Destroy this temple and I will re-build it
In three days. Now you know what preachers say:
This means the resurrection--not at all!
These were the greatest words that Jesus said.
And here his genius seized its fullest power,
Here was it that he hid Jerusalem
Under his hands as if it were a toy,
And tossed the world up as it were a ball.
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’. So destroy America,
But not by picks and axes, let it be
As in the movies where a lovelier face
Steals in and blots with brighter light a face,
Which must fade out to let the lovelier face
Complete the story.
Now in a moment’s silence
Let’s pray for Cato Braden.”
THE DESPLAINES FOREST
The sun has sunk below the level plain,
And yet above the forest’s leafy gloom
The glory of the evening lightens still.
Smooth as a mirror is the river’s face
With Heaven’s light, and all its radiant clouds
And shadows which against the river’s shore
Already are as night. From some retreat
Obscure and lonely, evening’s saddest bird
Whistles, and beyond the water comes
The musical reply, and silence reigns--
Save for the noisy chorus of the frogs,
And undistinguished sounds of faint portent
That night has come. There is a rustic bridge
Which spans the stream, from which we look below
At Heaven above, till revery reclaims
The mind from hurried thought and merges it
Into the universal mind which broods
O’er such a scene. Strange quietude o’erspreads
The restless flame of being, and the soul
Beholds its source and destiny and feels
Not sorrowful to sink into the breast
Of that large life whereof it is a part.
What are we? But the question is not solved
Here in the presence of intensest thought,
Where nature stills the clamor of the world,
And leaves us in communion with ourselves.
Hence to the strivings of the clear-eyed day
What take we that shall mitigate the pangs
That each soul is alone, and that all friends
Gentle and wise and good can never soothe
The ache of that sub-consciousness which is
Something unfathomed and unmedicined?
Yet this it is which keeps us in the path
Of some ambition cherished or pursued;
The still, small voice that is not quieted
By disregard, but ever speaks to us
Its mandates while we wake or sleep, and asks
A closer harmony with that great scheme
Which is the music of the universe.
So as the cherubim of Heaven defend
The realms of the unknown with flaming swords,
Thence are we driven to the world which is
Ours to be known through Art, who beckons us
To excellence, and in her rarer moods
Casts shadowy glances of serener lands,
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.
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.
One buys a garden gladly. Even the worst
Seems tolerable or beautiful at first.
Their very faults give loving labor scope:
One can correct, adorn; ’tis sweet to hope
For beauty to emerge out of your toil,
To build the walks and fertilize the soil.
Before I knew my garden or awoke
To its banality I set an oak
At one end for a life-long husbandry,
A white syringa and a lilac tree,
Close to one side to hide a crumbling wall,
Which was my neighbor’s, held in several
Title and beyond my right to mend--
One cannot with an ancient time contend.
Some houses shadowed me. I did not dream
The sun would never look o’er them and gleam,
Save at the earliest hour. So all the day
One half my garden under twilight lay.
Another soul had overlooked the shade:
I found the boundaries of a bed he made
For tulips. Well, I had a fresher trust
And spent my heart upon this sterile dust.
What thing will grow where never the sun shines?
Vainly I planted flowering stalks and vines.
What years to learn the soil! Why even weeds
Look green and fresh. But if one concedes
Salvia will flourish not, nor palest phlox
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. And who has this delight:
There’s my syringa with its blooms of white!
It flourishes in my garden! In this brief
Season of blossoms and unfolding leaf
What if I like my garden not but love
The oak tree and the lilac tree thereof,
And hide my face, lest one my rapture guess,
Amid the white syringa’s loveliness?
THE TAVERN
(_For my daughter Madeline_)
Nothing disturbed my night of sleep,
I wonder that I ever woke
It was so heavy, was so deep
I scarce had heard the thunder-stroke.
So what was drinking, feasting, talking
By guests who came and guests who went,
Or those who spent the time in walking
The halls and rooms in argument
About the Tavern? Some declared
No better Tavern could be built.
And others called it a deception,
Its purest gold but thinnest gilt,
A cruel cheat considering
No other Tavern gave reception
To folks who might be wayfaring
Anywhere in the whole wide land.
I woke a stranger to it all,
But quickly grew to understand
The ways and customs which prevailed:
Those who won favor, those who failed;
What feasting rooms had echoed laughter;
What kisses stolen in what hall;
What corners where the old had cried;
What stairways where the breathless bride
Paused for a moment just to toss
Among the bridesmaids her bouquet;
What rooms where men in work or play
Approved or cursed for gain or loss
The Tavern’s roof-tree, roof and rafter.
Then when I woke, as I have said,
Save a few children there was none
Who was not older far than I.
Many were trembling gray of head;
The strong walked forth in rain or sun
And seemed all danger to defy.
All welcomed me and called me fair,
And told me strange events which passed
Around the Tavern while I slept.
Soon there were changes. Scarce aware
Of their departure many stept
Out of the door and seemed to cast
Their fortunes elsewhere, but as fast
New guests came in to take the places
Of those who left. And through the day
I lost the old, remembering faces
Freshly arrived. When it was noon
I knew what things were opportune,
I had become one of the crowd
In all their ways initiate:
Knew what their love was, what their hate,
Myself stole kisses in the hall,
And saw the old who sat and cried
In corners, saw the rosy bride
Pause for a moment just to toss
Among the bridesmaids her bouquet,
Where I stood best man to the groom.
Was myself of the noisy room,
Where men in work or men in play
Approve or curse the gain or loss.
Toward afternoon I seemed to feel
More people knew me than I knew.
Then it was good to meet with you.
I saw you as you left the stair.
And who were you? I do not dare
To praise your brow, or paint your hair,
Your eyes how gray, or were they blue?
A pain strikes through me if I let
The full strength of my love have sway.
I only know I can forget
All others who had gone away
Remembering our happy day
Together in the house and yard.
It was to you all fair and new.
You listened with such rapt regard
To all the stories of the guests,
And what had been their interests.
And was the Tavern just the same
As it had been before you came,
You asked me, and I answered, yes,
No change, my dear, not even the name.
No change, except the people change,
And change they do, I must confess.
In truth a few alone remain
Of those who lived here when I first
Entered the door there, most are strange.
And as I rose much earlier
Than you arose, you may suppose
I shall grow drowsy, yet who knows
Before you do, and leave the stir
The dancing, feasting, just to creep
Back for another night of sleep.
I’d like so well to stay awake
And watch the dancing for your sake.
It may be, though it scarce may be--
No one remained awake for me.
You cannot fail to find the bed
When you are sleepy, but no doubt
It will be black with the light out.
Come dear, that sleep is loveliest
Where side by side two lovers rest,
That sweetens sleep--it may be best!
O SAEPE MECUM
(_For E. J. S._)
Edward! you knew the city and you knew
Where dancing and where music were,
And every hall and theatre,
And every green purlieu
Of gardens where beneath the vines and trees
One might sip beer and be consoled
By music mixed with talk, behold
The summer’s devotees
About the tables, idling June away.
And you knew chicory and cress,
With French or Mayonnaise could dress
A salad, growing gay
As you poured Burgundy or Rhenish wine,
Or had a sirloin brought to see
If it were ripe, the recipe
For broiling it, to dine
Thereon in fitting state, the waiter took
And bowed in admiration, then
You snapped your silver case again
And from the holders shook
Such cigarettes as Turkish grandees smoke,
And blew the perfumed incense forth,
Descanting on our life, the worth
Of lawyers, noted folk:
Of judges, politicians, governors,
Until the dinner came at last.
And there amid the rich repast
We poor solicitors
Gloried in life, and ruddy faced would laugh
At any mishap, any fate
That we could fancy might await,
And glorying would quaff
Incredible goblets of the quickening juice,
With blackest coffee topping all,
And afterwards a cordial--
Nothing we could abuse
And nothing hurt us, Edward! It was well
We lived, I think, and memories stored:
For now I am a little bored
With the invariable
And settled round of nights and days wherein
I must have sleep to work, and keep
Abstemious to work and sleep--
While you long since have been
The tangled lion of a woman’s hair
Who reads you novels and the news,
And mends you, tends you, even brews
Your broth and gives you care
In these dyspeptic mornings. As for me
The cafés, gardens haunt me yet.
I go about as one who can’t forget
A dead felicity--
The Bismarck, Rector’s where I enter not--
The music all is changed--and where
No faces that we knew are there,
And where we are forgot.
MALACHY DEGAN
Malachy, you stand a referee to judge
Under a torrent of blue light
The naked pugilists who fight,
Grim faces with a smudge
Of blood, or on the sliding arms or backs,
There on a platform roped, in palls
Of smoke to the roof of Tattersall’s,
And where the iterant cracks
Of matches struck for lights prick through the hum
Of voices over toned by cries
Of “Finish him,” “Look at his glassy eyes,”
“That sounded like a drum.”
When the timekeeper’s gong went clang! clang!
And a hush came over us, as then
Bath robes slipped off, the fighting men
Out of their corners sprang,
And in between the tangled arms and legs,
And clinches which you break, you glide
Red-haired, athletic, watchful eyed,
And like a lager keg’s
Round fulness is your chest, your arms all bare,
Coatless, a figure memorable.
You should not be forgotten--well
And if it be to dare
The censure of a taste American
To celebrate your courage, wit,
I write you down what here is writ:
A referee, a man!
A judge who loved the game and whose decree
Had no taint on it, was more pure
Than much of our judicature,
Of every knavery free.
And what is here to shock or shake such nerves
As children’s are, delicate women’s?
There goes the short hook of Fitzsimmons,
And Thorne a moment swerves,
Then topples over, and lies quiet while
You count from one slowly to nine.
And Thorne lies there without a sign
Of life, but with a smile
After a time gets up, and reels across
The ring to his own corner, there
Flops wobbly in his corner’s chair,
And wonders at his loss.
While full ten thousand cheer, and watch you shake
The master hand, the general’s.
Such was our sport at Tattersall’s
Before the Puritan rake
Combed through the city. Now the sport is dead,
And you are dust these several years.
And we who drift to stale careers,
And live along and tread
The old deserted ways we loved and knew,
Ask sometimes how it was a cough
Could seize upon you, take you off--
A lad as strong as you?
MY DOG PONTO
If I say to you “Come, Ponto, want some meat?”
You laugh in your dog-way and bark your “Yes.”
And if I say “Shall we go walking” or
“Stand up, nice Ponto,” then you stand up, or
If I say to you “Lie down” you lie down.
You know what meat is, what it is to walk.
You see the meat perhaps or get an image
Of scampering on the street or chasing dogs
While sniffing in fresh air, exploring bushes.
Upon these levels our minds meet at once,
As if they were the same stuff for such thoughts.
But if I look into your eye and say:
I’ll read to you a chapter on harmonics,
Here’s mad Spinoza’s close wrought demonstration
Of God as substance, here is Isaac Newton’s
Great book on gravitation, here’s a thesis
Upon the logos, of the word made man.
Or if I say let’s talk about my soul--
Since I have talked to yours in terms of meat--
Which sails out like a spider on its thread
Through mathematics, music,--look at you
You merely lie there with half open eye,
And thump your tail quite feebly just because,
And for no other reason save I’m talking,
And I’m your master and you’re fond of me,
And through affection would no doubt be glad
To know what I am saying, as ’twere meat
I might be saying. But I know a way
To make you howl for things not understood:
It makes you howl to hear my new Victrola
With a Beethoven record, why is this?
Perhaps this is to you a maddening token
Of realms that lie above the realms of meat,
And torture you because they have suggestions
Of things beyond you.
But in any case,
Dear Ponto, if you were an infidel
“You might say “What’s harmonics? they’re a joke.”
“And who’s Spinoza, Newton, they are myths.”
“And mathematics, music, can you eat them,”
“For what you cannot eat has no existence.”
Deny them as you will these spheres of thought
Lie as the steps of mountains over you.
They wait for you to gain them, you can find them
By rising to them, then how real they are!
As real as scampering when I take a walk.
But are they all? How do I know what spheres
Of life lie all around me and above me,
Just waiting not for me, but till I climb
And rest awhile and take their meaning in.
How do I know what hand plays a Victrola
With records greater than Beethoven’s song,
Which make me howl as piteously as you?
But here again our minds meet on a level:
I know no more than you do why I howl;
Nor what it is that makes me howl, nor why,
Though not content with meat, I want to know,
And keep as all my own this higher music.
THE GOSPEL OF MARK
How long have you been waiting? Not so long?
I’m glad of that. You found the place at once.
Well, there’s the Campus Martius, when you’re there
You see above this Collis Hortulorum,
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!
Here let us sit beside this chestnut tree,
And while the soft wind blows out of the sea
Let’s finish up our talks. You must know all
Wherewith to write the story ere I die
Beneath the wrath of Nero. See that light,
Faint like a little candle--I passed there.
That’s one of our poor men, they make us lamps
Wherewith to light the streets and Nero’s gardens.
We shall be lamps they’ll wish to snuff in time.
We met to-night at one Silvanus’ house.
And I was telling them about the night
When in Gethsemane you followed Him,
Having a cloth around your naked body.
And how you laid hold on him, left the cloth
And fled. But when you write this you can say
“A certain young man,” leaving out your name,
You may not wish to have it known ’twas you
Who ran away, as I would like to hide
How I fell into sleep and failed to watch,
And afterwards declared I knew Him not:
But as for me omit no thing. The world
Will gain for seeing me rise out of weakness
To strength, and out of fear to boldness. Time
Has wrought his wonders in me, I am rock,
Let hell beat on me, I shall stand from now!
Then don’t forget the first man that he healed.
There’s deep significance in this, my son,
That first of all he’d take an unclean spirit
And cast it out. Then second was my mother
Cured of her fever, just as you might say:
Be rid of madness, things that tear and plague,
Then cool you of the fever of vain life.
But don’t forget to write how he would say
“Tell no man of this,” say that and no more.
Though I may think he said it lest the crowds
That followed him would take his strength for healing,
And leave no strength for words, let be and write
“Tell no man of this” simply. For you see
These madmen quieted, these lepers cleaned
Had soon to die, all now are dead, perhaps.
And with them ends their good. But what he said
Remains for generations yet to come, with power
To heal and heal. My son, preserve your notes,
Of what I’ve told you, even above your life.
Make many copies lest one script be lost.
I shall not to another tell it all
As I have told it you.
But as for me
What merit have I that I saw and said
“Thou art the Christ?” One sees the thing he sees.
That is a matter of the eye--behold
What is the eye? Is there an Eye Power which
Produces eyes, a primal source of seeing,
An ocean of beholding, as the ocean
Makes rivers, streams and pools, so does this Power
Make eyes? You take an egg and keep it warm
About a day, then break the shell and look:
You’ll find dark spots on either side of what
Will be the head in time, these will be eyes
In season, but just now they cannot see,
Although the Eye Power back of them can see
Both what they are and how to make them eyes
By giving them its quality and strength.
And all the time while these dark spots emerge
From yolk to eyes, this Rome is here no less,
This moon, these stars, this wonder! Take a child
It stares at flowers and tears them, or again
It claws the whiteness of its mother’s breast,
Sees nothing but the things beneath its nose.
The world around it lies here to be seen,
And will be seen from boyhood on to age
In different guises, aspects, richnesses
According to the man, for every man
Sees different from his fellow. What’s an eye?
I say not what’s an eye, but what is here
For eyes to see? What wonders in that sky
Beyond my eye! What living things concealed
Beneath my feet in grass or moss or slime,
As small to crickets as they are to us!
For Nero at the Circus holds a ruby
Before his eye to give his eye more sight
To see the games and tortures. So I say
There was no merit in me when I said
“Thou art the Christ.”
Let’s think of eyes this way:
The lawyers said there’s nothing in this fellow.
His family beheld no wonder in him.
Have Mary Magdalene and I invented
These words, this story?--who are we to do so,--
A fallen woman and a fisherman!
Or did this happen? Did we see these things?
Did Mary see him risen and did I?
Were other eyes still dark spots on the yolk,
And were our eyes full grown and did we see?
Is this a madman’s world where I can talk,
And have you write for centuries to read
And play the fool with them? Or do all things
Of spirit, as of stars, of spring and growth
Proceed in order, under law to ends?
No, Mark, my son, this is the truth, so write,
Preserve this story taken from my lips.
My work is almost done. Rome is the end
Of all my labors, I have faith The Eye
Will give me other eyes for other worlds!
Why should I not believe this? Not all seasons
Are for unfolding. In the winter time
You cannot see the miracle of birth,
Of germinating seeds, of blossoming.
Why not then that one time for seeing Death
Go up like mist before the rising sun?
And in this single instance of our Lord
Arising from the grave, see all men rise,
And all men’s souls discovered in his soul,
Their quality and essence, strength made clear?
And why not I the seer of these things?
Why should there be another and not I?
And I declare to you that untold millions
In centuries untold will live and die
By these words which you write, as I have told them.
And nation after nation will be moulded,
As heated wax is moulded, by these words.
And spirits in their inmost power will feel
Change and regeneration through them--well, what then?
Do you say God is living, that this world,
These constellations, move by law, that all
This miracle of life and light is held
In harmony, and that the soul of man
Moves not in order, but that it’s allowed
To prove an anarch to itself, sole thing
That turns upon itself, sole thing that’s shown
The path that leads no whither? is allowed
To feed on falsehood? that it’s allowed
To wander lawless to its ruin, fooled
By what it craves, by what it feels, by eyes
That swear the truth of what they see? by words
Which you will write from words I have affirmed?
And do you say that Life shall prove the foe
Of life, and Law of law? Or do you say
The child’s eyes see reality which see
The poppy blossoms or the mother’s breast,
And this Rome and these stars do not exist
Because the child’s eyes cannot compass them,
And get their image? Shall we trust our vision
Mounting to higher things, or only trust
Those things which all have seen except the souls
Who have not soared, or risen to the gift
Of seeing what seemed walking trees grow clear
As men or angels? No, it cannot be.
Man’s soul, the chiefest flower of all we know,
Is not the toy of Malice or of Sport.
It is not set apart to be betrayed,
Or gulled to its undoing, left to dash
Its hopeless head against this rock’s exception,
No water for its thirst, no Life to feed it,
No law to guide it, though this universe
Is under Law, no God to mark its steps,
Except the God of worlds and suns and stars,
Who loves it not, loves worlds and suns and stars,
And them alone, and leaves the soul to pass
Unfathered--lets me have a madman’s dream
And gives it such reality that I
Take fire and light the world, convincing eyes
Left foolish to believe. It cannot be....
Go write what I have told you, come what will
I’m going to the catacombs to pray.
MARSYAS
Pallas Athena in an hour of ease
From guarding states and succoring the wise,
Pressed wistfully her lips against a flute
Made by a Phrygian youth from resonant wood
Cut near Sangarius. Upon a bank
Made sweet by daisies and anemone
She sat with godly wisdom exercised
Blowing her breath against the stubborn tube
That it might answer and vibrate in song.
But while she played, down-looking, she beheld
A serpent’s eyes, which by the water’s edge
Lay coiled among the reeds, as if aware
Of the divinity that filled the place.
Then Athena saw her image in the cove,
Where like a silver mirror, motionless
Sangarius lay, and seeing her own face
Thus suddenly, was stricken with surprise
Of her fair forehead wrinkled, and her lips
Pursed and distorted as she strove to curb
The resisting instrument. So with a smile,
A little laugh, which brought her beauty back,
And gilded like a gradual burst of sun
The water where the charmed serpent lay
Lifting his head up to the living warmth,
She threw the flute down, and Olympus way
Vanished, from sight.
Marsyas all the while
Beneath an oak’s shade by the water’s edge
Had drowsed voluptuously, and heard the notes,
Dreaming some shepherd youth who watched his sheep
Upon a near-by hill which to the swale
Sloped in luxuriance, upon a reed
His idle fancies loosened from the stops.
But when Athena passed him, since he heard
A roar of wings, as when a flock of quail
Up-fly the hunter’s step, he woke to find
The forest silent and the music gone.
Then straying toward the rushes, he espied
The flute upon the golden sands, and took it
And tried his lips upon it, where the lips
Of Pallas Athena left it fragrant, moist,
And with a soul, which to the artless breath
Of the rude Satyr gave melodious speech.
So thinking that the music was his own
And that the flute was but a worthless wood
Save that it made his genius manifest,
And swollen with conceit Marsyas sent
A word of challenge to the Delphic god,
Apollo of the cithara, for trial
Of skill in music, saying who should prove
The victor might do with the other what
Pleased him to do, and let the Muses judge.