
Yet to ebb and flow,
And breasts that burn
With great great grandsons
All their valor, all their tears,
A century hence shall know,
What have we to do
With this long time ago?
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL
“The present material universe, yet unrevealed in all its area, in
all its tenantries, in all its riches, beauty and grandeur will be
wholly regenerated. Of this fact we have full assurance since He that
now sits upon the throne of the Universe has pledged His word for it,
saying: ‘Behold I will create all things new,’ consequently, ‘new
heavens, new earth,’ consequently, new tenantries, new employments,
new pleasures, new joys, new ecstasies. There is a fullness of joy, a
fullness of glory and a fullness of blessedness of which no living man,
however enlightened, however enlarged, however gifted, ever formed or
entertained one adequate conception.”
The above is the closing paragraph in Alexander Campbell’s last essay
in the _Millennial Harbinger_, which he had edited thirty-five years.
This paragraph appeared November, 1865, four months before his death.
I--MY FATHERS CAME FROM KENTUCKY
I was born in Illinois,--
Have lived there many days.
And I have Northern words,
And thoughts,
And ways.
But my great grandfathers came
To the west with Daniel Boone,
And taught his babes to read,
And heard the red-bird’s tune;
And heard the turkey’s call,
And stilled the panther’s cry,
And rolled on the blue-grass hills,
And looked God in the eye.
And feud and Hell were theirs;
Love, like the moon’s desire,
Love like a burning mine,
Love like rifle-fire.
I tell tales out of school
Till these Yankees hate my style.
Why should the young cad cry,
Shout with joy for a mile?
Why do I faint with love
Till the prairies dip and reel?
My heart is a kicking horse
Shod with Kentucky steel.
No drop of my blood from north
Of Mason and Dixon’s line.
And this racer in my breast
Tears my ribs for a sign.
But I ran in Kentucky hills
Last week. They were hearth and home....
And the church at Grassy Springs,
Under the red-bird’s wings
Was peace and honeycomb.
II--WRITTEN IN A YEAR WHEN MANY OF MY PEOPLE DIED
I have begun to count my dead.
They wave green branches
Around my head,
Put their hands upon my shoulders,
Stand behind me,
Fly above me--
Presences that love me.
They watch me daily,
Murmuring, gravely, gaily,
Praising, reproving, readily.
And every year that company
Grows the greater, steadily.
And every day I count my dead
In robes of sunrise, blue and red.
III--A RHYMED ADDRESS TO ALL RENEGADE CAMPBELLITES, EXHORTING THEM TO
RETURN
I
O prodigal son, O recreant daughter,
When broken by the death of a child
You called for the greybeard Campbellite elder,
Who spoke as of old in the wild.
His voice held echoes of the deep woods of Kentucky.
He towered in apostolic state,
While the portrait of Campbell emerged from the dark:
That genius beautiful and great.
And millennial trumpets poised, half lifted,
Millennial trumpets that wait.
II
Like the woods of old Kentucky
The memories of childhood
Arch up to where gold chariot wheels go ringing,
To where the precious airs are terraces and roadways
For witnesses to God, forever singing.
Like Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, the memories of childhood
Go in and in forever underground
To river and fountain of whispering and mystery
And many a haunted hall without a sound.
To Indian hoards and carvings and graveyards unexplored.
To pits so deep a torch turns to a star
Whirling ’round and going down to the deepest rocks of earth,
To the fiery roots of forests brave and far.
III
As I built cob-houses with small cousins on the floor:
(The talk was not meant for me).
Daguerreotypes shone. The back log sizzled
And my grandmother traced the family tree.
Then she swept to the proverbs of Campbell again.
And we glanced at the portrait of that most benign of men
Looking down through the evening gleam
With a bit of Andrew Jackson’s air,
More of Henry Clay
And the statesmen of Thomas Jefferson’s day:
With the face of age,
And the flush of youth,
And that air of going on, forever free.
For once upon a time ...
Long, long ago ...
In the holy forest land
There was a jolly pre-millennial band,
When that text-armed apostle, Alexander Campbell
Held deathless debate with the wicked “infi-del.”
The clearing was a picnic ground.
Squirrels were barking.
The seventeen year locust charged by.
Wild turkeys perched on high.
And millions of wild pigeons
Broke the limbs of trees,
Then shut out the sun, as they swept on their way.
But ah, the wilder dove of God flew down
To bring a secret glory, and to stay,
With the proud hunter-trappers, patriarchs that came
To break bread together and to pray
And oh the music of each living throbbing thing
When Campbell arose,
A pillar of fire,
The great high priest of the Spring.
He stepped from out the Brush Run Meeting House
To make the big woods his cathedrals,
The river his baptismal font,
The rolling clouds his bells,
The storming skies his waterfalls,
His pastures and his wells.
Despite all sternness in his word
Richer grew the rushing blood
Within our fathers’ coldest thought.
Imagination at the flood
Made flowery all they heard.
The deep communion cup
Of the whole South lifted up.
Who were the witnesses, the great cloud of witnesses
With which he was compassed around?
The heroes of faith from the days of Abraham
Stood on that blue-grass ground--
While the battle-ax of thought
Hewed to the bone
That the utmost generation
Till the world was set right
Might have an America their own.
For religion Dionysian
Was far from Campbell’s doctrine.
He preached with faultless logic
An American Millennium:
The social order
Of a realist and farmer
With every neighbor
Within stone wall and border.
And the tongues of flame came down
Almost in spite of him.
And now all but that Pentecost is dim.
IV
I walk the forest by the Daniel Boone trail.
By guide posts quaint.
And the blazes are faint
In the rough old bark
Of silver poplars
And elms once slim,
Now monoliths tall.
I walk the aisle,
The cathedral hall
That is haunted still
With chariots dim,
Whispering still
With debate and call.
I come to you from Campbell.
Turn again, prodigal
Haunted by his name!
Artist, singer, builder,
The forest’s son or daughter!
You, the blasphemer
Will yet know repentance,
And Campbell old and grey
Will lead you to the dream-side
Of a pennyroyal river.
While your proud heart is shaken
Your confession will be taken
And your sins baptized away.
You, statesman-philosopher,
Sage with high conceit
Who speak of revolutions, in long words,
And guide the little world as best you may:
I come to you from Campbell
And say he rides your way
And will wait with you the coming of his day.
His horse still threads the forest,
Though the storm be roaring down....
Campbell enters now your log-house door.
Indeed you make him welcome, after many years,
While the children build cob-houses on the floor.
Let a thousand prophets have their due.
Let each have his boat in the sky.
But you were born for his secular millennium
With the old Kentucky forest blooming like Heaven,
And the red birds flying high.
THE END
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.