THE OPEN SEA
_By_
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
STARVED ROCK
MITCH MILLER
DOMESDAY BOOK
TOWARD THE GULF
SONGS AND SATIRES
THE GREAT VALLEY
SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY
THE OPEN SEA
_By_
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
[Illustration: colophon]
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1921.
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
PART I
PAGE
BRUTUS 3
Brutus and Antony 3
At the Mermaid Tavern 17
Charlotte Corday 31
A Man Child is Born 49
Richard Booth to His Son, Junius Booth 52
A Man Child is Born 57
Squire Bowling Green 58
Lincoln Speaking in Congress 63
John Wilkes Booth at the Farm 64
Junius Brutus Booth 66
A Certain Poet on the Debates 71
PART II
The Decision 81
PART III
Lincoln Makes a Memorandum 117
Winter Garden Theatre 118
The Sparrow Hawk in the Rain 120
Adelaide and John Wilkes Booth 134
Brutus Lives Again in Booth 140
Booth’s Philippi 151
The Burial of Boston Corbett 160
THE NEW APOCRYPHA 163
Business Reverses 163
The Fig Tree 166
Tribute Money 169
The Great Merger 171
At Decapolis 174
The Single Standard 178
First Entrants 183
John in Prison 186
Ananias and Sapphira 190
The Two Malefactors 193
Berenice 202
NEBUCHADNEZZAR OR EATING GRASS 212
HIP LUNG ON YUAN CHANG 220
ULYSSES 225
THE PARTY 232
CELSUS AT HADRIAN’S VILLA 238
INVOCATION TO THE GODS 248
PENTHEUS IN THESE STATES 253
COMPARATIVE CRIMINALS 262
THE GREAT RACE PASSES 270
DEMOS THE DESPOT 272
A REPUBLIC 275
THE INN 277
MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM MARION REEDY 285
GOD AND MY COUNTRY 290
THE DUNES OF INDIANA 295
NATURE 299
THE OPEN SEA
PART ONE
THE OPEN SEA
BRUTUS
BRUTUS AND ANTONY
(_Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in
Rome._)
_B. C. 20_
THE OPEN SEA
BRUTUS
BRUTUS AND ANTONY
Part I
(_Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in Rome_)
B.C. 20
How shall I write this out? I do not write.
Talk to you? Yes, and tell of Antony,
And how I knew him. There at Philippi
I let myself be captured, so to give
Time to escape to Brutus--made pretense
That I was Brutus, and so Brutus flies
And I am captured. Antony forgives me,
And to his death I was his faithful friend.
Well, after Actium, in Africa,
He roamed with no companions but us two,
Our friend Aristocrates, here, myself,
And fed upon his bitter heart. Our guest
Nods truth to what I say, he knows it all.
And after certain days in solitude
He seeks his Cleopatra. As for her,
She was the sovereign queen of many nations;
Yet that she might be with her Antony,
Live with him and enjoy him, did not shun
The name of mistress, and let Fulvia keep
Her wifehood without envy. As for him,
A lover’s soul lives in the loved one’s body,
And where bode Cleopatra, there his soul
Lived only, though his feet of flesh pursued
The Parthian, or Cæsar’s hateful heir....
And if this Antony would wreathe his spear
With ivy like a thyrsus; from the chamber
Of his beloved rush to battle, helmet
Smelling of unguents and of Egypt; leave
Great action and great enterprise to play
Along the seashore of Canopus with her;
And fly the combat, not as Paris did,
Already beaten, with lift sail, desert
The victory that was his, yet true it is
His rank, his eloquence, his liberal blood,
His interest in all grades and breeds of men,
His pity and his kindness to the sick,
His generous sympathies, stamped Antony
A giant in this dusty, roaring place
Which we call earth. Who ruined Antony?
Why, Brutus! For he gave to Antony
The truth of which the Queen of Egypt stood
As proof in the flesh:--Beauty and Life. His heart
Was apt to see her for mad days in Rome,
And soul created sateless for the cup
Of ecstasy in living.
On a day
Myself and Aristocrates and Antony,
We two companioning him in Africa,
Wandering in solitary places, Antony
Brooding on Actium, and the love that kept
His soul with Cleopatra, up he speaks,
And asks us if we knew what Brutus said,
While nearing death, to Cassius. “No,” we said.
And Antony began to tell of Brutus:--
How all his life was spent in study, how
He starved his body, slept but briefly, cut
His hours of sleep by practice; fixed his thought
On virtue and on glory; made himself
A zealot of one purpose: liberty;
A spirit as of a beast that knows one thing:
Its food and how to get it; over its spirit
No heaven keeps of changing light; no stars
Of wandering thought; no moons that charm
Still groves by singing waters, and no suns
Of large illumination, showing life
As multiform and fathomless, filled with wings
Of various truth, each true as other truth.
This was that Brutus, made an asp by thought
And nature, to be used by envious hands
And placed to Cæsar’s breast. So Antony
Discoursed upon our walk, and capped it off
With Brutus’ words when dying. They were these:
“O virtue, miserable virtue, bawd and cheat;
Thou wert a bare word and I followed thee
As if thou hadst been real. But even as evil,
Lust, ignorance, thou wert the plaything too
Of fortune and of chance.”
So Antony
Consoled himself with Brutus, sighed and lapsed
To silence; thinking, as we deemed, of life
And what it yet could be, and how ’twould end;
And how to join his Cleopatra, what
The days would hold amid the toppling walls
Of Rome in demolition, now the hand
Of Cæsar rotted, and no longer stayed
The picks and catapults of an idiot world!
So, as it seemed, he would excuse himself
For Actium and his way in life. For soon
He speaks again, of Theophrastus now,
Who lived a hundred years, spent all his life
In study and in writing, brought to death
By labor; dying lay encompassed by
Two thousand followers, disciples, preachers
Of what he taught; and dying was penitent
For glory, even as Brutus was penitent
For virtue later. And so Antony
Spoke Theophrastus’ dying words, and told
How Theophrastus by a follower
Asked for a last commandment, spoke these words:
“There is none. But ’tis folly to cast away
Pleasure for glory! And no love is worse
Than love of glory. Look upon my life:--
Its toil and hard denial! To what end?
Therefore live happy; study, if you must,
For fame and happiness. Life’s vanity
Exceeds its usefulness.”
So speaking thus
Wise Theophrastus died.
Now I have said
That Brutus ruined Antony. So he did,
If Antony were ruined--that’s the question.
For Antony hearing Brutus say, “O virtue,
Miserable virtue, bawd and cheat,” and seeing
The eyes of Brutus stare in death, threw over him
A scarlet mantle, and took to his heart
The dying words of Brutus.
It is true
That Cicero said Antony as a youth
Was odious for drinking-bouts, amours,
For bacchanals, luxurious life, and true
When as triumvir, after Cæsar’s death,
He kept the house of Pompey, where he lived,
Filled up with jugglers, drunkards, flatterers.
All this before the death of Brutus, or
His love for Cleopatra. But it’s true
He was great Cæsar’s colleague. Cæsar dead,
This Antony is chief ruler of all Rome,
And wars in Greece, and Asia. So it’s true
He was not wholly given to the cup,
But knew fatigue and battle, hunger too,
Living on roots in Parthia. Yet, you see,
With Cæsar slaughtered in the capitol,
His friend, almost his god; and Brutus gasping
“O miserable virtue”; and the feet of men
From Syria to Hispania, slipping off
The world that broke in pieces, like an island
Falling apart beneath a heaving tide--
Whence from its flocculent fragment wretches leap--
You see it was no wonder for this Antony,
Made what he was by nature and by life,
In such a time and fate of the drifting world,
To turn to Cleopatra, and leave war
And rulership to languish.
Thus it was:
Cæsar is slaughtered, Antony must avenge
The death of Cæsar. Brutus is brought to death,
And dying scoffs at virtue which took off
In Brutus’ hand the sovran life of Cæsar.
And soon our Antony must fight against
The recreant hordes of Asia, finding here
His Cleopatra for coadjutor....
He’s forty-two and ripe. She’s twenty-eight,
Fruit fresh and blushing, most mature and rich;
Her voice an instrument of many strings
That yielded laughter, wisdom, folly, song,
And tales of many lands, in Arabic,
And Hebrew, Syriac and Parthiac.
She spoke the language of the troglodytes,
The Medes and others. And when Antony
Sent for her in Cilicia, she took time,
Ignored his orders, leisurely at last
Sailed up the Cydnus in a barge whose stern
Was gilded, and with purple sails. Returned
His dining invitation with her own,
And bent his will to hers. He went to her,
And found a banquet richer than his largess
Could give her. For while feasting, branches sunk
Around them, budding lights in squares and circles,
And lighted up their heaven, as with stars.
She found him broad and gross, but joined her taste
To him in this. And then their love began.
And while his Fulvia kept his quarrels alive
With force of arms in Rome on Octavianus,
And while the Parthian threatened Syria,
He lets the Queen of Egypt take him off
To Alexandria, where he joins with her
The Inimitable Livers; and in holiday
Plays like a boy and riots, while great Brutus
Is rotting in the earth for Virtue’s sake;
And Theophrastus for three hundred years
Has changed from dust to grass, and grass to dust!
And Cleopatra’s kitchen groans with food.
Eight boars are roasted whole--though only twelve
Of these Inimitable Livers, with the Queen
And Antony are to eat--that every dish
May be served up just roasted to a turn.
And who knows when Marc Antony may sup?
Perhaps this hour, perhaps another hour,
Perhaps this minute he may call for wine,
Or start to talk with Cleopatra; fish--
For fish they did together. On a day
They fished together, and his luck was ill,
And so he ordered fishermen to dive
And put upon his hook fish caught before.
And Cleopatra feigned to be deceived,
And shouted out his luck. Next day invited
The Inimitable Livers down to see him fish,
Whereat she had a diver fix his hook
With a salted fish from Pontus. Antony
Drew up amid their laughter. Then she said:
“Sweet Antony, leave us poor sovereigns here,
Of Pharos and Canopus, to the rod;
Your game is cities, provinces and kingdoms.”
Were Antony serious, or disposed to mirth?
She had some new delight. She diced with him,
Drank with him, hunted with him. When he went
To exercise in arms, she sat to see.
At night she rambled with him in the streets,
Dressed like a servant-woman, making mischief
At people’s doors. And Antony disguised
Got scurvy answers, beatings from the folk,
Tormented in their houses. So it went
Till Actium. She loved him, let him be
By day nor night alone, at every turn
Was with him and upon him.
Well, this life
Was neither virtue, glory, fame, nor study,
But it was life, and life that did not slay
A Cæsar for a word like Liberty.
And it was life, its essence nor changed nor lost
By Actium, where his soul shot forth to her
As from a catapult a stone is cast,
Seeing her lift her sixty sails and fly.
His soul lived in her body as ’twere born
A part of her, and whithersoever she went
There followed he. And all their life together
Was what it was, a rapture, justified
By its essential honey of realest blossoms,
In spite of anguished shame. When hauled aboard
The ship of Cleopatra, he sat down
And with his two hands covered up his face!
Brutus had penitence at Philippi
For virtue which befooled him. Antony
Remorse and terror there at Actium
Deserting with his queen, for love that made
His body not his own, as Brutus’ will
Was subject to the magic of a word....
For what is Virtue, what is Love? At least
We know their dire effects, that both befool,
Betray, destroy.
The Queen and Antony
Had joined the Inimitable Livers, now they joined
The Diers Together. They had kept how oft
The Festival of Flagons, now to keep
The Ritual of Passing Life was theirs.
But first they suffered anger with each other
While on her ship, till touching Tenarus
When they were brought to speak by women friends,
At last to eat and sleep together. Yet
Poison had fallen on their leaves, which stripped
Their greenness to the stalk, as you shall see....
Here to make clear what flight of Antony meant,
For cause how base or natural, let me say
That Actium’s battle had not been a loss
To Antony and his honor, if Canidius,
Commanding under Antony, had not flown
In imitation of his chief; the soldiers
Fought desperately in hope that Antony
Would come again and lead them.
So it was
He touched, with Cleopatra, Africa,
And sent her into Egypt; and with us,
Myself and Aristocrates, walked and brooded
In solitary places, as I said.
But when he came to Alexandria
He finds his Cleopatra dragging her fleet
Over the land space which divides the sea
Near Egypt from the Red Sea, so to float
Her fleet in the Arabian Gulf, and there,
Somewhere upon earth’s other side, to find
A home secure from war and slavery.
She failed in this; but Antony leaves the city,
And leaves his queen, plays Timon, builds a house
Near Pharos on a little mole; lives here
Until he hears all princes and all kings
Desert him in the realm of Rome; which news
Brings gladness to him, for hope put away,
And cares slipped off. Then leaving Timoneum,--
For such he named his dwelling there near Pharos--
He goes to Cleopatra, is received,
And sets the city feasting once again.
The order of Inimitable Livers breaks,
And forms the Diers Together in its place.
And all who banquet with them, take the oath
To die with Antony and Cleopatra,
Observing her preoccupation with
Drugs poisonous and creatures venomous.
And thus their feast of flagons and of love
In many courses riotously consumed
Awaits the radiate liquor dazzling through
Their unimagined terror, like the rays
Shot from the bright eyes of the cockatrice,
Crackling for poison in the crystal served
By fleshless hands! A skeleton steward soon
Will pass the liquer to them; they will drink,
And leave no message, no commandment either--
As Theophrastus was reluctant to--
Denied disciples; for Inimitable Livers
Raise up no followers, create no faith,
No cult or sect. Joy has his special wisdom,
Which dies with him who learned it, does not fire
Mad bosoms like your Virtue.
I must note
The proffered favors, honors of young Cæsar
To Cleopatra, if she’d put to death
Her Antony; and Antony’s jealousy,
Aroused by Thyrsus, messenger of Cæsar,
Whom Cleopatra gave long audiences,
And special courtesies; seized, whipped at last
By Antony, sent back to Cæsar. Yet
The queen was faithful. When her birth-day came
She kept it suitable to her fallen state,
But all the while paying her Antony love,
And honor, kept his birth-day with such richness
That guests who came in want departed rich ...
Wine, weariness, much living, early age
Made fall for Antony. October’s clouds
In man’s life, like October, have no sun
To lift the mists of doubt, distortion, fear.
Faces, events, and wills around us show
Malformed, or ugly, changed from what they were.
And when his troops desert him in the city
To Cæsar, Antony cries out, the queen,
His Cleopatra, has betrayed him. She
In terror seeks her monument, sends word
That she is dead. And Antony believes
And says delay no longer, stabs himself,
Is hauled up dying to the arms of her,
Where midst her frantic wailings he expires!
Kings and commanders begged of Cæsar grace
To give this Antony his funeral rites.
But Cæsar left the body with the queen
Who buried it with royal pomp and splendor.
Thus died at fifty-six Marc Antony,
And Cleopatra followed him with poison,
The asp or hollow bodkin, having lived
To thirty-nine, and reigned with Antony
As partner in the empire fourteen years ...
Who in a time to come will gorge and drink,
Filch treasure that it may be spent for wine,
Kill as Marc Antony did, war as he did,
Because Marc Antony did so, taking him
As warrant and exemplar? Why, never a soul!
These things are done by souls who do not think,
But act from feeling. But those mad for stars
Glimpsed in wild waters or through mountain mists
Seen ruddy and portentous will take Brutus
As inspiration, since for Virtue’s sake
And for the good of Rome he killed his friend;
And in the act made Liberty as far
From things of self, as murder is apart
From friendship and its ways. Yes, Brutus lives
To fire the mad-men of the centuries
As Cæsar lives to guide new tyrants. Yet
Tyrannicide but snips the serpent’s head.
The body of a rotten state still writhes
And wriggles though the head is gone, or worse,
Festers and stinks against the setting sun....
Marc Antony lived happier than Brutus
And left the old world happier for his life
Than Brutus left it.
AT THE MERMAID TAVERN
(_April 10th, 1613_)
(LIONARD DIGGES _is speaking_)
Yes, so I said: ’twas labored “Cataline”
Insufferable for learning, tedious.
And so I said: the audience was kept
There at the Globe twelve years ago to hear:
“It is no matter; let no images
Be hung with Cæsar’s trophies.”
And to-day
They played his Julius Cæsar at the Court.
I saw it at the Globe twelve years ago,
A gala day! The flag over the Theatre
Fluttered the April breeze and I was thrilled.
And look what wherries crossed the Thames with freight
Of hearts expectant for the theatre.
For all the town was posted with the news
Of Shakespeare’s “Julius Cæsar.” So we paid
Our six-pence, entered, all the house was full.
And dignitaries, favored ones had seats
Behind the curtain on the stage. At last
The trumpet blares, the curtains part, Marullus
And Flavius enter, scold the idiot mob
And we sat ravished, listening to the close.
We knew he pondered manuscripts, forever
Was busy with his work, no rest, no pause.
Often I saw him leave the theatre
And cross the Thames where in a little room
He opened up his Plutarch. What was that?
A fertilizing sun, a morning light
Of bursting April! What was he? The earth
That under such a sun put forth and grew,
Showed all his valleys, mountain peaks and fields,
Brought forth the forests of his cosmic soul,
The coppice, jungle, blossoms good and bad.
A world of growth, creation! This the work,
Precedent force of Thomas North, his work
In causal link the Bishop of Auxerre,
And so it goes.
But others tried their hand
At Julius Cæsar, witness “Cæsar’s Fall”
Which Drayton, Webster, others wrote. And look
At Jonson’s “Cataline,” that labored thing,
Dug out of Plutarch, Cicero. Go read,
Then read this play of Shakespeare’s.
I recall
What came to me to see this, scene by scene,
Unroll beneath my eyes. ’Twas like a scroll
Lettered in gold and purple where one theme
In firmest sequence, precious artistry
Is charactered, and all the sound and sense,
And every clause and strophe ministers
To one perfection. So it was we sat
Until the scroll lay open at our feet:
“According to his virtue, let us use him
With all respect and rites of burial,”
Then gasped for breath! The play’s a miracle!
This world has had one Cæsar and one Shakespeare,
And with their birth is shrunk, can only bear
Less vital spirits.
For what did he do
There in that room with Plutarch? First his mind
Was ready with the very moulds of nature.
And then his spirit blazing like the sun
Smelted the gold from Plutarch, till it flowed
Molten and dazzling in these moulds of his.
And lo! he sets up figures for our view
That blind the understanding till you close
Eyes to reflect, and by their closing see
What has been done. O, well I could go on
And show how Jonson makes homonculus,
And Shakespeare gets with child, conceives and bears
Beauty of flesh and blood. Or I could say
Jonson lays scholar’s hands upon a trait,
Ambition, let us say, as if a man
Were peak and nothing else thrust to the sky
By blasting fires of earth, just peak alone,
No slopes, no valleys, pines, or sunny brooks,
No rivers winding at the base, no fields,
No songsters, foxes, nothing but the peak.
But Shakespeare shows the field-mice and the cricket,
The louse upon the leaf, all things that live
In every mountain which his soaring light
Takes cognizance; by which I mean to say
Shows not ambition only, that’s the peak,
But mice-moods, cricket passions in the man;
How he can sing, or whine, or growl, or hiss,
Be bird, fox, wolf, be eagle or be snake.
And so this “Julius Cæsar” paints the mob
That stinks and howls, a woman in complaint
Most feminine shut from her husband’s secrets;
Paints envy, paints the demagogue, in brief,
Paints Cæsar till we lose respect for Cæsar.
For there he stands in verity, it seems,
A tyrant, coward, braggart, aging man,
A stale voluptuary shoved about
And stabbed most righteously by patriots
To avenge the fall of Rome!
Now I have said
Enough to give me warrant to say this:
This play of Shakespeare fails, is an abuse
Upon the memory of the greatest man
That ever trod this earth. And Shakespeare failed
By just so much as he might have achieved
Surpassing triumph had he made the play
Cæsar instead of Brutus, had he shown
A sovereign will and genius struck to earth
With loss irreparable to Time and ruin
To Cæsar’s dreams; struck evilly to death
By a mad enthusiast, a brutal stoic,
In whom all gratitude was tricked aside
By just a word, the word of Liberty.
Or might I also say the man had envy
Of Cæsar’s greatness, or might it be true
Brutus took edge for hatred with the thought
That Brutus’ sister flamed with love for Cæsar?
But who was Brutus, by the largest word
That comes to us that he should be exalted,
Forefronted in this play, and warrant given
To madmen down the ages to repeat
This act of Brutus’, con the golden words
Of Shakespeare as he puts them in his mouth:
“Not that I loved him less, but loved Rome more.
He was ambitious so I slew him. Tears
For his love, joy for his fortune, honor for valor,
Death for ambition. Would you die all slaves
That Cæsar might still live, or live free men
With Cæsar dead?”
And so it is the echo
Of Cæsar’s fall is cried to by this voice
Of Shakespeare’s and increased, to travel forth,
To fool the ages and to madden men
With thunder in the hills of time to deeds
As horrible as this.
Did Shakespeare know
The worth of Cæsar, that we may impute
Fault for this cartoon--caricature? Why look,
Did he not write the “mightiest Julius,” write
“The foremost man of all the world,” “the conqueror
Whom death could conquer not,” make Cleopatra,
The pearl of all the east, say she was glad
That Cæsar wore her on his hand? He knew
What Cæsar’s greatness was! Yet what have we?
A Cæsar with the falling sickness, deaf,
Who faints upon the offering of the crown;
Who envies Cassius stronger arms in swimming,
When it is known that Cæsar swam the Tiber,
Being more than fifty; pompous, superstitious,
Boasting his will, but flagging in the act;
Greedy of praise, incautious, unalert
To dangers seen of all; a lust incarnate
Of power and rulership; a Cæsar smashing
A great republic like a criminal,
A republic which had lived except for him.
So what was Rome when Cæsar took control?
All wealth and power concentered in the few;
A coterie of the rich who lived in splendor;
A working class that lived on doles of corn
And hordes of slaves from Asia, Africa,
Who plotted murders in the dark purlieus;
The provinces were drained to feed the rich;
The city ruled by bribery, and corruption;
Armed gladiators sold their services.
And battled in the Forum; magistrates
Were freely scoffed at, consuls were attacked;
And orators spat in each other’s faces
When reason failed them speaking in the Forum;
No man of prominence went on the streets
Without his hired gladiators, slaves.
The streets were unpoliced, no fire brigade,
Safe-guarded property. Domestic life
Was rotten at the heart, and vice was taught.
Divorce was rife and even holy Cato
Put by his wife.
And this was the republic
That Cæsar took; and not the lovely state
Ordered and prospered, which ambitious Cæsar,
As Shakespeare paints him, over-whelmed. For Cæsar
Could execute the vision that the people
Deserve not what they want, but otherwise
What they should want, and in that mind was king
And emperor.
And what was here for Shakespeare
To love and manifest by art, who hated
The Puritan, the mob? Colossus Cæsar,
Whose harmony of mind took deep offense
At ugliness, disharmony! See the man:
Of body perfect and of rugged health,
Of graceful carriage, fashion, bold of eye,
A swordsman, horseman, and a general
Not less than Alexander; orator
Who rivalled Cicero, a man of charm,
Of wit and humor, versed in books as well;
Who at one time could dictate, read and write,
Composing grammars as he rode to war,
Amid distractions, dangers, battles, writing
Great commentaries. Yes, he is the man
In whom was mixed the elements that Nature
Might say:--this was a man--and not this Brutus.
Look at his camp, wherever pitched in Gaul,
Thronged by young poets, thinkers, scholars, wits,
And headed by this Cæsar, who when arms
Are resting from the battle, makes reports
Of all that’s said and done to Cicero.
Here is a man large minded and sincere,
Active, a lover, conscious of his place,
Knowing his power, no reverence for the past,
Save what the past deserved, who made the task
What could be done and did it--seized the power
Of rulership and did not put it by
As Shakespeare clothes him with pretence of doing.
For what was kingship to him? empty name!
He who had mastered Asia, Africa,
Egypt, Hispania, after twenty years
Of cyclic dreams and labor--king indeed!
A name! when sovereign power was nothing new.
He’s fifty-six, and knows the human breed,
Sees man as body hiding a canal
For passing food along, a little brain
That watches, loves, attends the said canal.
He’s been imperator at least two years--
King in good sooth! He knows he is not valued,
That he’s misprized and hated, is compelled
To use whom he distrusts, despises too.
Why, what was life to him with such contempt
Of all this dirty world, this eagle set
Amid a flock of vultures, cow-birds, bats?
His ladder was not lowliness, but genius.
Read of his capture in Bithynia,
When he was just a stripling by Cilician
Pirates whom he treated like his slaves,
And told them to their face when he was ransomed
He’d have them crucified. He did it, too.
His ransom came at last, he was released,
And set to work at once to keep his word;
Fitted some ships out, captured every one
And crucified them all at Pergamos.
Not lowliness his ladder, but the strength
That steps on shoulders, fit for steps alone.
So on this top-most rung he did not scan
The base degrees by which he did ascend,
But sickened rather at a world whose heights
Are not worth reaching. So it was he went
Unarmed and unprotected to the Senate,
Knowing that death is noble, being nature,
And scorning fear. Why, he had lived enough.
The night before he dined with Lepidus,
To whom he said the death that is not seen,
Is not expected, is the best. But look,
Here in this play he’s shown a weak old man,
Propped up with stays and royal robes, to amble,
Trembling and babbling to his coronation;
And to the going, driven by the fear
That he would be thought coward if he failed.
Who was to think so? Cassius, whom he cowed,
And whipped against strong odds, this Brutus, too,
There at Pharsalus! Faith, I’d like to know
What Francis Bacon thinks of this.
My friend,
Seeing the Rome that Cæsar took, we turn
To what he did with what he took. This Rome
At Cæsar’s birth was governed by the people
In name alone, in fact the Senate ruled,
And money ruled the Senate. Rank and file
Was made of peasants, tradesmen, manumitted
Slaves and soldiers--these the populares,
Who made our Cæsar’s uncle Marius
Chief magistrate six times. This was the party
That Cæsar joined and wrought for to the last.
He fought the aristocracy all his life.
His heart was democratic and his head
Patrician--was ambitious from the first,
As Shakespeare is ambitious, gifted by
The Muses, must work out his vision or
Rot down with gifts neglected; so this Cæsar
Gifted to rule must rule--but what’s the dream?
To use his power for democratic weal,
Bring order, justice in a rotten state,
And carry on the work of Marius,
His democratic uncle. Now behold,
He’s fifty when he reaches sovereign power;
Few years are left in which he may achieve
His democratic ideas, for he sought
No gain in power, but chance to do his work,
Fulfill his genius. Well, he takes the Senate
And breaks its aristocracy, then frees
The groaning debtors; reduces the congestion
Of stifled Italy, founds colonies,
Helps agriculture, executes the laws.
Crime skulks before him, luxury he checks.
The franchise is enlarged, he codifies
The Roman laws, and founds a money system;
Collects a library, and takes a census;
Reforms the calendar, and thus bestrode
The world with work accomplished. Round his legs
All other men must peer; and envy, hatred
Were serpents at his heels, whose poison reached
His heart at last. He was the tower of Pharos,
That lighted all the world.
Now who was Brutus?
Cæsar forgave this Brutus seven times seven,
Forgave him for Pharsalia, all his acts
Of constant opposition. Who was Brutus?
A simple, honest soul? A heart of hate,
Bred by his uncle Cato! Was he gentle?
Look what he did to Salamis! Besieged
Its senate house and starved the senators
To force compliance with a loan to them
At 48 per cent! This is the man
Whom Shakespeare makes to say he’d rather be
A villager than to report himself
A son of Rome under these hard conditions,
Which Cæsar wrought! Who thought or called them hard?
Brutus or Shakespeare? Is it Plutarch, maybe,
Whom Shakespeare follows, all against the grain
Of truth so long revealed?
Do you not see
Matter in plenty for our Shakespeare’s hand,
To show a sovereign genius and its work
Pursued by mad-dogs, bitten to its death,
Its plans thrown into chaos? Is there clay
Wherewith to mould the face of Cæsar; take
What clay remains to mould the face of Brutus?
Do you not see a straining of the stuff,
Making that big and salient which should be
Little and hidden in a group of figures?
And why, I ask? Here is the irony:
Shakespeare has minted Plutarch, stamped the coin
With the face of Brutus. It’s his inner genius,
The very flavor of his genius’ flesh
To do this thing. Here is a world that’s mad,
A Cæsar mad with power, a Brutus madder,
Being a dreamer, student, patriot
Who can’t see things as clearly as the madman
Cæsar sees them, Brutus sees through books.
A mad-man butchered by a man more mad.
His father mad before him. Why, it’s true
That every one is mad, because the world
Cannot be solved. Why are we here and why
This agony of being? Why these tasks
Imposed upon us never done, which drive
Our souls to desperation. So to print
The tragedy of life, our Shakespeare takes,
And by the taking shows he deems the theme
Greater than Cæsar’s greatness: human will,
A dream, a hope, a love, and makes them big.
Strains all the clay to that around a form
Too weak to hold the moulded stuff in place.
Thus from his genius fashioning the tales
Of human life he passes judgment on
The mystery of life. Which could he do
By making Cæsar great, and would it be
So bitter and so hopeless if he did,
So adequate to curse this life of ours?
Why make a man as great as Nature can
The gods will raise a manakin to kill him,
And over-turn the order that he founds.
A grape seed strangles Sophocles, a turtle
Falls from an eagle’s claws on Aeschylos,
And cracks his shiny pate.
So at the last
The question is, is history the truth,
Or is the Shakespeare genius, which arranges
History to speak the Shakespeare mood,
Reaction to our life, the truth?
And here
I leave you to reflect. Let’s one more ale
And then I go.
CHARLOTTE CORDAY
(_The Revolutionary Tribunal; July 17th, 1793_)
MONTANÉ, _Presiding judge_.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE, _Prosecutor_.
CHAVEAU-LAGARDE, _Defending counsel_.
DANTON,} _Leaders of the Jacobins_.
ROBESPIERRE,}
MADAM EVARD, _Marat’s friend_.
CHARLOTTE CORDAY.
MONTANÉ
Where is your home?
CHARLOTTE
Caen.
MONTANÉ
Why did you come to Paris?
CHARLOTTE
To kill Marat.
MONTANÉ
Why?
CHARLOTTE
His crimes.
MONTANÉ
What crimes?
CHARLOTTE
The woes of France! His readiness to fire
All France with civil war.
MONTANÉ
You meant to kill
When you struck?
CHARLOTTE
Yes! I meant to kill.
MONTANÉ
How old are you?
CHARLOTTE
Twenty-four.
MONTANÉ
A woman
Young as you are could not have done this murder
Unless abetted.
CHARLOTTE
No! You little know
The human heart. The hatred of one’s heart
Impels the hand better than other’s hate.
MONTANÉ
You hated Marat?
CHARLOTTE
Hated! I did not kill
A man, I killed a wild beast eating up
The people and the nation.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
She’s familiar
With crime, no doubt.
CHARLOTTE
You monster! Do you take me
For just a common murderer?
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
Yes! Why not?
Here is your knife!
CHARLOTTE
Oh! Yes, I recognize it.
I bought it at the cutler’s shop.
MONTANÉ
What for?
CHARLOTTE
To kill Marat with; cost me forty sous.
After I came to Paris--
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
When?
CHARLOTTE
Four days ago.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
That was the day you wrote Marat?
CHARLOTTE
Same day.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
Saying you knew of news in Caen, knew
Means by the which Marat could render service
To the Republic!
CHARLOTTE
By his death!
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
But yet
You gave him credit in this note for love
Of France, our France. You tricked him.
CHARLOTTE
Like a viper.
He was a mad-dog, dog-leech, alley rat,
With bits of carrion festering ’twixt his teeth,
Hair glued with ordure, urine. Why not trick
By best means, so to catch a beast with fangs
As venomous as his? He was a fire
That crawled and licked its way; why not put out
The fire by water, snuffing, stamping, why
Be precious of the means?
MADAM EVARD
You know me, woman?
CHARLOTTE
You struck me when I stabbed him. You’re his whore!
MADAM EVARD
Oh! Oh!
ROBESPIERRE
(_To Danton_)
This is enough! When fury claws at fury.
I hear the tumbril for her. Come!
DANTON
The slut!
(_Danton and Robespierre leave the room together._)
CHARLOTTE
Was that not Robespierre who left the room?
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
Why do you ask?
CHARLOTTE
I wanted him for counsel.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
For what? The guillotine?
CHARLOTTE
(_Shrinking_) You monster! You!
MONTANÉ
Have you a lawyer?
CHARLOTTE
No! I wrote Doulcet.
He shirks the honor, doubtless; have not heard.
I thought of Chabot and of Robespierre.
MONTANÉ
Chaveau-Lagarde shall counsel you. Proceed!
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
Is this your letter?
CHARLOTTE
Yes.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
This letter here
Is written to a man named Barbarous,
Her lover--
CHARLOTTE
No! You monster!
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
Very well!
Is this yours: “To the French, friends of the laws,
And friends of peace.”
CHARLOTTE
Yes! I admit what’s true.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
And is this yours: “To the Committee of Public Safety”?
CHARLOTTE
I wrote it, yes.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
Let’s see now what’s her mind.
This letter to the friends of peace and laws:--
“O France, thy peace depends upon the laws.”
Laws! And she hastens to the cutler’s shop,
And buys a knife with which to slay Marat.
Now look! This friend of France’s peace and laws
Must dodge self-contradiction. How? That’s plain:
“I do not break the law, killing Marat.”
Why? What’s Marat? A man? Of course, a man.
But then an “out-law,” as she writes. How’s that?
Outlawed by whom? Charlotte Corday of Caen!
What else? A man! But then condemned. By whom?
“The universe.” Voila! The universe
Is swallowed by her swollen vanity.
She speaks for God, for solar systems, stars;
Adjudges laws, interprets, executes;
Is greater than the Revolution, France.
She’s a descendant of the great Corneille;
A stage imagination, actress, acts,
And quotes here in this letter from Voltaire’s
“Mort de César.” Now listen what her hate
Has used for whetrock, in the words of Brutus:
_“Whether the world astonished loads my name_
_“And deed with horror, admiration, censure,_
_“I do not care, nor care to live in Time._
_“I act indifferent to reproach or glory,_
_“A free, untrameled patriot am I._
_“Duty accomplished I shall rest content._
_“Think only, friends, how you may break your chains.”_
So Brutus lives in her! And like disease
Loosed from the crumbling cerements and dust
Of broken tombs, the madness which slew Cæsar
Infects, makes mad this woman; and she slays
The great Marat!
She does not care for the world’s
Censure or admiration! Does not care
To live in time! She lies! Why, in this room
A man, Huer, is sketching her. Behold
He’s drawing now her face for Time to see.
And in this letter written to the Committee
She says: “_Since I have little time to live,_
“_I trust you will permit me to have painted_
“_My portrait._” Why? If careless if she live
In memory or time? The secret’s out,
And written in her hand: “_I want to leave_
“_A picture for remembrance to my friends._”
What friends? Her father? Barbarous? Caen,
Paris, the whole of France, the world, if Time
Writes down the people’s friend as beast, would see
The face, in such case, which destroyed Marat,
Condemned first by the “universe” and at last
By France, the world! What next? She doubts her God,
Her Brutus warrant, “universe” approval,
And writes here as a reason, in addition:
_“That as men cherish memory of good men,_
_“So curiosity”_--see her spirit flop
And smile with idiot guilt upon itself--
_“So curiosity sometimes seeks out_
_“Memorials of criminals.”_ That’s her word:
“Criminals,” and by that word she stands
Self-dedicated to the guillotine.
CHARLOTTE
Well, am I not a criminal in the eyes
Of such a beast as you? Will nature spawn
No other beasts like you?
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
Yes, in my eyes,
You are a criminal. But you mistake.
I have no curiosity about you.
When you are dead I’d have your name erased,
Your face erased, lest it corrupt the face
Of Brutus, and lead hands in years to come
To speak the “universe,” interpret “laws,”
And slay whom they would slay.
This is not all
About her picture, a memorial
For admiration by posterity.
She writes this Barbarous, lover or what,
It matters nothing, writes him pages here
In detail of herself, and intimate
Portrayal of her feelings: how she planned,
And killed Marat. To Barbarous she writes
About her letter to the Committee, asking
To have her portrait painted. _Now_, for whom?
Her friends? Not now! For the department now
Of Calvados. There! hanging on a wall,
A prize of history, is the deathless face
Of Charlotte Corday, destroyer of Marat,
Saviour of France, as _Brutus struck for Rome_!
Yes, I invite your thought to what she writes
To Barbarous: description of her act
In sneaking to Marat with hidden knife;
And as he sat there helpless in the tub,
And unsuspecting of her hatred, quick
She rips him like a butcher. Then, “A moi!”
He cries, “A moi!” And she’s elate, her eyes
Bright as the lightning that has struck. Look now!
How she writhes here, how passing cross her face
Are lights of ghastly fields of fire and clouds
When hurricanes descend.
CHARLOTTE
You beast! You beast!
FOUQUER-TINVILLE
I am a beast, eh? _You_ are what? I’ll tell.
From Caen, as ’tis known. She’s being sketched,
I’ll sketch her too. You see, she’s strongly built,
Large eyes of blue, large features, handsome though;
Nose shapely, and good teeth; equipped to play
In dramas of Corneille, her ancestor.
She needs a man. A husband would have drawn
Innocuously the electric passion, which
Collected in a bolt to loose and lurch
Against Marat. All women should be farmed.
She has her schooling in a convent, reads;
Lives with her thoughts and dreams. I’ll sketch her soul:
Has not enough of living to consume
The forces of her dreams. She reads Rousseau,
And Plutarch’s heroes, Brutus most of all.
Thrills at the words “Republic,” “Liberty.”
Thinks the Girondists only can set up
A real republic. Ideas are the stuff
Of history. Kill ideas or be killed
By ideas is the fate of man. Republic,
Liberty, Brutus are ideas. Ideas
Are dangerous, being truths, more so as lies.
And lies destroyed Marat.
Who was Marat?
A man of study, learning. Physicist,
Admired of Franklin, Göethe for his works
On heat and light; a doctor, having won
An honorary title at St. Andrew’s
In England. Linguist, speaking Spanish, German,
Italian, English. Versed in Governments:--
You know his work on England’s constitution
Whereby he sought to clear the mind of France--
This Charlotte Corday’s with the rest--that England
Is free, her systems free; stop the Girondists
From that re-iterated lie; stop France
From taking on the English system.
So
True ideas of Marat, evolved from life,
Living and study must combat, destroy
False ideas of Girondists, will succeed;
But cannot bar the door to the idea
That enters at his bathroom with a knife.
How was it that no valet and no guard
Preserved him? Why? Lovers of liberty
Starve in her service!
But there was a time
When he knew elegance and privacy.
But Liberty and Wisdom would be served.
He went to rags, was hunted, had to hide
In sewers for the cause of Liberty;
And there took loathsome trouble, eased at times
By steam, hot tubs. And thus our people’s friend
Is found accessible to this female lie,
Girondist lie, possessing her, and stabbed.
Or at the best ideas of Liberty
Conduct her to his bath-room, where Marat
Is tubbed in sequence and in punishment
Of his idea of Liberty. Gods can laugh,
But men must weep. O worthless, rotten world!
It is most pitiful, most tragic, lifts
Man’s heart to spit at heaven, that these friends
Of peoples must be slain, starved, hunted first,
Then butchered for their service and their love.
Saved not by truth; destroyed by lies, a lie
That he was evil, by the maniac lie
Of her mad vision that she knew what Freedom,
Liberty, Republic mean. Slain by the lie
Of this Girondist dream, this milk and water,
Emasculated, luke-warm craft of states:
Girondists: patches on the robes of kings;
Girondists: autogamists; mating sisters,
The past, and in the mating without child
Of truth or progress. Neither hot nor cold,
Spewed, therefore, from the mouth of Time. Betrayers,
Waylayers of the brave, the clear of eye;
Girondists: ’twixt republicans and kings,
And holding hands of each to make them friends.
Workers and owners of the new foaled mule
Bred of the royal stallion and an ass.
Girondists! loving wealth and ease, the church
Which loves them too. Girondists picking steps
Of moderate reform. Girondists hating
The Revolution, which must kill the foes
Of Liberty, as criminals are killed
For robbery, yet rejoice to see the blood
Of dead Marat. They’re lofty! They are pure!
They love the laws, love peace! Yes, as this woman
Loves law and peace.
What is it like? A play
Where all is mimicked. Do we talk of facts?
Are these not fautocinni? Where’s the hand
That plays this coarse and bloody joke to eyes
Of men that crave reality? I mean this:
A woman with lovers who suggest, abet;
A woman with no man, who dreams and reads,
Lives in the stench of these Girondist lies;
Ghosts float on fogs of her miasmic soul.
She hears Marat’s a monster, dabbling blood,
A rabid ignoramus running foul
Of liberty and order, nihilist,
And sanguinary madman, dragon slimed
In back-wash of all hatred, envy, lust
Of the dispossessed, malformed, misborn; and then
She dreams of Brutus, who struck down--there now
I nail a lie that will be always truth
To Charlotte Cordays. Cæsar? Tyrant? No.
No man is tyrant who sees truth and rules
For truth’s sake. For the ruled must share the truth
Where Cæsars rule.
So much for her. She stands
Watchful and envious in the wings, and sees
Marat, not as we see him; not as Time
Will see Marat. L’Ami du Peuple to her
Is enemy of France, of Liberty.
This man most rare, most pure of soul, most clear
Of vision that the contest lies between
The rich and poor, has always lain between
The rich and poor, and not between the people
And kings; that poverty’s the thing, is seen
By Charlotte Corday from the wings, as nothing
But hatred, murder.
Well, my girl, you’ll get
Your picture in the galleries of history.
You’ll get it; and to choke you with your words:
“So curiosity would have memorials
Of criminals, which serve to keep alive
Horror for their crimes.”
Your picture’s up
Already. Horror stares! You killed Marat.
That is your place in Time: you killed Marat!
You sneaked upon a great man, true man, weak
From torture of disease, contracted serving
Democracy, and slew him like a beast.
Charlotte Corday, assassin! That’s your place,
And character in history.
CHARLOTTE
Let it be.
Assassin. Well, assassins kill assassins:
The words repel, destroy each other, sir.
If any grieve for me I beg of them
To think of me in the Elysian Fields
With Brutus and the heroes.
CHAVEAU-LAGARDE
Gentlemen!
The deed’s admitted. What to say, but ask
Your clemency? The girl’s fanatical.
The prosecutor argues well for me
In saying that a lie corrupted her,
And maddened her to act; which is to say
If that lie were a truth, she had the right
To slay Marat. With this regard Voltaire,
Great minds before him, painted Brutus great
Because he slew a tyrant. But if Cæsar
Was not a tyrant, how does Brutus stand
But mad-man who believed, was honest, slew
In honesty of heart? Then what’s the case?
To punish for ill-judging of the facts,
Or mercy show for human frailty
Of judgment and of vision? Great Marat
Has done his work, and left his legacy.
We cannot help him, meting death for death.
And would his noble spirit ask her death?
Think of it! You will answer no, I think.
He would say: kill the ideas of Caen,
The world which fires these Charlottes with a lie.
Smallpox is deadly as a butcher knife,
He had to die. The syllabus is death
In this our human logic: what’s the odds
What premises produce conclusions? Knives,
Consumptions, fevers, wars? We may be gods
Withholding death where we have power to kill;
Withhold it saying: She mistook, believed
A lie, was faultless for believing it,
And slew believing. Were it truth and all
Believed we would applaud, as nations war,
Bound in a common vision of one truth.
The Revolution, France, will lose not, rather
Gain by this clemency; ’twill lift a light,
First in the world, of reason, justice purged
Of hatred’s refuse: vengeance, fear, all passions
Of bitterness of soul. We worship Reason,
And this is Reason.
CHARLOTTE
You have done your part
And served me well. I thank you.
THE JURY
Let her join
Brutus in the Elysian Fields. We say:
The guillotine!
THE MOB
(_Outside_) To the guillotine! To the guillotine!
CHARLOTTE
I am content.
A MAN CHILD IS BORN
(_February 12th, 1809. Log Hut near Hodgenville, Ky._)
(_A neighbor woman is talking_)
The wind blows through the chinks--it’s snowing too,
Tom piles the logs on, but that door is loose.
An earthen floor is always cold. You’re warm.
I’m glad I brought a kiverlid along,
An extra one comes handy at this time.
You are all right--you had an easy time,
Considering this baby, big and long.
He’s very long, will be a tall man, too,
A hunter and a chopper, Indian fighter,
Lord, who knows what, a big man in the country,
A preacher, congressman or senator,
A president--who knows? God blesses you
To give you such a son. He nurses well.
Don’t let him have too much at first. You see
That single window gives too little light
To show you what he’s like. He looks a little
Like Nancy Shipley Hanks, your mother, perhaps
A little like your aunt, old Mary Lincoln.
Since you and Tom are cousins, it may be
This boy will be a mixture, but if folks
Resemble animals, the traits of you
Will be made stronger in this child, because
You two are cousins.
You will be up to see
What he looks like, in just a week or so.
Perhaps when next the flames mount in the fire-place
The light will show you. Have you named him yet--
Tom likes the name of Abraham--well, that’s good--
You’ve chosen that!
I thought I heard a step--
Who do you think is coming? Dennis Hanks!
He’s come to see his cousin Abraham.
Good mornin’, Dennis! come into the fire--
I’ll you see your cousin Abraham--
A big, long baby--quick! and shut the door,
The room is none too warm, the wind is blowing--
Tom’s gone for logs again! Here, I’ll raise up
The kiverlid and let you see--look here!
You think he’s homely! Pretty is, you know,
As pretty does--but see how big and long!
In fifteen years he’ll make you up and come
To beat him wrestling, I will bet a coon’s skin.
Now you may kiss him; in a little bit
I’ll let you hold him by the fire. The pot
Is on for dinner, we are having squirrel
And hominy for dinner--you can stay.
Now clear out, Dennis--I must do some things--
Open the door for Tom, he’s coming there
With logs to mend the fire!
RICHARD BOOTH TO HIS SON JUNIUS BRUTUS
(_London, December 13th, 1813._)
So you’re to play Campillo, all in spite
Of my commands, at Deptford? Here’s the bill
Found in your pocket. You are seventeen,
Too young for this adventure in the world.
What will you be, a strolling vagabond,
Smelling of grease, impoverished, set apart
From stable folk by this, your wandering art?
And just to think I named you Junius Brutus,
After the great republican who slew
The Roman tyrant Cæsar--I myself
A worshipper of Liberty all my life,
And choosing such a patronym for you
To dedicate you to the faith in me.
Now you would leave this dignity to speak
Mimetic words, and act. I beg of you,
Listen, my boy, before it is too late,
And let me tell my story to you now,
That you may profit by the things I’ve lived....
You see that face of Washington, hung up
There on the wall where every entering eye
Must mark it? You remember that I ask,
Enforce respect to Washington and make
The passer bow his head--well, listen now:
It’s seventeen seventy-seven, I’m fourteen.
Burgoyne’s surrender fires my tender heart.
We hear Lord George Germain forgets to take
A letter from a pigeon hole containing
Instructions to Burgoyne that touches on
The campaign on the Hudson. Anyway,
Burgoyne gets tangled in the wilderness
Around Champlain. He faces broken bridges,
And trees felled in his way. His horses fail,
Provisions are exhausted. Then he sends
A thousand men to Bennington to get
More horses and provisions. There he’s stumped:
A veteran of Bunker Hill is there,
A Colonel Stark, whose wife is Mollie Stark,
Who says we beat the British here to-day,
Or Mollie Stark’s a widow. August 16th
They whipped the British soundly--and Burgoyne
Was driven to defeat.
That made us flame!
I was a hot republican. Slipped away
To Paris with a cousin to set sail
For America and help the Americans,
And wrote from there a letter to John Wilkes,
And asked his help to get me in the army
Of Washington. As Englishmen, I wrote,
It may be said we are not justified
In taking arms against the English cause.
That argument with you could have no weight,
You, who have fought for Liberty so long.
And England, what is she? All human rights
Are lost in England under tyrant rule.
It is the duty of an English heart
To help those whom this lawless tyranny
Oppresses in America. So I wrote,
And sent to London. What do you suppose?
John Wilkes went to my father with this letter.
They caught me, brought me home, and here I am,
A lawyer to this day. You think it strange!
Who was John Wilkes, that he should thus betray?--
I wonder, even now.
For he had been
A rebel spirit from his boyhood up,
Born here in London seventeen twenty-seven;
Was sent to Parliament when he was thirty.
Attacked the king in writing, was arrested;
Refused to answer questions, then they chucked
Our rebel in the Tower; he got out,
Saying he had a privilege as a member
Of Parliament. They passed a special law
To warrant prosecution, ousted him
From Parliament, and then he went to France,
Was outlawed, but returned, again was sent
To Parliament, before he took his seat.
Was sent to prison on the sentences
Passed on the old conviction, and expelled
From Parliament again for libeling
The minister of war. Three times again
They elected him to Parliament, but they kept
Our rebel out. He now became the people’s
Idol for his sufferings and his courage.
They let him out of prison, made him mayor
Of London, and in seventeen seventy-four
He goes from Middlesex to Parliament
And takes his seat at last, and there he was
When I wrote to him, seventeen seventy-seven.
Why did he tell my father, send my father
The letter which I wrote?
I know, I think:
He knew the dangers, agonies ahead,
For a boy who sets his feet along the path
Of Liberty and working for the world
To free the world--and did not know my stuff;
Whether I had the will to fight and die
With no regrets. He knew what he had suffered,
And had a tenderness for the youth who flames
And beats his wings for freedom, would release
From tyranny and wrong.
And so they caught me,
And brought me home and set me to the law.
And here I am, who never lost the dream
And named you Junius Brutus. Oh, my son,
Leave off this actor calling, stay with me,
I who was nipped would see you grow to flower,
Fulfill my vision. What, you promise me,
If I will let you act this time, to come
And let me mould you, teach you what I know,
Fill full your spirit with the hope I had,
That you may do what I have failed to do?
You promise that? Well, Junius Brutus, go
And may you fail at acting and return.
A MAN CHILD IS BORN
(_July 14th, 1839. The Farm._)
(_Mrs. Booth is speaking._)
After such pain this child against my breast!
Oh what a cunning head and little face!
What coal black hair! You have begun to feed!
Look, doctor, how he feeds--why look at him,
He is a little man! Is not God good
To give me such a baby? Well, I think
You will be something noble in this world,
And something great, you precious little man!
His daddy wants to name him John Wilkes. I
Would name him Junius Brutus to hand down
His father’s glory and perhaps his art.
Look, doctor, is it not a miracle
That God performs, this little life from mine,
This beauty out of love! I pray to God
To bless you, little John, if that’s your name.
A colored mammy read the coffee grounds,
And says he will be famous, rich and great--
He may be so. I know he will be good.
Look at that darling face--it must be so!
SQUIRE BOWLING GREEN
(_Rutledge’s Tavern, New Salem, July 14th, 1839._)
You missed it--case all over! Lincoln’s gone.
He’s just had time about to reach the mill.
He couldn’t wait until the stage arrived.
Had business in the courts of Springfield--well,
You can believe he has become a lawyer.
He borrowed Mentor Graham’s horse to ride.
John Yoakum is in Springfield and to-morrow
Will bring it back.
Who won the case? Why, Abe.
He won it by his horse-sense and his wit.
You must have met the jury down the road.
What were they laughing at? About the case.
We started yesterday on the evidence
And finished up this morning. An appeal?
The verdict satisfies both parties, and
My judgment stands.
Abe is a natural lawyer,
Knows things that can’t be found in books, although
He knows the books. And why not? You recall
When he was boarding with me how he studied?
It’s just four years ago or so, that he
Came home one night with Blackstone. Well, I’ve noticed
A man attracts what’s his, just like a magnet
Draws bits of steel. You can’t make me believe
That Blackstone came to him unless ’twas meant
That he should be a lawyer. Don’t you know?
He read this Blackstone in his store all day
And half the night as well. He said to me
Not Volney’s “Ruins,” Shakespeare, Burns, had taken
His interest like this Blackstone. Yes, he took it
When he went fishing with Jack Kelso, read,
And let jack row the boat and bait the hooks....
I think he knows this Blackstone all by heart.
But anyway, he knows the human heart.
Well, now here is the case: Here is a colt.
George Cameron says the colt is his--John Spears
Says no, the colt is mine, and Cameron sues,
And Spears defends, and sixty witnesses
Come here to testify, on my word it’s true,
On my judicial oath it is the fact.
The thirty swear the colt is Cameron’s;
And thirty swear the colt belongs to Spears;
And not a man impeached, these witnesses
Are everyone good men, and most of them
I know as I know you. Well, what’s to do?
The scales are balanced. And besides all this,
Here’s Cameron who swears the colt is his,
And Spears who swears the opposite, and both
Are credible, I know them both. So I
Sit like a fellow trying to decide
What happens when a thing impenetrable
Is struck by something irresistible--
I’m stumped, that’s all.
You see the facts were these:
Each of these fellows owns a mare, the mares
Look pretty much alike, each had a colt
In April. But the other day one colt--
Which colt, that is the question--strayed away
And can’t be found. George Cameron has a colt--
These men are neighbors--but John Spears comes over
And sees the colt at Cameron’s in the field;
And says, “That is my colt.” “Not on your life,”
George Cameron replies, “The colt is mine--
Your colt has strayed, not mine.” They come to law.
John Spears gets Lincoln, and they come to court
With sixty witnesses; and here this noon
With all the evidence put in, I sit
And eye the jury, know the jury’s stumped,
As I am stumped.
Then Lincoln says: “Your honor,
Let’s have a trial on view.” I’d heard of that,
But never sat on such a trial before.
“Let’s bring the colt, the two mares over here,
And let the jury see which mare the colt
Resembles, let the jury use their eyes
As witnesses use theirs.”
That seemed fair.
And so we sent one fellow for the mares,
Another for the colt. For Lincoln said:
“Your honor, bring them separate, so the jury
Can have the sudden flash of seeing them
Separate, to study them.”
For an hour
Abe sat here in the shade and told us stories.
And pretty soon we heard the horses whinney,
And heard the colt. And Lincoln said, “Your honor,
Let’s have the mares led past the jury, trotting,
Let’s see their pace.” And so they trotted them.
“Now trot the colt,” said Lincoln--we did that.
The jury watched to see the look of legs,
And movement, if you please, to catch a likeness.
But nothing came of this. Then Lincoln said:
“Now turn the colt loose”--and they turned it loose.
It galloped to the mare of Spears and sucked!
Well, now it’s true a colt’s a silly thing,
And may mistake its mother, but a mare
Will never let a colt that’s not her own
Put under flanks its nose. Of course the jury,
And all of us know that--and so did Abe.
The jury yelled and all the witnesses
Began to whoop. And when I rapped for order
And got things quiet--Lincoln rose and said,
“I rest, your honor.”
So I entered judgment
For Spears. They went to Berry’s for the drinks--
There! hear them laughing.
Lincoln took his fee,
Ten dollars, I believe, and went to Springfield.
LINCOLN SPEAKING IN CONGRESS
(_January 12th, 1848._)
“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right
to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that
suits them better. This is a most valuable, a sacred right. A right
which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right
confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government
may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may
revolutionize, and may make their own of so much of the territory as
they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people
may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near
about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority was precisely
the case of the Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of
revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws, but to break up both
and make new ones.”
JOHN WILKES BOOTH AT THE FARM
(_January 12th, 1848._)
Mother, I’m breathless! I have seen a man,
The strangest man I ever saw. I’m scared!
I went down to the hollow, was at play,
Was marching with my broomstick gun--and then
While I stood there and said “attention,” playing
Soldier, you know, reciting to my soldiers,
I heard a voice--looked round and saw this man.
He was enormous with a frightful face,
Black eyes, black hair, a voice that sounded like
Low thunder, though it could be soft and sweet.
And he said to me, “What’s your name, my boy?”
I told him. Then he said, “Where is your father?”
I said, “My father’s gone.” “Where is your mother?”
“Up at the house,” I answered. Then he asked,
“What are you doing here?” “Why, playing soldier.”
“Are you a patriot?” And I said yes.
“Oh, no,” he said, “your father was an actor;
I saw him play the part of Brutus often,
And you will be an actor, you’ve the look.”
How did he know these things, do you suppose?
And then he said, “Recite for me.” “I can’t,”
I said to him. “O yes, you can,” he said.
“You must recite for me.” And I was scared,
Began to cry, and he said, “Hush, my boy,
I will not hurt you, but you must recite,
I want to see what you have memorized.”
So I was choking, but I tried to do it:
“The tyrannous and bloody deed is done,
The most arch act of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.” ...
“No Richard III,” he said. “Here look at me!
Why do you dodge? Why not recite some words
From Brutus, for you know them, why, my boy?
You’ve heard your father speak the words of Brutus.
Why do you hide your knowledge? Look at me!”
He terrified me so that I began:
“It must be by his death: and for my part
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crowned:
How that might change his nature, there’s the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder.”
I got so far and saw him looking down,
As if he saw--I don’t know what--and then
I stopped and looked--and there I saw an adder
Coiled close to me. I jumped and screamed. He laughed--
I ran away, and left him standing there.
Mother, I am afraid. Who was this man?
My head hurts. I’m afraid. Keep close to me--
I am so frightened.
JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH
(_On a steamboat bound for Cincinnati from New Orleans, November 30th,
1852_.)
You are a doctor? Ill? I’m very ill.
My soul is worn, it is a ghastly life,
This acting, traveling, living through the passions
Of Brutus, and Orestes, Richard III.
My father tried to make a lawyer of me,
But fate is fate. My age is fifty-six,
But counting by the moments I have lived
A thousand years were nearer truth. Oh, well,
What if this talking tire me, I am tired
With such fatigue that nothing adds to it.
And if I die, why what will be, will be.
I’d like to see “The Farm” in Maryland
Just once again, see Mary, that’s my wife,
John Wilkes, my boy, and Junius Brutus, too--
Edwin I left in California,
Shall never see him more I fear--but then
What comes to us must come.
That brandy helps,
I’m better now.
Oh, yes, it’s true my father
Would make a lawyer of me, couldn’t do it--
I am a better lawyer than he was
For acting parts and living other lives,
Thus finding laws of life--but what’s the good?
You can’t find happiness, all is vanity.
If you’re a strolling player, vanity;
Vexation too and jealousy and strife.
If all the house goes mad to see you rage
As life-like as the Moor did, do they know
What realest envy stalks behind the scenes,
What you have done to keep your golden voice,
Your strength to paint the frenzy of Othello?
After one greatest triumph I sat alone,
Was playing solitaire, who should come in?
Chief Justice Marshall, friend of mine? Oh, yes.
He said, “I think you’d be the happiest
Of men, why not enjoy what you’ve achieved?”
“Judge,” I replied, “you see me here alone,
There is no ecstasy, no drop of joy
For me save in that moment when I see,
Both through my genius glowing and the cries
And plaudits from the house, that I have struck.
The fateful note that thrills--all other hours
Are spent in saving power and making ready
For just that moment. What’s an actor, poet?
A medium round whom the spirits swarm
Like bats in Tartarus and shrill Me! Me!
Take now and write, speak for me--make it clear,
You are our hope of truth, of being known
For what we are. And so you’re never done.
The spirits dash about you with their cries;
Men note your eyes turned inward--move away.
And you must keep in vigor. Hoarseness rasps
The voice of Brutus, you must catch no cold.
You drink sometimes to deafen ears against
The spirits’ crying, but you pay for it,
Must climb back into strength, but while you’re weak
The spirits are a-crying, there you are,
Ambitious but enfeebled, can’t respond,
And tortured for it. There is no escape.
And so you play at solitaire.”
The Judge
Replied: “A judge is lonely, for his reasons
Must keep himself aloof.”
Yes, I knew Kean.
He played Othello to my great Iago,
And I say great, for I was twenty-one,
And made the London English shout and howl:
“Great Booth forever,” though they shouted, too,
“No Booth” and “down with Booth,” the partisans
Of Kean, the envious. And on a time
It’s Drury Lane, and what an audience!
Hazlitt is there and Godwin, Shelley’s friend,
John Howard Payne, who wrote “The Fall of Tarquin.”
He saw that Kean was envious, would not be
Excelled by me and wrote as much.
My friend,
Another drink of brandy!
Well, at last
I make America my home. ’Twere well
If I am spared to write my memories,
They throng so at this moment. God be praised,
I knew Old Hickory and supped with him,
A man from top to toe! And I have lived,
Fought, suffered, triumphed, lived through self and lived
Through Brutus, Lear, and Richard.
Look at me,
Am I a man you’d ever take for mad?
Mad-men have struck at me, a lunatic
Struck at me with an ax, I cowed his hate
And fixed him with my eye. But as for me,
Here have I been for life a lover of home,
A husband blest with happiness in a wife,
And yet reputed mad. For little things
Like this reputed mad: I’m playing Shylock,
The call boy searches me, my time has come,
Where was I? In a closet. Was it queer?
A symptom? No! I hid to shut the light
Of other things external from the mind
Of Shylock’s mood. Why, is it strange at all
For a soul that incarnates itself with souls
Like Brutus’ and Lear’s to lose itself,
Seem sometimes naked, trembling, swaying too
With such exhaustion, such tremendous change?
These common minds see not the genius mind
For what it is, forget the strength and wisdom
That makes the genius, in my case, forget
My books and scholarship, my toil, who learned
Greek, Latin, German, French and Arabic,
Hebrew and Spanish; the philosophies,
I’ve mastered in my life.
I tremble too
For thinking of my little son, John Wilkes,
So beautiful and gifted, has the touch;
Is full of dreams, goes charging on his horse,
Spouting heroic speeches, lance in hand
There on “The Farm,” a patriot and a lover
Of liberty even now. What will he be,
A statesman or an actor, warrior, what?
God knows alone, and what his fate God knows.
I named him after John Wilkes, patriot
And English libertarian--but no matter,
He’ll do what he will do. They named me Brutus
And I became an actor, not a statesman,
Warrior, no tyrannicide.
Hold there!
What is this? Take my hand! Sharp pain again--
Pray! pray! pray!
(_He dies._)
A CERTAIN POET ON THE DEBATES
(_At Alton, Illinois, October 15th, 1858._)
(_Arguing with a group at the hotel._)
Why do I speak with such authority?
I know this matter through from A to Z;
I know it just as well as Lincoln knows it.
There’s not a document I have not studied
From Elliott’s Debates to this Le Compton
Kansas constitution that has escaped
My mind’s analysis. And you will see
Lincoln is beaten now. You are absurd
To think he’ll win the presidency for losing
The senatorship--clean crazy all of you!
Who am I? Well, it makes no difference.
I am a mind, a mere intelligence
Going about this year of fifty-eight
An observer and a listener. Gabriel
Could be no more impersonal than I.
I’ve followed up these fellows like the boy
That trails the circus, clear from Ottawa
To Freeport, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, Alton;
And made my way at first with sawing wood,
Later by selling razors, soap and strops;
And just to hear the speaking, see the crowds--
These crowds that leave the shop and farms, these crowds
Solemn and noisy, rapt, tumultuous,
Sober and drunk, who carry whips and spit
Tobacco juice around and drink and eat.
The babies squall, wagons and democrats
Befog the air with dust, and oh, the heat!
Yet though these crowds will settle like the dust
In graves all over Illinois, nothing leave
Of what, or who they were, no less these crowds
Have reason at the centre like the sun;
Dimmed to the eyes this side; the sun is there!
But yet the sun knows it is there--the dust
Rises and shows the sun--there you have thought
Which is now, will be handed down of this--
These days. Oh, yes, the dust will rise at last
When evening--that’s reflection, settles down;
And then you’ll see a star--first magnitude,
The name is Lincoln!
I have read. I know.
Never in Rome or Greece were such debates,
Never in all this world. Look at the theme:
Slavery in a republic! As for men,
Where is their equal? Is it Pericles,
Demosthenes or Cicero, here with us,
Great Webster? And the setting, think of that!
Here in this western prairie state they pass
From town to town, stand up before the mass,
And battle with their wits--set falcons loose
Of swift and ravenous logic to devour
The other’s flights. The crowds perceive the trend,
Gather enough to guide them and persuade,
But much of it is over them. You heard
Lincoln to-day, when he had subtilized
The point to deadly ether, say to them:
“An audience like this will scarcely see
The force of what I say, but minds well trained
Will follow me and see.” That is the point.
Out of this popular oratory rises
A durable spire of truth. This Lincoln leaves
Great thought and beauty to the race. And yet
Douglas will be our senator, and Seward
Our President two years from now. As Webster
Could never win the prize, this Lincoln too
Will fail to win it.
Why, you silly fools!
Lincoln has sprained his arms and back for good--
But he has laid the South out flat and cold,
And broken the slavocracy in two.
He did it with one question; asking that
He made the Little Giant cough and stammer,
And blush his guilt before America.
Oh, yes, he answered well enough to win
This contest here in Illinois; but look,
The Southern press is after him already,
They scent the carcass moved, withdrawn a little;
They croak like buzzards--and there will be war
Between the eagles and the buzzards now,
Perhaps when Seward is elected; truly
If Lincoln should be chosen, as he won’t.
It isn’t that this Douglas isn’t a master.
It is that he is caught between the mill-stones.
The upper is this Kansas and Nebraska,
The lower is Dred Scott--and I am glad!
Why did he father Kansas and Nebraska?
Why did he flout the ancient ordinance
Of 1787, which kept out
This curse of slavery, out of Illinois,
But brought us liberty of press and speech,
The bill of rights? Did Congress have the power
To pass this ordinance of ’87?
Or did it lack the power, because the states
That came into the union with their slaves
Might keep their slaves, reclaim as fugitive
Their slaves on freedom’s soil? Well, if it be
That Congress had the power to plaster down
The ordinance of 1787
Upon this Illinois, this great Northwest,
It had the power to say the western land
Of Kansas and Nebraska should be free
As territories ruled from Washington
And no imperialism! So, I say again
It serves this Douglas right to be destroyed,
And ground to powder for this act of his,
This Kansas and Nebraska.
Well, all right.
It sounds all right, it makes the idiots whoop
To hear the Little Giant say he favors
The people’s rule in Kansas and Nebraska.
Their right to say they’ll have this slavery
Or have it not--yes, popular sovereignty!--
But why not let the people vote on God,
Or choose a king, or take me, all the whites,
And make us slaves? It may be so, if truth
Is just a mockery and there’s nothing real
In human thought at all--one thing is true
As anything, and everything is false.
Thus ruin smites the temple of our life,
And all of us lie down as beasts and grunt
Around its broken arches and its columns!
All right! He gets his Kansas and Nebraska.
That makes him president! Not on your life!
Momus is watching, growls a horrid laugh
And whispers something to Slavocracy,
Which whispers it to Taney--and behold
The prophets and the guardians of the ark
Of the covenant declare a slave’s a slave,
And can be taken to a territory,
And kept there in the face of national law
That makes the territory free. Or else,
Were this not so, the Congress is supreme,
Has slipped the chain of the organic law,
Which recognizes slavery. What is this
But just imperialism?
God Almighty!
They’re all for freedom, a republic too.
Kansas, Nebraska--let the people rule.
Dred Scott:--the Congress is a Parliament
Like England has, unless it pins and tucks
The constitution round its pocky body.
That may be true, but then the question is:
Is slavery charactered upon the robe,
And must the figure of the slave be seen
Wherever Congress walks?
I’ll come to that.
The point is now that Douglas has been caught
Between his Kansas and Nebraska act,
And Dred Scott never his. And being lawful,
Obedient to the law and to the courts--
You heard him hammer Lincoln as a man
Who flouted courts--while he, the Little Giant,
Obeyed the laws--oh, yes!--So, being lawful,
As I began, must hold in level hands
Dred Scott in one, and in the other hand
This Kansas and Nebraska.
Very good.
Lincoln has got him now, and out of all
This rhetoric, these sorties half successful,
These scrimmages with Lincoln, half perplexed,
You find your Little Giant on his back
With Lincoln over him and pinning shoulders
Down to the floor.
Here is the wrestling trick:
Can any territory keep this slavery
Out lawfully, that is, against the wish
Of any citizen? What is the answer?
If you say yes, where is Dred Scott? If no,
How do the people rule?
What is his answer?
Why, yes, he says, a territory can
Keep slavery out. Dred Scott still sends it there,
But then the people rule, and if the people
There in Nebraska make it hot for slavery
By local law and custom, frowns and blows,
It will not thrive. That satisfied the crowd;
Enough at least, elects him Senator,
But loses him the South, the golden prize,
Splits up the country, gives us war in time,
When argument is silenced cannon boom--
And when your Seward comes to Washington
The South secedes.
Now, listen for a moment!
What is Abe Lincoln’s genealogy
In faith political? Sired by the Federalists,
And mothered by the Whigs. A tariff man;
Believes too in the Bank--tariffs and banks
Filched from the plenary stores of privilege
By hands that break the shackles of the law.
He’s born a Whig, has turned Republican,
What is his blood? Why, liberal construction,
Twisting the constitution out of shape,
And tearing holes in it to let the Congress
Escape and wander--where? Why, anywhere!
And though it be that touching slavery
There’s nothing which forbids the Congress acting
In freedom’s way--and that’s the very point--
And granting that the Constitution’s over
The territories, still the Congress can
Bring freedom there--this theory is akin
To loose construction, scarcely can be told
From loose construction. For you see, if freedom,
Since Congress is not hampered, can be brought,
Why not then slavery, if it be not hampered?
And why not colonies, dependencies,
Ruled just as Congress wills, if never a word
Lies in our charter to forbid or grant
The power to do it.
Well, there’ll be a war,
And hell thereafter. So you like my talk!
What is my name? Why, Satan is my name--
And I go wandering on the earth to see,
Walk to and fro and laugh and drop a tear
In spite of all my laughter. Tears and laughter
For ideas in the heads of men that seethe,
Pop, crackle, ferment, blow up bottles, kegs,
Spill and destroy bacteria on the floor
Of epochs, ruin wisdoms, cultures, faiths.
Time scrubs the floor of all such verses--Time
Matures fresh grapes, new ferments, and repeats
The old catastrophes; and hence I laugh,
And drop a tear on all the sorry waste.
PART II
THE DECISION
(_April 14th, 1861_.)
_Lincoln is sitting absorbed in thought in an office of the
executive mansion, where he has been in consultation with his
cabinet. A telegraph instrument has ceased to click, but the wires
are droning. Lincoln suddenly falls into a sleep, at once profound
and trance-like. In the vision members of his cabinet and
secretaries move in and out of the room._
LINCOLN
So there are five?
A VOICE
Yes, five to two.
SEWARD’S VOICE
A month
Has gone by and no policy. You should
Take hold yourself, or on a cabinet member
Devolve the task.
LINCOLN
Whatever’s to be done
Is mine to do.
SEWARD’S VOICE
Fort Sumpter leave alone!
If we employ armed force we have begun
A civil war--without armed force we fail.
We cannot take the fort and keep the fort,
Unless we subjugate the States as well.
No, let us not first draw the sword.
LINCOLN
To say--
A VOICE
Yes, five to two.
SEWARD’S VOICE
Your cabinet opposes
The Fort’s provisioning.
LINCOLN
The property
And military posts, the forts which were
In our possession when the government
Came to my hands, I shall defend and hold.
I shall collect the duties, but beyond
Such things make no invasion.
A VOICE
And the mails?
ANOTHER VOICE
Fort Sumpter has been shelled!
SEWARD’S VOICE
So I forewarned you.
ANOTHER VOICE
That was an error.
ANOTHER VOICE
May I ask a question?
Will you invade the country to collect
The duties, or relieve a fort alone
Where duties are in question?
Lincoln
My inaugural--
ANOTHER VOICE
To hell with forts and duties--free the slaves!
SEWARD’S VOICE
Drop slavery! Before the people raise
The question: Is it Union or Disunion!
ANOTHER VOICE
I say to let the erring Sisters go.
ANOTHER VOICE
I care more for the principles--
ANOTHER VOICE
Be still!
I’m sick of principles--
THE SAME VOICE
The principles
Of local democratic government are worth
Twice over all the niggers.
ANOTHER VOICE
Senator,
You are most eloquent when full of drink.
ANOTHER VOICE
Would you unite the North? Maneuver them
To fire upon the Fort.
ANOTHER VOICE
The time has come
To open up the question with the sword:
Is this a league, is this a nation, which?
ANOTHER VOICE
What do you want, a tariff or a bank?
Take off your nigger mask, you centralist!
ANOTHER VOICE
A contract broken by a signatory
Absolves the other signatory.
ANOTHER VOICE
Yes
The Yankee cotton spinner--
ANOTHER VOICE
Singing psalms!
ANOTHER VOICE
The radicals have brought us to this pass,
This agitation, hatred sectional.
DOUGLAS’ VOICE
All seem to overlook this vital matter:
The President can use the military
Where only States request it.
ANOTHER VOICE
You forget
The act of ’75.
DOUGLAS’ VOICE
I don’t forget.
The act of ’75 does not apply,
Except to laws resisted, where a marshall
Is overpowered.
ANOTHER VOICE
And there is no marshall,
There is no judge in the seceded States.
ANOTHER VOICE
You will appoint one, so you promised.
LINCOLN
Yes.
DOUGLAS’ VOICE
Then, sir, what cause is there for apprehension?
Who dares to say your President will pursue
A policy of war, unless he call
On Congress for the means and for the power?
ANOTHER VOICE
I ask about Fort Sumpter--are there ships
With cargoes of provisions on their way?--
ANOTHER VOICE
Yes, they have sailed.
OTHER VOICES
No! No!
ANOTHER VOICE
Oh, yes, the seven governors from the North
Have changed his policy. He now intends
To overthrow the federative law.
O great conspiracy--O seven-headed
Apocalyptic Beast!
_The vision grows confused. Lincoln seems to himself to attempt to
arise from the chair but is unable to do so. The scene whirls
about like drifting mist, struck by a sudden current of air, in
which there are lights and faces. Voices are mingled together
indistinguishably and then fade away. There is a silence. Out of
the confusion two figures emerge, one bright, the other shadowy.
Both are images of Lincoln. They become seated in a boat which is
moving with great rapidity. The only sound is the droning of the
telegraph._
FIRST PHANTOM
Twice have I seen this fateful scene before.
SECOND PHANTOM
The depths are moving, but no waters roar.
A mountain silence clasps the air and sea.
Look through the glassy fathoms far below:
Beneath us glides the ocean’s dizzy floor
Which we skim over with a swallow’s speed.
FIRST PHANTOM
I see a shadowy shore and precipices.
Yes, this portends my spirit’s earthly woe.
SECOND PHANTOM
You shall not shrink! What though your heart shall bleed
Its last drop out walking the abysses,
You must go forth--the hour has struck for you!
The little freedoms of your life are past,
As youth may choose its work or happiness;
Now you must steer the boat through fog and blast.
This rock encircled water is no less
Than your soul captured in the trap of Fate.
Far over stands ’twixt earth and heaven a gate
Where souls depart and enter into Time,
You must set foot upon this shore and climb
And blindly your election make, renew
Your will and spirit.
FIRST PHANTOM
Tell me what to do?
SECOND PHANTOM
Heal, if you can, the nation’s growing scars,
Let harmony come out of harsh discord.
FIRST PHANTOM
Suppose the seven States first draw the sword?
Have they not drawn it now?
SECOND PHANTOM
All bloody wars
Furnish great argument to place the blame
For the first blow. But even if it’s blood
That blots the bond of human brotherhood,
Behold the pangs that flow from human pride
When slaughter by such blood is justified.
FIRST PHANTOM
What shall I do with giants who rebel?
SECOND PHANTOM
You do but traffic in a word, a name,
A word it is with which you may inflame
To mob-like fury a judicious nation--
So you may enter on an usurpation.
FIRST PHANTOM
What do you say? Am I a tyrant then?
SECOND PHANTOM
Already have you thought of arming men
Without the sovereign sanction of the law.
FIRST PHANTOM
But if I don’t mad Treason will have gained
Such progress that it will have quite attained
Its purpose to bind down and overawe
Conciliation or resistance even.
SECOND PHANTOM
You arrogate the very will of heaven,
As tyrants do, and in your purpose find
A small reflection of the eternal mind.
What do you know of this? But if you rest
On human will and thought you must concede
A contradiction in your dream, who break
The law a rebel spirit to arrest.
This is a way of sowing nettle seed.
Once you were faithful to a better creed,
That men may found new nations when the old
No longer have the people’s fair consent.
Rights are not hostile. If this be a right
How may you overthrow it with your might?
FIRST PHANTOM
Have you not heard this story of me told:
At New Orleans I saw the children cry
When from the auction block their sire was sold.
I then resolved to strike this curse a blow
If ever Heaven gave
My arm the strength. It is my deepest hate.
SECOND PHANTOM
This is the thought then lying further back
In your fanatic spirit, child of woe,
Reached through a devious and hidden track!
For this you will prepare your country’s grave.
You will free some, but only to enslave
A wider realm of being.
FIRST PHANTOM
I would know
What may be best.
SECOND PHANTOM
The country is at peace.
You do not dare to ask your Congress for
Troops on the Southern people to make war.
FIRST PHANTOM
I do not need to ask. I have enrolled
An oath with God the Nation to uphold.
SECOND PHANTOM
But if you call the troops will you not ask
Congress to validate your powers’ increase
And sharpening of the sword for such a task?
You do not answer. Well, if this may be
Do you not contemplate a tyranny?
FIRST PHANTOM
What is this rupture but a mere defection,
What might be called rebellion, insurrection
Against the laws, which I must overthrow,
As others did before me from the first?
No word writ in the charter of the nation
Has made provision for its termination.
SECOND PHANTOM
But not to argue this--you have reversed
Your mind upon the right of revolution.
FIRST PHANTOM
Not for a righteous or a holy cause.
SECOND PHANTOM
You test it in your own soul’s resolution.
But tell me when there are no writs or laws
For you to execute in the Southern land
How are you acting?
FIRST PHANTOM
But I still command
The property and forts, and other places
Belonging to the Nation.
SECOND PHANTOM
Understand
Their territory all such forts embraces
And sovereignty thereover is resumed.
You cannot have a war on that account,
When they would pay you for the places lost.
FIRST PHANTOM
First the rebellious spirit must surmount
The barriers that keep them home with us.
They cannot leave us, cannot take and hold
What is not theirs, or what if they had sold
They could not grant.
SECOND PHANTOM
That is but bloody gold.
And what you say if acted on will bring
A million deaths.
FIRST PHANTOM
They are responsible
For all the consequences if they cling
To this rebellious purpose.
SECOND PHANTOM
To compel
This fortress’s provisioning
Will be a blow first struck. It is the law:
The first blow of a war is struck by him
Who makes the first blow needful to be struck.
FIRST PHANTOM
You put the woven substance in a ruck.
I leave the issue of a war with them.
They shall not be assailed, nor may they have
Conflict with me unless they first aggress
The government.
SECOND PHANTOM
Oh, then they must withdraw
Resistance to your plan.
FIRST PHANTOM
Well, I confess
No open plan, as yet. But now attend:
I have an oath in heaven registered
The Union to preserve, protect, defend;
They have no oath the Union to destroy.
SECOND PHANTOM
What is the Union but a verbal toy
Like Justice, Beauty, Liberty or Truth?
And as for them they need not take an oath,
They need but act.
FIRST PHANTOM
The Union is unbroken, is a pact
Which cannot be erased or torn apart
By less than half of those who gave it breath.
SECOND PHANTOM
How does a State sink partly into death
By joining other States? Can it accede
And thereby lose its virtue to secede?
FIRST PHANTOM
The Union is much older than accession.
SECOND PHANTOM
Some Union, not the Union which you rule.
The states which formed the old Confederacy
Withdrew to form the Union. Liberty
Is older than all States.
Her handmaiden has always been secession.
FIRST PHANTOM
These arguments are used but to befool
The minds who loathe the wrong they would conceal.
No justice will be lost by him who waits.
SECOND PHANTOM
They ask a council for the general weal
Of all the States these matters to arrange
Without the flow of blood.
FIRST PHANTOM
I shall not change
What I have said: If God who rules above,
Almighty Ruler of all nations, deems
Eternal truth with them, or with our side,
That truth eternal ever must abide.
SECOND PHANTOM
But after all the truth is that which seems
The truth to you. And if mankind you love,
Why draw the sword to justify such truth?
Has any warrior of the world said more?
FIRST PHANTOM
The people may be trusted to restore
All broken rights, to them I leave all things.
SECOND PHANTOM
What do you say? These dubious wanderings
Travel along a pathway scarcely smooth.
You vowed to let no forces intermit
The Nation’s laws in no place, save the means
Which should be requisite,
Were by the people from your arms withheld.
You do not let them choose when you’ve compelled
Their action by your act, which intervenes
Their virgin will and what you do before
You learn its voice. Yes, so arise all wars!
What people ever had a chance to voice
Free and deliberate their honest choice
’Twixt war and peace? Kings leave them to deplore
The initial step while fighting to retrieve
Or mitigate its ills. Your counselors
Have spoken, and your counselors believe
The pending step unwise. So at the last
Out of all dialectics stand two men
Each judging, each appealing to the shrine
Of God, Eternal Justice, all unknown,
Save as they see reflections of them cast
In their refracted speculations--then
What is it but the clash of sovereignties
Grown firmer from offense and wounded pride?
Yet cunning to manipulate decrees
With forethought in successive acts to hide
Provocative offenses, put in fault
The other sovereign for the first assault.
FIRST PHANTOM
One man may risk his life, or suffer wrong,
He has no other but himself at stake.
A ruler has been chosen to be strong,
And save his people for his people’s sake.
The clearest vision, most commanding power,
Interprets and must rule the hour,
Must call its purest sense of duty God.
Must stake its being now, in worlds to come
Before what thrones of judgment chance to be.
One phase alone of life’s immensity
May one o’ermaster, though it bring him doom
For things unseen, the path he never trod
Strewn with his errors. Yet he may be free
By acting through that genesis and win
Approval for the warp. No soul has room
For growth in love, but may it also thrive
To needed power in thought. If heaven require
Excess in either, while the other shrinks
In heaven’s ends, should heaven then requite
The sacrifice with penitential fire?
It is enough that whosoever drinks
Of such success finds bitterness within,
The cup on earth. Can anyone begrudge
The work before me, sword that I possess?
Nor do I of another’s motives judge.
If rights conflict not, yet one master right
Attuned to highest law must still prevail
And lesser laws must fail.
The winds of destiny may bear me far,
Which out of deepest heaven are arising.
I have one compass and one guiding star,
One altar for my spirit’s sacrificing:
The Union is my soul’s profoundest love.
SECOND PHANTOM
If you knew heaven’s wish you might fulfill it,
Seen heaven’s law revealed, then you might will it,
What man can say he knows the word thereof?
Oh, not alone you dedicate your life
To this adventure in uncertain strife!
You give the Nation’s blood and spirit too.
If you could know the Nation would renew
Its strength in years or cycles from your thought,
And through your godlike daring might be wrought
To finer triumphs in the time to come,
You would have warrant to pronounce the doom
Of blood and tears to fertilize the soil,
Where at the start revenge and hate will grow.
But what unending sorrow may recoil
Upon your purposes, who do not know?
FIRST PHANTOM
What are these cliffs of purple which we near?
Gray castes of stagnant mists above them lie.
The boat glides downward as if in a sphere
Of liquid crystal mowing, dizzily
The forked rocks point upward to the sky--
Have I then died?
SECOND PHANTOM
There is a place of moss
Whereon the prow must strike lest it be crushed.
FIRST PHANTOM
This is the world’s end. How the air is hushed!
SECOND PHANTOM
Come now! You have been ferried well across.
There! We have landed. Hear the whispering keel.
FIRST PHANTOM
I’m growing faint.
SECOND PHANTOM
Much still must I reveal.
We two must stand on yonder highest rock.
FIRST PHANTOM
It cannot be!
SECOND PHANTOM
I will the door unlock.
They may not be away. First let me knock.
(_He knocks on the cliff. The vision grows cloudy._)
FIRST PHANTOM
What heights are these where midway to the sea
The gulls like flakes of snow eddy around!
SECOND PHANTOM
The purple wastes lie under a shorn sun.
They do not bleed, no golden ooze is seen,
No arrows pierce them.
FIRST PHANTOM
And how could it be?
A barrier of mud, a sunken realm
With shores where wrecks are rotting are before you.
They sleep upon the tideless water.
SECOND PHANTOM
Yes,
This is a quiet sea of perished dreams!
FIRST PHANTOM
Greater than Asia was this kingdom once,
But in a war it sank.
SECOND PHANTOM
What is the tale?
FIRST PHANTOM
There was a city set upon a hill
Which heaven governed as a pilot guides
The vessel from the stern, by force of thought.
Till spirits here were given air and light
To prove their natures, for it was the wish
Of that first pair which built its earliest hearth.
There since the husband worked with iron and fire,
Where twenty bellows blew, and all the day
The anvil sounded in a shop, which seemed
A palace thick with stars, and giants bore
Great burdens, wielded sledges, and obeyed
The master workman, so the city heaped
Great store of armament and priceless works.
Meanwhile the woman in whose eyes and brow
The final reason, compress of all light
Made of all lights absorbed, resolved, and tamed
Lay like a high serenity of power,
Or balanced wisdom, bore great sons to rule
The state and to preserve it in the wars
When wars should come. In peace to keep the courts,
And laws like to their mother’s face, a face
Which awed the dullest slave, out of whose brain
The idea like a statue carved in rock
By hammers broken, rolled, beholding it.
She taught her sons that some are born to rule,
And some to serve, and some to carry torches,
And some to blow the bellows for the fire
Where torches may be lit; and how a state
Where high and low remain as high and low
So long as nature wills, move in a sphere
Of democratic laws, where all may have
The bread they earn, and where no strength may seize
Another’s happiness, another’s bread.
Hence was it that she fired her sons to drive
A giant troubler from the city’s gates,
And shut him up in Sicily.
But the land
Over whose hills and vales the waters lie
There where we look had other life. I speak:
It was a land of many lakes and rivers,
And plains and meadows, mountains full of ore,
Both gold and silver, copper, precious stones.
And valued wood, most fruitful of all things,
Herbage or roots, or corn, whatever gives
Delight or sustenance. And the ruler’s strength
Brought riches from all ports. But to relate
Its founder’s part, the country was divided
Among ten rulers who had sworn to obey
Injunctions carven on a shaft of gold,
Erected in the middle of the realm.
And here the people of the several States
Gathered for conference on the general weal,
And to inquire if any of the states
Had trespassed on the other, or transgressed
The writing on the shaft of gold, and pass
Appropriate judgment; for upon the shaft
Curses were graven on the recreant.
And it was written none should take up arms
Against the other; and if one should raise
His hand against the central strength (for where
The shaft of gold stood, there a palace stood
Where lived a ruler speaking for them all),
Then should the others rescue it and fling
The rebels back.
Such was this empire lost
And so did it remain so long as men
Obeyed the laws and heaven loved. At first
They practiced wisdom, they despised all things
Save virtue only, lightly thought of gold,
Were sober, hated luxury, knew control
Of passions and of self. And knew that wealth
Grows with such virtues, and by unity
With one another, but by zeal for wealth
All friendship dies. And so they waxed in store
Of gold and spirit. But at last the soul,
Which was divine and moved in them, fell off
And weakened, grew diluted with too much
Of human nature, and became unjust,
Cruel and base, voracious, drunken, lost
To wisdom, discipline; and the seeing eye
Saw all good things forgotten, but to those
Who had no eye to see true happiness
They still appeared most blest and glorious,
Filled as they were with avarice and lust.
So then arose one state, and then another
Against the central ruler, none was free
Of disobedience to the graven words
Upon the shaft of gold, until at last
The city on the hill watching the strife
Embarked with troops.
SECOND PHANTOM
Have you not prophesied
Your country’s fate if you assault the South?
It is the zeal for wealth that cries for war.
From such a war our spirit shall be lost,
Our justice fouled, our friendship turned to hate,
Our laughter rendered drunken. We shall be
The city on the hill, the island lost--
Have both not perished?
FIRST PHANTOM
Stay! It is enough
To live amid the misery of today,
Without this contemplation of the past.
What is this sky, this earth to which we come?
This nothingness, this substance, air and rock
Which to our life is hard reality
And to our thought a dream? All nature sings,
Creates, rejoices, man alone has life
In pain as life, unfolding life as pain,
As if a child could live but never be
Delivered from the womb. And for myself
What am I but a creature, heart and head,
Hands reaching up to catch at rock or bough?
Hands, heart and head of flesh, immortal fire,
With feet unshapen, still a part of earth
Where from that undistinguished mass of clay
Hands, heart and head would pluck them? I could faint,
Fly from the task before me but for this:
The will which when confronted bares its face
And says go on, or lie down with the beasts
In silence and corruption. Let me look
No more upon this sea!
SECOND PHANTOM
Where shall we go?
FIRST PHANTOM
To some place less disquieting, more secure.
(_They leave the heights and descend, approaching a mysterious
place where heaven and earth are connected by gates._)
FIRST PHANTOM
I can no further walk or fly.
SECOND PHANTOM
You enter at these gates near by.
FIRST PHANTOM
I fall through space. Your hand, my friend.
SECOND PHANTOM
Quietly like a star descend.
(_They pass through the gates into a meadow._)
FIRST PHANTOM
What is this meadow which I see?
SECOND PHANTOM
Here come the souls of men to be.
Can you remember what you said
Among the living and the dead:
I would know heaven’s deepest law
And flood the world of men with light,
I would bring justice and be just.
FIRST PHANTOM
Out of each soul’s prenatal night
Something of what you say returns.
The soul descending into dust
Loses its memory as it burns
Less brightly when the spirit wanes.
SECOND PHANTOM
Behold that pillar of splendor shining
And bound to earth and heaven by chains!
You see the distaff to it fixed
And in the distaff whorls of iron,
Each rising to a higher rim,
And on each whirling rim a siren
Chants, as you hear, her solemn hymn.
FIRST PHANTOM
I hear it with the singing mixed
Of one upon whose giant knee
The distaff turns to hands that reach
From thrones which stand at equal spaces.
SECOND PHANTOM
The giant is Necessity,
The Fates are reaching from the thrones.
FIRST PHANTOM
Such garlands for such darkened faces!
What are these solemn monotones,
Which are not music, are not speech?
SECOND PHANTOM
They labor through Eternity.
The Universe of visible things
Turns with the distaff here again.
The dead come back with questionings
Of earthly failure, loss or pain,
And would choose better than before.
Some say that Agamemnon chose
The loneliness of eagle wings
In hatred of his mortal woes.
FIRST PHANTOM
From dreams like these I must be free! I know,
Dread phantom, you are nothing but myself.
You stand before me lately, mocking elf,
Too much, and follow me where’er I go.
What this portends I know not, death I fear.
But what seems just to do I shall perform.
A nation’s destiny is mine to steer,
A people’s hope is on me in the storm.
Behind these voices when they sing or laugh
I hear the droning of the telegraph:
Come! I would study now the last dispatches.
SECOND PHANTOM
No meaning it is clear your soul attaches
To thrones, or sirens, or the giant knees.
You have not fixed upon a policy.
FIRST PHANTOM
I shall be guided--
SECOND PHANTOM
By necessity--
FIRST PHANTOM
Well, yes, but by the will of God as well.
SECOND PHANTOM
How can you tell it from the will of hell?
(_Voices from the thrones._)
FIRST THRONE
Here I sit spinning
From what beginning
Did I begin?
SECOND THRONE
Give me the thread!
I will assign him
Grief to refine him,
Thorns for his head.
Toil never ending
Up from his birth
This shall be leaven
To lift him from earth
Up into heaven.
(_Many souls are crowded into the meadow. A figure takes from the
lap of Lachesis lots and scatters them._)
SECOND PHANTOM
Who honors heaven, heaven wins.
Not here your fate on earth begins.
I only show you where you stood
Amid the fates and now your work
Of justice and of brotherhood.
You’re weary, yet you cannot shrink
The task assumed--how it increases!
A giant hand thrust in releases
The numbered lots of mortal life,
There from the apron of Lachesis,
And throws them to the multitude
Awaiting mortal strife.
SECOND THRONE
One fluttered to his hand. He ran
Between the thrones, the distaff under
Which swayed and rolled upon her knees.
The chains that bound it clanked and creaked.
The far-off depths the lightening streaked
Uprolled the deep symphonic thunder
Which rumbled like a chariot, till
Its echoes died and all was still,
Save for the tinkling pipe and purl
As faster sped the seventh whorl.
We nodded, laughing at the game,
And said: He’s dreaming Pericles
Who gave his soul to ancient Greece.
What will he do with such a name?
SECOND PHANTOM
Do you remember?
FIRST PHANTOM
I remember
A dream I had in early youth:
My birth was humble, still I dreamed
To consecrate my life to Truth
And for the truth to be esteemed.
I love the Republic, I would see
Its soil and all its people free!
(_The Furies enter_.)
THE THRONES
Heaven and God are under us. Reveal
We never may what end the law achieves.
He shall be free who with increasing zeal
Still labors and believes.
THE FURIES
You may deceive this fellow with such stuff;
We have seen history woven long enough
To know the good men plan at least by half
Results in evil.
THE THRONES
Be the epitaph
Of him who moulds his being by this thought:
“He doubted, failure marked the work he wrought.”
THE FURIES
What is the law, then, that he must obey?
THE THRONES
The law that has most universal sway.
THE FURIES
What may that be? Is it to choose the good?
THE THRONES
You know his dream of human brotherhood.
THE FURIES
He must seize power such dreams to realize.
In usurpation great corruption lies.
FIRST PHANTOM
What is this shape I deal with? It is whole,
Inseparable forever, with a soul.
It is a life of undivided breath.
To break its body is to give it death.
THE FURIES
There might be two souls where before was one.
FIRST PHANTOM
From heaven’s battlements a clarion
Shivers the mystic chords of memory,
Stretched forth from every grave and battle-field,
My life may pay the forfeit--let it be.
Destroy me if you will, I shall not yield
To anarch forces.
THE FURIES
Then by tyranny
You’ll break the giants if they dare rebel.
Men through the giants only may be free.
Destroy them or enchain them and you quell
The Titan powers by whom there came
Freedom’s Promethean flame.
THE THRONES
Whence is the Voice,
Which sings the eternal theme
Of giants whirled
Beneath the thunderbolts of Strength supreme;
Of angels who have made the fateful choice,
From heaven headlong hurled?
Of Odin, in Valhalla, keeping guard
Against the malice of the giant world,
Slaying the mighty Ymir?
And what was their reward
Who warred upon the Thunderer
For sovereignty for pity of mankind?--
Go bear in pain the burden of the earth,
Or under mountains blind
Breathe hateful fire,
Or moan your agony and fallen wrath
Chained to the rocks,
So shall thought rule, not force, or their desire
Which is the law of music not of bread
Or lower ordinance. Do you now tread,
Mortal, the path of service to the race?
Do you bring fire, or quell disharmony,
Destroy the Titans? In all time and space
Freedom is only for the wise and free!
THE THRONES
A hand like lightning from a thunder cloud
Reaches from heaven to the apron’s folds,
And takes the inscrutable lots,
And scatters them among the spectral crowd.
On them are written labors, wars and plots.
Thus are they thrown, like snow they fall where’er
They may be driven by the unseen air,
Which moves so thinly here no eye beholds
Its coming and its going. They shall fall
Where chance may govern. Look! These two shall find
Their fate and incarnation, work above
This meadow under earth. Not wholly blind
Shall they select the soul they would be like--
That they may will in part--the rest shall be
Ruled by the working of a destiny
Of our appointing when the hour shall strike
Commissioned under seal to say “Arise
The hour has struck.”
FIRST PHANTOM
My other self, your hand.
SECOND PHANTOM
We must be one, not two.
FIRST PHANTOM
We must not stand
In strength, intentions, visions separate.
(_The two phantoms become one._)
THE THRONES
O soul, now one which just before was two,
What is your deepest love?
THE PHANTOM
It is the True.
I love the Right, the Good, confederate
And in this order, ruling, not apart:
If this may be, mind, conscience, heart
In harmony and balanced equipoise,
I would possess, and I would have a voice
To sway with truth.
THE THRONES
Choose then O soul your fate!
THE PHANTOM
Down bending I obey. What have I done?
FIRST THRONE
Come Destiny and over-watch your son.
THE DESTINY
Behold I loved and kept the public good
Forever in my eye. At my command
Were many armies, cities, islands, realms
Which I ruled over with a master hand.
And where I could not lead by gentle word
I forced compliance, so my power withstood
Internal quarrels and the foreign sword.
But when I left the life of earth they came
Around my bed, a worthy group, and spoke
My trophies and authority and fame.
Not one took notice of my greatest deeds:
No father’s heart for my fault ever broke,
Nor wailing woman tore her widow’s weeds.
Law, Freedom, Progress, Virtue, Beauty, Truth,
Humility, Religion, Knowledge lay
Along the pathway of my city’s youth.
Ill fortune forced imperial temptation
And these divided even by heaven sundered
Leaving to Empire and to Riches sway
O’er Beauty, Knowledge, Progress, till the day
Of hatred, envy, bitter disputation,
All good was sunk. Its walls and temples thundered,
My city on the hill was crushed and fell
Through lust of riches, from its elevation.
Study my problem and my spirit well.
Yours are not greatly different--beware
Great riches for your country lest they come
With weakness and debasement for a snare.
And to this end curb studied greed and those
Spirits luxurious, and adventuresome,
And those unjust, their hatred, guile oppose.
Right is a thing ’twixt equals, and the strong
Do what they can, the weak must suffer wrong.
Therefore the balance hold for all, assuage
The fury and revenge which yet may rage
Around your fallen brothers, when you ride
Triumphant.
SECOND THRONE
Now conduct him to our side
Beneath the distaff in my hand.
Thus is his fate forever ratified.
(_The Image Passes._)
THIRD THRONE
Now hither bring him,--thus I breathe my spell.
His doom is now made irreversible.
THE THRONE OF NECESSITY
Pass under me. Now of this cup drink deep.
There, he has drunk it and so falls in sleep.
Now guard him, Destiny!
_(A sound of cannon. Lincoln awakes. The Secretary
of War enters.)_
THE SECRETARY OF WAR
Fort Sumter has been fired on!
LINCOLN
Call the troops!
PART III
LINCOLN MAKES A MEMORANDUM
(_November 23rd, 1864._)
“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in
accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God
cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the
present Civil War it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something
different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human
instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adoption to
effect his purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true;
that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his
mere great power on the minds of the now contestants he could have
either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the
contest began. And having begun he could give the final victory to
either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”
WINTER GARDEN THEATRE
(_New York, November 23rd, 1864._) JOHN WILKES BOOTH _is speaking
behind the scenes to his brother_.
If you--if you had told me this before,
If I had known of it--if I had known,
I had not played to-night, no, by the gods,
I had not played Marc Antony, nor heard
You speak the words of Brutus. You--my brother,
You nursed in liberty--you nourished upon
Great thoughts and dreams, have soiled me, soiled the name
Of Booth, our father’s name. Yes, you have soiled
All spirits free, all lofty souls, the soul
Of Brutus and of Shakespeare. Why, till now
Conceal from me your vote for Lincoln--why?
Why? In your heart of hearts you are ashamed,
And loose the secret now for penitence!
For you have helped the hand that wrecks and slays
Who will be king and on these ruined States
Erect a throne. He who commenced this war,
And broke the law to do it. He who struck
The liberty of speech and of the press;
He who tore up the ancient writ of freemen,
And filled the jails against the law. Lincoln!
Into whose ears the shrieks of horror rise
From Gettysburg, Manassas--yet who says
The will of God be done, for him you vote!
And walk these boards to-night and live the soul
Of Brutus, speak his words--Oh! “Had you rather
Cæsar were living and die all slaves than
That Cæsar were dead to live all freemen.” God!
You had this secret in your breast the while:
This vote for Lincoln, and these words of Brutus
Blown from the Shakespeare trumpet to our ears,
Hearts, consciences, meant what to you--meant what?
Words for an actor, words for a lisping girl
Repeating them by rote! But why not truth
For men to live by, to be taken into
The beings of men for living? Oh, my God--
I hate you and I leave you. I shall never
Look on your face again!
THE SPARROW HAWK IN THE RAIN
(ALEXANDER STEPHENS _hears news_.)
(_Liberty Hall, April 9th, 1865._)
That’s done! And well, I’d rather not have gone
To take such news. But now I’m glad you picked me--
I saw and heard him. I was ushered in,
And after hems and haws, I said at last,
“Lee has surrendered.”
What a face he had
When I said that: “Lee has surrendered.” Once,
When I was just a boy, I shot a sparhawk,
Just tore his breast away, and did not kill him.
He hopped up to a twig and perched, I peered
Through bushes for my victim--there he was
His breast shot all away, so I could see
His heart a-beating--but the sparhawk’s eyes
Were bright as dew, with pain! I thought of this
When I saw Alec Stephens, said to him,
“Lee has surrendered.”
There the midget sat
His face as wrinkled as thin cream, as yellow
As squirrel skin--But ah, that piercing eye!
As restless as my sparhawk’s, not with moving
But just with light, such pained uneasiness.
So there he sat, a thin, pale, little man,
Wrapped in a monstrous cloak, as wide and dark
As his own melancholy--I shed tears
For such soul sickness, sorrow and such eyes,
That breast all shot away, that heart exposed
For eyes to see it beat, those burning eyes!
I stood there with my hat within my hand,
Said: “Mr. Stephens, I have come to tell you,
Lee has surrendered.” He just looked at me
Then in a thin, cracked voice he said at once,
“It had to come.” That’s all, “It had to come.”
“Pray have a seat,” he added. For you see
He’s known me for some years, I am his friend.
“It had to come.” He only said that once.
Then, after silence, he chirped up again:
“I knew when I came back from Hampton Roads
It soon would be. Home-coming is the thing
When all is over in the world you’ve loved,
And worked with. And this Liberty Hall is good.
My sleeplessness is not so tiring here,
My pain more tolerable, and as for thought,
That goes on anywhere, and thought is life,
And while I think, I live.”
He paused a minute,
I took a seat, enthralled with what he said,
A sparhawk in the rain, breast torn away,
His beating heart in view, his burning eyes!
“But everyone will see, the North will see,
Our cause was theirs, the South’s cause was the cause
Of everyone both north and south. They’ll see
Their liberties not long survive our own.
There is no difference, and cannot be
Between empire, consolidation, none
Between imperialism, centralism, none!”
I saw he was disposed to talk, let fall
My hat upon the floor. There in that cloak
All huddled like a child he sat and talked
In that thin voice. Bent over, hands on knees,
I listened like a man bewitched.
He said:
“As I am sick, cannot endure the strain
Of practice at the bar, am face to face
With silence after thunder, after war,
This terrifying calm, and after days
Top full of problems, duties in my place
In the South, vice-president, adviser,
Upon insoluble things, now after these
I cannot sit here idle, so I plan
To write a book. For, if I tell the truth,
My book will live, will be a shaft of granite
Which guns can never batter. First, perhaps,
I’ll have to go to prison, let it be.
The North is now a maniac--here I am,
Easy to capture, but I’ll think in prison,
Perhaps they’ll let me write, but anyway
I’ll try to write a book and answer questions.
“A soldier at Manassas shot to death
Asked, as he died, ‘What is it all about?’
Thousands of boys, I fancy, asked the same
Dying at Petersburg and Antietam,
Cold Harbor, Gettysburg. I’ll answer them.
I’ll dedicate the book to all true friends
Of Liberty wherever they may be,
Especially to those with eyes to look
Upon a federation of free states as means
Surest and purest to preserve mankind
Against the monarch principle.”
Just then
A darkey came to bring him broth, he drank
And I arose to go. He waved his hand
And asked me: “Would you like to hear about
The book I plan to write?”
I longed to stay
And hear him talk, but feared to tire him out.
I hinted this, he smiled a little smile
And said: “If I’m alone, I think, and thought
Without you talk it out is like a hopper
That is not emptied and may overflow,
Or choke the grinding stones. Be seated, sir,
If you would please to listen.”
So I stayed.
When he had drunk the broth, he settled back
To talk to me and tell me of his book,
A sparhawk, as I said, with burning eyes!
“First I will show the nature of the league,
The compact, constitution, the republic
Called federative even by Washington.
I only sketch the plan to you. Take this:
States make the Declaration, therefore states
Existed at the time to make it. States
Signed up the Articles of Confederation
In seventeen seventy-eight, and to what end?
Why for ‘perpetual union.’ Was it so?
No, nine years after, states, the very same
Withdrew, seceded from ‘perpetual union’
Under the Articles and acceded to,
Ratified, what you will, the Constitution,
And formed not a ‘perpetual union’ but
`More perfect union.’
“If there is a man
Or ever was more gifted with the power
Of cunning words that reach the heart than Lincoln,
I do not know him. Don’t you see it wins,
Captures the swelling feelings to declare
The Union older than the states?--it’s false,
But Lincoln says it. Here’s another strain
That moves the mob: ‘The Constitution has
No word providing for its own destruction,
The ending of the government thereunder.’
This Lincoln is a sophist, and in truth
With all this moral cry against the curse
Of slavery and these arguments of Lincoln
We were put down, just as a hue and cry
Will stifle Reason; but you can be sure
Reason will have her way and punishment
Will fall for her betrayal.
“Let us see:
‘Was there provisions in the Articles
Of that perpetual union for the end
Of that perpetual union? Not at all!
How did these states then end it? By seceding
To form a better one! Is there provision
For getting out, withdrawing from the Union
Formed by the Constitution? No! Why not?
Could not states do what they had done before,
Leave ‘a more perfect union,’ as they left
‘Perpetual union?’ What’s a state in fact?
A state’s a sovereign, look in Vattell, look
In any great authority. So a sovereign
May take back what it delegated, mark you,
Not what it deeded, parted with, but only
Delegated. In regard to that
All powers not delegated were reserved.
Well, to resume, no word is in the charter
To end the charter. And a contract has
No word to end it by, how do you end it?
You end it by rescinding, when one party
Has broken it. Is this a contract, compact?
Even the mighty Webster said it was.
And further, if the Northern States, he said,
Refuse to carry in effect the part
Respecting restoration of fugitive slaves,
The South would be no longer bound to keep--
What did he say? the _compact_, that’s the word!
Next then, what caused the war? I’ll show and prove
It was not slavery of the blacks, but slavery
The North would force on us. For seventy years
Fierce, bitter conflict waged between the forces
Of those who would maintain the Federal form,
And those who would absorb in the Federal head
All power of government; between the forces
Of sovereignty in the people and control,
And sovereignty in a central hand. Why, look,
No sooner was the perfect union formed
Than monarchists began to play their arts
Through tariffs, banks, assumption bills, the Act
That made the Federal Courts. And none of these
Had warrant in the charter; yet you see
They overleaped its bounds. And so it was
To make all clear, explicit, when we framed
For these Confederate States our charter, we
Forbade expressly tariffs, meant to foster
Industrial adventures.
“No, my friend,
Our slavery was not the cause of war.
They would have Empire and the slavery
That comes from it: unlicensed power to deal
With fortunes, lives, economies and rights.
We fought them in the Congress seventy years;
We fought them at the hustings, with the ballot;
And when they shouldered guns, we shouldered guns,
And fought them to the last--now we have lost,
And so I write my book.
“What is the difference
Between a mob, an army shouting God,
Fired by a moral erethism fixed
On slaughter for the triumph of its dream,
A riddance of its hate--what is the difference
Between an army like this and a man
Who dreams God moves, inspires him to an act
Of foul assassination? None at all!
Why, there’s your Northern army shouting God,
Your pure New England with its tariff spoils,
Its banks and growing wealth, uplifting hands,
Invoking God against us till they flame
A crazy party and a maddened army,
To war upon us. But if slavery
Be sinful, where’s the word of Christ to say
That slavery is sinful? Not a word
From him who scourged the Scribes and Pharisees
For robbing widows’ houses, but no word
Against the sin of slavery. Yet behold
He found no faith in all of Israel
To equal that--of whom?--a man who owned
Slaves, as we did. I mean the Centurion.
And is this all? St. Paul who speaks for God
With equal inspiration with New England,
As I should judge, enjoins the slaves to count
Their masters worthy of all honor, that
God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
“But
If it be wrong to hold as property
A service, even a man to keep the service--
Let us be clear and fair--then is it wrong
To hold indentures of apprenticeship?
And if, as Lincoln says, it is a right
Given of God for every man to have,
Eat if he will the bread he earns, then God
Is blasphemed in the North where labor’s paid
Not what it earns, but what it must accept,
Chained by necessity, and so enslaved.
And all these tariff laws are slavery
By which my bread is taken, all the banks
That profit by their issues, special rights,
Enslave us, in the future will enslave
Both North and South, when darkeys shall be free
To choose their masters, but must choose, no less
Take what the master hand consents to pay,
And eat what bread is given. Yes, you know
Our slavery was a gentle thing, belied
As bloody, sullen, selfish--yet you know
It was a gentle thing, a way to keep
A race inferior in a place of work,
Duly controlled. For once that race is freed
It will go forth to mingle, mix and wed
With whites and claim equality, the ballot,
Places of trust and profit, judgment seats.
Lincoln denies he favors this, no less
We’ll come to that. And all the while the mills
And factories in the North will bring to us
The helpless poor of Europe, and enslave them
By pauper wages, and enslave us all
With tariff-favored products. Slavery!
God’s curse is on us for our Slavery!
What do you think?
“They say we broke the law,
Were rebels, insurrectionists; I’ll treat
Those subjects in my book. But let us see,
They did not keep the law; they had their banks,
They had their tariffs, they infracted laws
Respecting slaves who ran away, they joined
Posses and leagues to break those laws, and we
In virtue of these breaches, were released
From this, the compact, just as Webster says.
Did Lincoln keep the law and keep his oath
The Constitution to support, obey?
He did not keep it, and he broke his oath.
Did he have lawful power to call the troops?
Did he have lawful warrant to blockade
Our southern ports? No one pretends he did.
His Congress by a special act made valid
These tyrant usurpations. Had he power
To strike the habeas corpus, gag the press?--
No power at all--he only seized the power
To reach what he conceived was all supreme,
The saving of the Union--more of this.
Well, then, what are these words: You break the law
On those who break it and confess they do?
You have two ideas: Union and Secession,
Or two republics made from one, that’s all.
And those who think secession criminal
Turn criminals themselves to stay the crime,
And shout the Union. To this end I come,
This figment called the Union, which obsessed
The brain of Lincoln.
“For the point is this,
You may take Truth or Liberty or Union
For a battle cry, kill and be killed therefor,
But if our reasons rule, if we are men,
We take them at our peril. We must stake
Our souls upon the choice, be clear of mind
That what we cry as Truth is Truth indeed,
That Liberty is Liberty, that the Union
Is not a noun, a word, a subtlety,
But is a status, substance, living temple
Reared from the bottom up on stones of fate,
Predestined. Yet the truth is only this:
The Union is a noun and nothing more,
And stands for what? A federative thing
Formed of the wills of states, not otherwise.
Existing; and to kill to save the Union
Is but the exercise of a hue and cry,
An arbitrary passion, sophist’s dream.
And Robespierre, who killed for liberty,
And Cæsar, who destroyed the Roman liberties
To have his way, are of the quality
Of Lincoln, whom I know. Take Robespierre,
Was he not by a sense of justice moved,
Pure, and as frigid as a bust of stone?
And Cæsar had devoted friends, and Cæsar,
The accomplished orator, general and scholar,
Charming and gentle in his private walks,
Destroyed the hopes of Rome.
“Now, mark me friend,
I do not think that Lincoln meant to crush
The institutions of his country--no,
His fault was this--the Union, yes the noun,
Rose to religious mysticism, and enthralled
With sentiment his soul. And his ideas
Of its formation, structure in his logic
Rested upon a subtle solecism.
And for this noun, in spite of virtues great
Of head and heart, he used his other self,
His Cæsar self, his self of Robespierre,
In the great office which he exercised,
To bring us Oak Hill, Corinth, Fredericksburg.
Think you, if when he kept the store at Salem
A humble, studious man, he had been told
He would make wails of horror, wake the cries
Of pestilence and famine in the camps,
Bring devastation, rapine, fire and death--
Had he been told this, he had said--‘My soul!
Never,’ and with Hazael said, ‘Behold,
Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’
Power changes men! And when the people give
Power or surrender it, they scarcely know
The thing they give, surrender.
“But I ask
What is there in the Union, what indeed
In any government’s supremacy
Or maintenance that justifies these acts--
These horrors, slaughters--near a million men
Slaughtered for what? The Union. Treasure spent
Beyond all counting for the Union. When
No life had been destroyed, no dollar spent
If they had let us go, left us alone
To go our way. You see they did to us
What England did; succeeded, where she failed.
And thus you see that human life is cheap,
And suffering a sequence when a dream,
An Idea takes a man, a mob, an army.
Which makes our life a jest, our boasted Reason
An instrument too weak for savagery.
Then for the rest--you see--I think you see.--”
Sleep now was taking him. My little sparhawk
Was worn out, and his eyes began to droop,
His voice to fail him. In a moment then
He sank down in his cloak and fell asleep--
And I arose and left.
ADELAIDE AND JOHN WILKES BOOTH
(_At the National Hall, Washington, April 9, 1865._)
ADELAIDE
Yes, even this you can surmount by art,
Lee has surrendered, but--
BOOTH
No! all is lost.
God judge me, right or wrong, but never man.
I love peace more than life, have loved the Union.
Have waited for the clouds to break, have prayed
For justice, peace; but now all hope is dead.
My prayers are futile, as my hopes have been.
God’s will be done. I go to see and share
The end, though bitter.
ADELAIDE
John! you must be calm.
BOOTH
I am most calm, but fixed.
ADELAIDE
You are not calm;
Strange light is in your eyes, your face is pale.
You cannot stretch your hands out but they tremble.
You have avoided me, you walk alone,
Sup, sit alone, lest concentrated thought,
This thought of yours be turned aside. My friend,
Take Beauty in your heart to heal its hurts.
Art is for you. You are a son of Art--
Why waste your spirit on such things as these?
Rulers and nations pass, and wars are lost,
Their issues are forgotten, pushed aside--
Art is eternal and the sons of Art
Live in its calm, above the dust and sweat
Of politics and statecraft. O my friend,
Why should this Brutus, the tyrranicide,
The patriot, move you so; and why not Brutus
As a soul made clear by Shakespeare for your Art
To glory in and re-create for men
To see what Brutus was?
BOOTH
Why, what is this
But playing with life, that’s all it is to play,
Hard play at that, to sleep, to walk, to rest
For strength to trip the stage and imitate
The soul of Brutus! If it be so much,
Art as you say, to live him on the stage,
What would it be to live him to the life,
And do his act in deed?
ADELAIDE
What do you say?
John, you are mad! So that is in your heart!
Look! pause! and muster all your strength of mind,
Forecast, survey--fly from yourself--away--
Even for a week withdraw your mind from this--
That you may see, return with freshened mind
To look upon the horror that you plot.
John, by the love you woke in me for beauty
Of face and genius, listen, on my knees
I ask you, pause and think!
BOOTH
But I have thought.
I know I shall be hated by the North,
And doubted in the South, it may be, yet
God’s will be done. For in a day to come
My name will shine as shines the name of Brutus,
Whose spirit is in me and speaks to me.
Could you have seen, as I have seen, the woes
And horrors of this war in every state,
Then you would pray, as I have prayed, to God
To give the Northern mind pity and justice,
And dry this sea of blood. Alas! my country!
What is this trifling Art beside my country,
This rhetoric spoken, memorized? My friend,
I would have given a thousand lives to see
My country whole, unbroken. Even now
I’d give my life to see her what she was,
Before this man, this tyrant, bloody Cæsar,
This Cæsar worse than Cæsar, who--behold,
In the name of God--why, think in the name of God
Made her a pitiless sovereignty, a force
As cold as steel, and dragged her glorious flag
Through cruelty, oppression, till its stripes
Are bloody gashes on the face of heaven.
How I have loved that flag! How I have longed
To see it flap free from the scarlet mist
That spoils its glory. As for me, this country
Which I loved as a lover loves his bride,
Seems now a dream! The South has all my love,
What has it done? Withdrawn, and that alone,
From the Union which was formed by states withdrawing
From the old confederacy, and leaving states
Out in the cold that did not wish to join.
What has the South done that it might not do
Under the Declaration? Then to think
That all these tens of thousands of our kin,
Our blood, our brothers, should be massacred
For loving God and Liberty, serving God.
And now this day! The South is crushed at last,
The negroes freed by what?--by force, by force
Which John Brown used, and for the which he paid
With his damned neck! O Reason! Adelaide,
Of all men I am sanest, they are mad
Who cannot see these truths: that slavery
Is sanctioned by the Creator, read St. Paul;
That men may revolutionize, as matter of right,
Secede from what they have acceded to,
And not be murdered for it. Do you think
I have not measured motives, thoughts? My friend,
I could be happy, if I could forget
The duty laid upon me, have the means
For happiness, so many friends and you,
Great competence and fame, and greater fame
In store for deeper art. So much for this!
As for the South, as citizens, persons, love
The South is not my friend. Then there’s my mother,
Whom I adore: See what I sacrifice:
Fame, money, friends, my mother--and for what?
Were it the South, I should not think to act--
But it is God, is Justice, and I love
God, Justice, more than wealth or fame, yes more
Than home or mother. All is lost at last.
The South has been erased and is no more.
The Republic of the North and South is dead,
Gutted by a guerilla. Yes, my country
Has vanished from the earth and is no more,
I have no wish to live, my country being
Dead and a stench.
ADELAIDE
I put my arms around you--
Be patient--listen--do not thrust me off--
John--
BOOTH
You must not hold me, Adelaide--farewell.
ADELAIDE
John! John!
BOOTH
God calls me--I obey!
(_He goes out._)
BRUTUS LIVES AGAIN IN BOOTH
(_Ford’s Theatre, Good Friday, April 14th, 1865._)
FIRST STAGE HAND
What time is it?
SECOND STAGE HAND
Time for the curtain nearly.
FIRST STAGE HAND
There’s Miss Keene in the wings.
_The orchestra starts up; the audience sings_:
Honor to our soldiers,
Our Nation’s greatest pride,
Who ’neath our Starry Banner’s folds,
Have fought, have bled and died.
They’re Nature’s noblest handiwork,
No king as proud as they.
God bless the heroes of the land,
And cheer them on their way.
_Scene II. The White House._
_Colfax_
_Oglesby_
_Lincoln_
LINCOLN
This for you, Colfax.
(_Hands him a pass_)
Come in at nine to-morrow.
I’m off soon for the theatre with my wife--
A little party. Grant was going too;
Has changed his mind, goes north with Mrs. Grant.
There’ll be an audience to see the hero
Of Appomatox.
OGLESBY
Well, rather you, I think
Who picked Grant for the work, and brought the war
To end, as it has ended.
LINCOLN
Oh, not me.
I am familiar as an old shoe here.
I’d say the war is ending. There may be
Some battle yet.
COLFAX
Mere sputterings of the flame.
LINCOLN
Well, something’s on. I had my dream last night
Which I have had before, so often, always
Before some great event: I’m in a boat,
And swiftly move toward a shadowy shore.
I had this dream preceding Bull Run, Vicksburg,
Gettysburg, Antietam. It may be
A battle’s on this minute. I think so.
It must relate to Sherman. For I know
No other great event to follow my dream.
OGLESBY
Our dreams are made of days lived long ago:
Your boat’s perhaps your flat boat at New Salem.
COLFAX
I’m happy to live now, the war is won.
God bless you, Mr. President, keep you too.
LINCOLN
You will excuse me, gentlemen. I go,
For Mrs. Lincoln waits.
(_He goes out._)
OGLESBY
The other day
Lincoln was with Charles Sumner down the James,
Was reading Shakespeare, read aloud three times
Those lines which read: “Duncan is in his grave,
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.”
COLFAX
Did you note to-night
He looked those words: “Nothing can touch him further”?
These months before how ghastly gray his face!
What droop of melancholy in his eyes!
What weariness without words, what ultimate woe!
And now to-night he stood transfigured here
Clothed in a great serenity and a joy
As if his life had wrought what he would have it.
OGLESBY
Yes, he is changed. Shall we go on?
(_They go out._)
_Scene III. The entrance of Ford’s Theatre._
BOOTH
(_Passing the doorkeeper without a ticket._)
Is this all right?
DOORKEEPER
All right for you.
BOOTH
Can you leave,
Go with me for a brandy?
DOORKEEPER
No.
BOOTH
Why not?
The play’s commenced, and everyone is here.
DOORKEEPER
Not everyone--the presidential party!
BOOTH
They enter without tickets.
DOORKEEPER
Yes, I know.
Go in and watch Miss Keene a little, John.
You might get wakened up to play again,
Marc Antony to your brother’s Brutus.
BOOTH
No!
Never with him again. And as for that
My next part will be Brutus.
(_He goes into the theatre._)
_Scene IV. Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln Driving to the Theatre._
LINCOLN
Mary, the war is over. We have had
Hard times since we came here. But now, thank God,
The war is over. We may hope for peace,
And happiness for the four years that remain,
While I close up my work as President.
Then back to Illinois to rest and live.
I have some money saved. Wrote recently
To friends to find a house for me in Chicago--
We can live there, or Springfield. Law again,
At least enough to keep us.
MRS. LINCOLN
That’s my dream,
And from this night we start to live, rejoice.
(_They drive on._)
_Scene V. The stage of Ford’s Theatre._
(_Laura Keene as “Florence Trenchard”; John Dyatt as “Dundreary” in
dialogue in Tom Taylor’s “American Cousin.”_)
FLORENCE
“Can’t you see the point of that joke?”
DUNDREARY
“No, really.”
FLORENCE
“You can’t see it?”
DUNDREARY
“No!”
(_Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln and party enter the box._)
FLORENCE
(_Making a profound courtesy to Lincoln._)
“Everyone can see that!”
(_The audience breaks into great applause. The band plays “Hail to the
Chief.” Lincoln bows to the audience._)
_Scene VI. Back of the stage._
FIRST STAGE HAND
Whose horse is at the door?
SECOND STAGE HAND
Booth’s!
A VOICE
Ten twenty-five.
FIRST STAGE HAND
Ten twenty-five.
SECOND STAGE HAND
Ten twenty-five.
_Scene VII. The Presidential Box._
LINCOLN
Oh, no! No persecution, bloody work,
How to articulate the states again,
Just how to handle the states that left us--well,
There will be problems up from day to day,
During my term, at least. But no revenge,
No hate, no hanging, killing--rather shoo!
Like Hannah Armstrong used to shoo her chickens.
Let the obstreporous, unreconciled
Go clear to--Halifax--get out! But, Major,
My feeling is to treat the Southern people
As fellow citizens. To be their fellows
And not their masters is my way.
MAJ. RATHBONE
We need
Your genius, Mr. President, for the work
Of reconstruction more, if that may be,
Then we had need of you to push the war.
MRS. LINCOLN
How do you like the play?
LINCOLN
Oh, very good.
_Scene VIII. Dress Circle._
FIRST AUDITOR
(_Gazing at the Presidential box._)
What’s keeping General Grant? I came to see
The conqueror of Lee.
SECOND AUDITOR
He will not come.
Too late now.
FIRST AUDITOR
(_Looking at his watch._)
Yes, ten twenty-five.
SECOND AUDITOR
Who’s that?
FIRST AUDITOR
Who?
SECOND AUDITOR
Why, a man as pale as snow
Or ivory, with hair black as a horse’s tail
Passed back of the seats there, and approached the entrance
To Lincoln’s box.
FIRST AUDITOR
A secret officer,
With message of a battle. Oh, perhaps
Sherman has vanquished Johnston!
_Scene IX. In the passageway leading to the Presidential box._
BOOTH
Right or wrong, God judge me--never man.
Liberty is dead--I would not live,
Beyond my country’s life. Oh, Liberty!
Brutus, sustain me!
_Scene X. The Presidential box._
MAJOR RATHBONE
(_Observing Lincoln rise._)
Can I get something for you?
LINCOLN
I want my coat.
I felt a chill and shudder down my back.
(_He gets his coat and is seated._)
_Scene XI_. _Booth at the door of the Presidential box aiming a pistol_.
BOOTH
Brutus! (_He fires. The President’s head falls upon
his breast. Booth rushes into the box, slashes Major
Rathbone with a dagger, leaps from the box to the stage.
Falls, arises._)
_Scene XII. On the stage._
BOOTH
_Sic semper Tyrannis!_ The South is avenged!
(_He rushes off. Great confusion._)
BOOTH’S PHILIPPI
(_Garrett’s Tobacco House, Bowling Green, Virginia, April 26th, 1865.
Booth and Harrold._)
SCENE I
BOOTH
If this must be, I take it. Be a man.
Don’t whine like that. You suffer only from fear.
But if you had this torturing leg. My God!
If you rode sixty miles as I did, flesh
Prodded at every jump by broken bones ...
HARROLD
What’s that?
BOOTH
A dog there in the yard.
HARROLD
Those troopers
We hid from on the way here--Federals--
Did they go on, or follow, hunting us?
BOOTH
We’re ended likely. Let us stand our ground.
We have our carbines for the ending up ...
But oh, to be thus hunted, like a dog,
Through swamps, woods, thickets, chased by gunboats too,
With every hand against me. And for what?
For doing what brought honor unto Brutus,
And deathless fame to Tell. Who’ll clear my name?
Who’ll print what I have written? There’s the pang
To die and have my spirit and sacrifice
Sealed up in silence, or drowned out in cries
Of “cut-throat” or “assassin.”
I struck down
A greater tyrant than great Brutus slew.
And my act was more pure than his or Tell’s.
One would be great, and one had private wrongs
To heap his country’s up for quick revenge.
But I, what greatness could I hope for this?
What wrongs had I except the common wrong?
I struck for country and for that alone;
I struck for liberty that groaned beneath
A tyrant’s monstrous tyranny--and now look
The cold hand they extend me in the South
For which I struck! Our country bleeding, broken,
Cried to me for relief, and I was made
The instrument of God by God alone.
HARROLD
A rooster crows!
BOOTH
Two hours till morning yet.
It’s only two o’clock.
HARROLD
What shall we do?
BOOTH
To-night we’ll try the river once again ...
Why not return to Washington and end it?
They’d try me and I’d clear my name. Repent?
No, I do not repent. But I’ve a soul
Too great to die a felon’s death. Swift guns
Against a firing wall are honorable.
Before them I can clear my name. O God!
Give me a brave man’s death, for I have wronged,
Nor hated no one. And was this a wrong
To kill a tyrant? God must deem it so,
By making it a curse upon our time,
Our country and our countrymen. My fate
How miserable soever it may be
Proves not I did a wrong.
Great Milton come
And comfort me in this my agony!
You who could write a tyrant forfeits life
To those whom he oppresses, and ’tis just
To take him off. O curse of Cain no less!
Now I must pray again.
(_He prays._)