John Brown’s Body: Book VIII

It is over now, but they will not let it be over.

It was over with John Brown when the sun rose up To show him the town in arms and he did not flee, Yet men were killed after that, before it was over, And he did not die until November was cool —Yellow leaves falling through a blue-grey dusk, The first winds of November whirl and scatter them— So now, the Confederacy, Sick with its mortal sickness, yet lives on For twenty-one falling months of pride and despair, Half-hopes blown out in the lighting, heroic strokes That come to nothing, and death piled hard upon death.

Follow that agony if you must and can By the brushwood names, by the bloody prints in the woods, Cold Harbor and Spottsylvania and Yellow Tavern And all the lost court-houses and country stores In the Wilderness, where the bitter fighting passed, (No fighting bitterer)—follow the rabbit-runs Through the tangled wilds where the hair of the wounded men Caught fire from the burning trees, where they lay in the swamps Like half-charred logs—find the place they called “Hell’s Half Acre.” Follow the Indian names in the Indian West, Chickamauga and Chattanooga and all the words That are sewn on flags or cut in an armory wall. My cyclorama is not the shape of the world Nor even the shape of this war from first to last, But like a totem carved, like a totem stained With certain beasts and skies and faces of men That would not let me be too quiet at night Till they were figured. Therefore now, through the storm, The war, the rumor, the grinding of the machine, Let certain sounds, let certain voices be heard.

A Richmond lady sits in a Richmond square Beside a working-girl. They talk of the war, They talk of the food and the prices in low-pitched voices With hunger fretting them both. Then they go their ways. But, before she departs, the lady has asked a question— The working-girl pulls up the sleeve of her dress And shows the lady the sorry bone of her arm.

Grant has come East to take up his last command And the grand command of the armies. It is five years Since he sat, with a glass, by the stove in a country store, A stumpy, mute man in a faded Army overcoat, The eldest-born of the Grants but the family-failure, Now, for a week, he shines in the full array Of gold cord and black-feathered hat and superb blue coat, As he talks with the trim, well-tailored Eastern men. It is his only moment of such parade. When the fighting starts, he is chewing a dead cigar With only the battered stars to show the rank On the shoulderstraps of the private’s uniform.

It is sullen Cold Harbor. The Union attack has failed, Repulsed with a ghastly slaughter. The twilight falls. The word goes round the attack will be made again Though all know now that it cannot be made and win. An anxious officer walks through his lines that night. There has been no mutiny yet, throughout all these years, But he wonders now. What are the men doing now? He sees them there. They are silently writing their names On bits of rag and sewing the scraps of cloth To their jackets while they can, before the attack. When they die, next morning, somebody may read the names.

Pickett’s son is born on a night of mid-July While the two armies face each other, and Pickett’s men Light bonfires of celebration along his lines. The fire is seen from the tents of the other camp. The news goes back to Grant and his chief of staff. “Haven’t we any wood for the little Pickett?” says Grant, And the Union bonfires are lighted for Pickett’s son. —All night those two lines of brush-fire, facing each other— Next day they send the baby a silver service. Next week or so they move upon Pickett’s works.

On a muddy river, little toy boats go out. The soldiers are swapping coffee for rank tobacco, A Northern badge for a Southern souvenir, A piece of white-flour bread for a hunk of corn-pone. A Northern lieutenant swims the river at night To go to a Southern dance at a backwoods store, Joke with the girls, swim back, and fight the next day With his hosts of the night before. On disputed ground, A grey-clad private worms his way like a snake, The Union sentries see him and start to fire. “Aw, shut up, Yank,” he calls in a weary voice, “I just skun out to salvage the chaplain’s hat, It’s the only one he’s got and it just blew off.” The firing stops. “All right, Johnny,” the sentries call, “Get your hat, but be quick about it. We won’t hurt you But you better be back by the time our relief gets here.”

A Southern sharpshooter crouched in a blue-gum tree Drills a tiny blue-coated figure between the eyes With a pea-ball fired from a smooth-bore squirrel-rifle. The dead man’s brother waits three days for his shot, Then the sharpshooter crashes down through the breaking boughs Like a lumpy bird, spread-eagled out of his nest.

The desolate siege of Petersburg begins. The grain goes first, then the cats and the squeaking mice, The thin cats stagger starving about the streets, Die or are eaten. There are no more cats In Petersburg—and in Charleston the creeping grass Grows over the wharves where the ships of the world came in. The grass and the moss grow over the stones of the wharves. A Georgia belle eats sherbet near Andersonville Where the Union prisoners rot. Another is weeping The death of her brother, killed in a Union raid. In the North, the factory chimneys smoke and fume; The minstrels have raised their prices, but every night Bones and Tambo play to a crowded house. The hotels are full. The German Opera is here. The ladies at Newport drive in their four-in-hands. The old woman sells her papers about the war. The country widows stitch on a rusty black.

In the Shenandoah Valley, the millwheels rot. (Sheridan has been there.) Where the houses stood, Strong houses, built for weather, lasting it out, The chimneys stand alone. The chimneys are blackened. (Sheridan has been there.) This Valley has been The granary of Lee’s army for years and years. Sheridan makes his report on his finished work. “If a crow intends to fly over the Valley now He’ll have to carry his own provisions,” says Sheridan.

The lonely man with the chin like John Calhoun’s Knows it is over, will not know it is over. Many hands are turning against him in these last years. He makes mistakes. He is stubborn and sick at heart. He is inflexible with fate and men. It is over. It cannot be. He fights to the end, Clinging to one last dream—of somehow, somewhere, A last, miraculous battle where he can lead One wing of the Southern army and Lee the other And so wrench victory out of the failing odds. Why is it a dream? He has studied grand strategy, He was thought a competent soldier in Mexico, He was Secretary of War once— He is the rigid Scholar we know and have seen in another place, Lacking that scholar’s largeness, but with the same Tight mouth, the same intentness on one concept, The same ideal that must bend all life to its will Or break to pieces—and that is the best of him. The pettiness is the pettiness of a girl More than a man’s—a brilliant and shrewish girl, Never too well in body yet living long. He has that unforgiveness of women in him And women will always know him better than men Except for a few, in spite of Mexican wars, In spite of this last, most desolate, warlike dream. Give him the tasks that other scholar assumed, He would not have borne them as greatly or with such skill, And yet—one can find a likeness. So now he dreams Hopelessly of a fight he will never fight And if worst comes to worst, perhaps, of a last Plutarch-death on a shield. It is not to be. He will snatch up a cloak of his wife’s by accident In the moment before his capture, and so be seen, The proud man turned into farce, into sorry farce Before the ignorant gapers. He shades his eyes To rest them a moment, turns to his work again.

The gaunt man, Abraham Lincoln, lives his days. For a while the sky above him is very dark. There are fifty thousand dead in these last, bleak months And Richmond is still untaken. The papers rail, Grant is a butcher, the war will never be done. The gaunt man’s term of office draws to an end, His best friends muse and are doubtful. He thinks himself For a while that when the time of election comes He will not be re-elected. He does not flinch. He draws up a paper and seals it with his own hand. His cabinet signs it, unread. Such writing might be A long historic excuse for defeated strength. This is very short and strict with its commonsense. “It seems we may not rule this nation again. If so, we must do our best, while we still have time, To plan with the new rulers who are to come How best to save the Union before they come, For they will have been elected upon such grounds That they cannot possibly save it, once in our place.”

The cloud lifts, after all. They bring him the news. He is sure of being President four years more. He thinks about it. He says, “Well, I guess they thought They’d better not swap horses, crossing a stream.” The deserters begin to leave the Confederate armies. …

Luke Breckinridge woke up one sunshiny morning Alone, in a roadside ditch, to be hungry again, Though he was used to being hungry by now. He looked at his rifle and thought, “Well, I ought to clean it.” He looked at his feet and he thought, “Well, I ought to get Another bunch of rags if we-uns is goin’ To march much more—these rags is down to my hide.” He looked at his ribs through the tears in his dirty shirt And he thought, “Well, I sure am thin as a razorback. Well, that’s the way it is. Well, I ought to do somethin’. I ought to catch up with the boys. I wish I remembered When I had to quit marchin’ last night. Well, if I start now, I reckon I’m bound to catch ’em.” But when he rose He looked at the road and saw where the march had passed —Feet going on through the dust and the sallow mud, Feet going on forever— He saw that track. He was suddenly very tired. He had been tired after fighting often enough But this was another weariness.

He rubbed his head in his hands for a minute or so, As if to rub some slow thought out of his mind But it would not be rubbed away. “I’m near it,” he thought, “The hotel ain’t a mile from here if Sophy’s still there. Well, they wouldn’t give me a furlough when I ast. Well, it’s been a long time.” On the way to the plank hotel He still kept mumbling, “I can catch up to the boys.” But another thought too vague to be called a thought Washed over the mumble, drowning it, forcing it down.

The grey front door was open. No one was there. He stood for a moment silent, watching the sun Fall through the open door and pool in the dust.

“Sophy!” he called. He waited. Then he went in. The flies were buzzing over the dirty plates In the dining room and nobody there at all. It made him feel tired. He started to climb the stairs. “Hey, Sophy!” he called and listened. There was a creak From somewhere, a little noise like a dusty rat Running across a dusty, sun-splattered board. His hands felt stronger. He was on the second floor Slamming the doors of empty room after room And calling “Sophy!” At last he found the locked door. He broke it down with his shoulder in a loud noise. She was lying in bed with the covers up to her chin And her thin hands clutching the covers. “Well, Soph,” he said. “Well, it’s you,” she said. They stared at each other awhile.

“The rest of ’em’s gone,” she said. “They went off last night. We haven’t had no business. The nigger said The Yanks were coming. They didn’t have room in the cart. They said I could stay for a while and take care of things Or walk if I wanted. I guess Mr. Pollet’s crazy. He was talking things to himself all the time they went. I never slept in a bed like this before. I didn’t know you could sleep so soft in a bed.”

“Did they leave any shoes?” said Luke. She shook her head. “I reckon you could maybe tear up a quilt. I reckon they wouldn’t mind.” Luke grinned like a wolf. “I reckon they hadn’t better,” he said. “Not much. Got anything to eat? I’m hungry as hell.”

They ate what food she could find and she washed his feet And bound them up in fresh rags. He looked at the rags. “Do for a while,” he said. “Well, come along, Soph. We got a long way to go.” Her eyes were big at him. “The Yanks were comin’,” she said. “You mean the war’s over?”

He said, “I ain’t had shoes for God knows how long.” He said, “If it was all Kelceys, you wouldn’t mind. Now I’m goin’ to get me some shoes and raise me a crop, And when we get back home, we’ll butcher a hog. There’s allus hogs in the mountains.” “Well,” she said. “Well, you get your duds,” he said. She didn’t have much. They went along two days without being stopped. She walked pretty well for a thin sort of girl like that. He told her she’d get fatter when they were home.

The third day, they were tramping along toward dusk, On a lonely stretch of road, when she heard the horse-hoofs. Luke had heard them before and shifted his rifle then.

The officer came in sight. He was young and drawn. His eyes were old in their sockets. He reined his horse. “You’re goin’ the wrong way, soldier. What’s your regiment?”

Luke’s eyes grew little. “⸺th Virginia,” he drawled, “But I’m on furlough.” “H’m,” said the officer, “Where are your furlough-papers?” Luke’s hand slid down By his trigger guard. “This here’s my furlough,” he said, Resting the piece in the palm of the other hand.

The officer seemed to debate a thing in his mind For a long instant. Then he rode on, in silence. Luke watched him out of sight. When he was quite gone, The hand slid back, the rifle was shouldered again.

The night had fallen on the narrow tent. —Deep night of Virginia summer when the stars Are burning wax in the near, languid sky And the soft flowers hardly close all night But bathe in darkness, as a woman bathes In a warm, fragrant water and distill Their perfume still, without the fire of the sun.

The army was asleep as armies sleep. War lying on a casual sheaf of peace For a brief moment, and yet with armor on, And yet in the child’s deep sleep, and yet so still. Even the sentries seemed to walk their posts With a ghost-footfall that could match that night.

The aide-de-camp knew certain lines of Greek And other such unnecessary things As birds and music, that are good for peace But are not deemed so serviceable for war. He was a youth with an inquisitive mind And doubtless had a failing for romance, But then he was not twenty, and such faults May sometimes be excused in younger men Even when such creatures die, as they have done At one time or another, for some cause Which we are careful to point out to them Much later, was no cause worth dying for, But cannot reach them with our arguments Because they are uneconomic dust.

So, when the aide-de-camp came toward the tent, He knew that he was sleepy as a dog, And yet the starlight and the gathered scents Moved in his heart—like the unnecessary Themes of a music fallen from a cloud In light, upon a dark water. And though he had Some bitterness of mind to chew upon, As well as messages that he must give Before he slept, he halted in his tracks.

He saw, imprinted on the yellow light That made the tent a hollow jack-o’-lantern, The sharp, black shadow of a seated man, The profile like the profile on a bust. Lee in his tent, alone. He had some shadow-papers in his hand, But you could see he was not reading them, And, if he thought, you could not read his thoughts, Even as shadows, by any light that shines.

“You’d know that face among a million faces,” Thought the still watcher, “and yet, his hair and beard Have quite turned white, white as the dogwood-bloom That blossomed on the way to Chancellorsville When Jackson was alive and we were young And we were winning and the end was near. And now, I guess, the end is near enough In spite of everything that we can do, And he’s alone tonight and Jackson’s dead.

I saw him in the Wilderness that day When he began to lead the charge himself And the men wouldn’t let him. Gordon spoke And then the men themselves began to yell “Lee to the rear—General Lee to the rear!” I’ll hear that all my life. I’ll see those paws Grabbing at Traveller and the bridle-rein And forcing the calm image back from death.

Reckon that’s what we think of you, Marse Robert, Reckon that’s what we think, what’s left of us, The poor old devils that are left of us. I wonder what he thinks about it all. He isn’t staring, he’s just sitting there. I never knew a man could look so still And yet look so alive in his repose.

It doesn’t seem as if a cause could lose When it’s believed in by a man like that. And yet we’re losing. And he knows it all. No, he won’t ever say it. But he knows.

I’d feel more comfortable if he’d move.

We had a chance at Spottsylvania, We had some chances in the Wilderness. We always hurt them more than we were hurt And yet we’re here—and they keep coming on.

What keeps us going on? I wish I knew. Perhaps you see a man like that go on And then you have to follow. There can’t be So many men that men have followed so. And yet, what is it for? What is it for? What does he think? His hands are lying there Quiet as stones or shadows in his lap. His beard is whiter than the dogwood bloom, But there is nothing ruined in his face, And nothing beaten in those steady eyes. If he’s grown old, it isn’t like a man, It’s more the way a river might grow old.

My mother knew him at old dances once. She said he liked to joke and he was dark then, Dark and as straight as he can stand today. If he would only move, I could go forward.

You see the faces of spear-handling kings In the old books they taught us from at school; Big Agamemnon with his curly beard, Achilles in the cruelty of his youth, And Oedipus before he tore his eyes.

I’d like to see him in that chariot-rank, With Traveller pulling at the leader-pole. I don’t think when the winged claws come down They’ll get a groan from him. So we go on. Under the claws. And he goes on ahead.

The sharp-cut profile moved a fraction now, The aide-de-camp went forward on his errand.

The years ride out from the world like couriers gone to a throne That is too far for treaty, or, as it may be, too proud; The years marked with a star, the years that are skin and bone. The years ride into the night like envoys sent to a cloud.

Perhaps they dismount at last, by some iron ring in the skies, Dismount and tie their stallions and walk with an armored tread Where an outlaw queen of the air receives strange embassies Under a tree of wisdom, between the quick and the dead.

Perhaps they are merely gone, as the white foam flies from the bit, But the sparkling noise of their riding is ever in our ears.— The men who came to the maze without foreknowledge of it, The losers and the finders, under the riding years.

They pass, and the finders lose, the losers find for a space. There are love and hate and delusion and all the tricks of the maze. There are always losers and finders. There is no abiding-place And the years are unreturning. But, here and there, there were days.

Days when the sun so shone that the statue gave its cry And a bird shook wings or a woman walked with a certain mirth, When the staff struck out a spring from the stones that had long been dry, And the plough as before moved on from the hilltop, but its share had opened the earth.

So the bird is caught for an instant, and so the bird escapes. The years are not halted by it. The losers and finders wait. The years move on toward the sunset, the tall, far-trafficking shapes, Each with a bag of news to lay at a ghostly gate.

Riders shaking the heart with the hoofs that will not cease, Will you never lie stretched in marble, the hands crossed over the breast, Some with hounds at your feet to show that you passed in peace, And some with your feet on lions? It is time that you were at rest.

John Vilas clucked to the scurvy rack of bones Between the shafts. The rickety cart moved on Like a tired insect, creaking through the dust. There was another day behind them now And any number of such days ahead Unrolling like a long block-printed cloth Pattered with field and stream and snake-rail fence, And now and then, a flash of cavalry Fording a backwoods creek; a big, slow star Mounting in silver over lonely woods While the fire smelled of pine and a cougar cried; A warm barn, full of the sweet milky breath Of cows; a lank-haired preacher on a mule; A red-cheeked woman who rushed after them Armed with a hot and smoking apple-pie And would not take a penny from the old man Who held the mended reins as if they were The vast, slow-sweeping scythe of Time himself —Old Time and the last children of his age, Drawn in a rattling cart, too poor to thieve, By a gaunt horse, too ancient to die, Over a rutted road, day after day, Returning to the East from whence he came.

It was a portent in the little towns. The time had bred odd voyagers enough; Disbanded soldiers, tramping toward the West In faded army blouses, singing strange songs, Heroes and chickenthieves, true men and liars, Some with old wounds that galled them in the rains And some who sold the wounds they never had Seven times over in each new saloon; Queer, rootless families, plucked up by war To blow along the roads like tumbleweed, Who fed their wild-haired children God knows how But always kept a fierce and cringing cur, Famished for scraps, to run below the cart; Horsedealers, draft-evaders, gipsymen; Crooked creatures of a thousand dubious trades That breed like gnats from the debris of war; Half-cracked herb-doctor, patent-medicine man With his accordion and his inked silk hat; Sellers of snake-oil balm and lucky rings And the old, crazy hatless wanderer Who painted “God is Love” upon the barns And on the rocks, “Prepare to Meet Thy God”; Lost tribes and maverick nations of the road— The shiftless people, who are never still But blow before the wind unquietly And will so blow, until the last starved cur Yaps at the last fat farmer, and lies down With buckshot tearing at his ravening heart, For the slow years to pick his carcass clean And turn the little chapel of his bones Into a dust so sifted by the wind No winds that blow can sift it any more.

There were unquiet people on the road, There were outlandish strays and travellers, Drifting the little towns from day to day, Stopping to mend a wheel or patch a shoe, Beg, steal or sleep or write God’s judgments out And then pass on. And yet, when these three came, John Vilas and his daughter and her child, Like snail-drawn Time, along the dusty track, The story had gone on ahead of them, And there was something in the rickety cart Or the gaunt horse or in his driver’s eyes That made a fable of their journeying, Until you heard John Vilas was that same Lost Jew that wanders after every war But cannot die in any, being curst. He was the skipper, who first brought the slaves. He was John Brown, arisen from his stone. He was the drummer who had lost his way At Valley Forge and frozen in the snow, To rove forevermore, a dread old man Beating a phantom drum across the wind. He was a dozen such uncanny fetches, And, while one must not talk with him too long, There was no luck at all in crossing him, Because, and in the end, the man was Time; White-headed Time, stoop-shouldered on his scythe, Driving a daughter and a daughter’s son Beyond the war, to some wrought-iron gate Where they would drop their heavy load at last —Load of all war and all misfortune’s load— On the green grass of a New England grave Set on the sea-cliffs, looking toward the sea.

While, for the other tale, the woman’s tale, The heart-faced girl with the enormous eyes, Roving from little town to little town Still looking for her soldier—it became Mixed with each story of such fortune told Behind drawn blinds, by women, in the dusk, Until she too grew fabulous as a song Sung to a beechwood fiddle, and all the old Barely-recorded chants that are the land And no one poet’s or musician’s— “Old Dan Tucker,” “The Belle of Albany,” The girl who died for love in the high woods And cruel Barbara Allen in her pride.

So she became a concertina tune Played in plank taverns by a blind, old man, A jew’s-harp strain, a comb-and-banjo song, The music of a soapbox violin Shrilled out against the tree-toads and the crickets Through the hot nights of June. So, though she passed Unknowing, yet she left the legend-touch Bright as a splash of sumach still behind Wherever the gaunt horse pulled on his load. Till, later, those who knew no more of her Living, than they might know of such removed And singable creations as “Lord Randall,” “Colombo,” “Little Musgrave,” or “Jay Gould’s Daughter,” Yet knew enough of her to sing about And fit her name, Melora, to the same Slow-dropping minor of the water and earth— The minor of the country barber-shops That keens above the grave of Jesse James And the lone prairie where the cowboy died, The desolate minor of the jail-bird’s song, Luscious with sorrow, and the minor notes That tell about the tragic end of such As loved too well to have such cruel fathers But were so loving, even in the dust, A red-rose brier grew out of their dead hearts And twined together in a lover’s knot For all the county people to admire, And every lost, waif ballad we have made And, making, scorned because it smelt of the earth, And now would seek, but cannot make again— So she became a legend and a name.

John Vilas, moving always toward the East, Upon his last adventure, felt the sun Strike at his bones and warm them like the last Heat of the wood so long within the fire That long ago the brightness ate its heart And yet it lies and burns upon the iron Unready still to crumble and be cool, The white, transmuted log of purest ash Still glowing with a late and borrowed flame.

“This is the sun of age,” he thought, “and so We enter our last journeys with that sun Which we have watched sink down ten thousand times Knowing he would arise like Dedalus On the first wings of morning, and exult Like our own youth, fresh-risen from its bed And inexhaustible of space and light. But now the vessel which could not be filled By violence or desire or the great storm, Runs over with its weight of little days And when this sun sinks now, we’ll sink with him And not get up again. I find it fit That I, who spent the years of my desire In the lost forest, seeking the lost stone, With little care for Harriet or the rest, With little trust in safety or the world, Should now retrace at last, and in my age, The exact highway of my youth’s escape From everything that galled it and take on, Like an old snake resuming his cast skins, The East I fled, the little towns I mocked, The dust I thought was shaken from my shoes, The sleepiness from which I ran away.

Harriet’s right and Harriet is just And Harriet’s back in that chintz-curtained room From which I took her, twenty years ago, With all the children who were always hers Because I gave them nothing but my seed And hardly heard their laughter or their tears And hardly knew their faces or their names, Because I listened for the wind in the bough, Because my daughters were the shooting-stars, Because my sons were the forgotten streams And the wild silvers of the wilderness.

Men who go looking for the wilderness-stone And find it, should not marry or beget, For, if they do so, they may work a wrong Deeper than any mere intent of pain. And yet, what I have sought that I have sought And cannot disavouch, although it is The double knife that cuts the giver’s hand And the unwilling taker’s. So I took My wife, long since, from that chintz-curtained room And so she has gone back to it again After these years, with children of those years, And, being kind, she will not teach them there To curse me, as I think, though if she did She could find reason in her neighbor’s eyes, And, being Harriet, she will bring them up In all such houses, till the end of time, As if she had not been away at all. And so, at last, she’ll get the peace she should. And yet, some time, a child may run away.

We have had sons and daughters, she and I, And, of them all, one daughter and one son In whom our strange bloods married with the true Marriage that is not merely sheath and sword. The rest are hers. Those two were partly mine.

I taught my son to wander in the woods Till he could step the hidden paths with me Light as a whisper, indolent as Spring. I would not tame his sister when I might, I let her follow patterns of leaves, Looking for stones rejected by the wise. I kept them by me jealously and long.

And yet, the day they took him, when he sat There on his horse, before they all rode off, It was his mother who looked out of him And it was to his mother that he looked.

That is my punishment and my offence And that is how it was. And he is dead. Dead of a fever, buried in the South, Dead in this war I thought a whirligig For iron fools to play with and to kill Other men’s sons, not mine. He’s buried deep.

I kept him by me jealously and long. Well, he walked well, alive. He was my son. I’ll not make tags of him. We got the news. She could not stay beside me after that. I see so clearly why she could not stay.

So I retrace the hard steps of my youth Now with this daughter, in a rattling cart Drawn by a horse as lean as famine’s self, And am an omen in the little towns— Because this daughter has too much of me To be content with bread made out of wheat. To be in love and give it up for rest, To live serene without a knife at heart.

Such is the manner and the bound escape Of those a disproportion drives unfed From the world’s table, without meat or grace, Though both are wholesome, but who seek instead Their solitary victual like the fox. And who at last return as I return In the ironic wagon of the years, Back to the pasture that they found too green, Broken of every knowledge but the last Knowledge of how escape is not a door But a slow-winding road whose hundred coils Return upon each other, soon or late —And how and when and under what cold stars The old wound bleeds beneath the armored mind.

And yet, this journey is not desolate Nor am I desolate in it, as we crawl Slowly from little town to little town Always against the sun, and the horse nods, And there’s my daughter talking, and her child Sleeping or waking, and we stop awhile And then go on awhile, and I can feel The slow sun creeping through me summerlong. Until, at times, I fall into a doze Awake, a daydream without apparitions And, falling so, inhabit for a space A second childhood, calmer than the first, But wise in the same fashion, and so touch For a long, drowsy hour of afternoon, The ripened thing, the autumn at the heart, The one full star of evening that is age.

Yes, I must be a second child sometimes, For as we pass and as they watch us pass, It seems to me their eyes make stories of us And I can hear those stories murmuring Like pigeons in a loft when I’m asleep, Till sometimes I must wonder for a while If I’ve not changed myself for someone else Or grown a story without knowing it, And, with no intermediary death, Stepped out of flesh and taken on a ghost.

For at such times, it almost seems to me As if I were no longer what I am But the deluded shade of Peter Rugg Still looking for his Boston through the storm, Or the strange spook of Johnny Appleseed, Crept out of heaven on a windless night To see if his wild orchards prosper still And leave a heap of Baldwins and sweet russets —Moonglittered, scrubbed with rags of silver cloud And Indian magic—by the lucky doors Of such good people as take care of them— While for my daughter, though I know she’s real, She and her story, yet, in the waking dream She mixes with that song I used to know About the Spanish lady of old days Who loved the Englishman and sought for him All through green England in her scarlet shoes, Knowing no word of English but his name.

I hear her voice, where the guitar is mixed With the sweet, jangling mule-bells of Castile, I see her face under its high shell-comb— And then it is my daughter’s—and I wake —And yet know, even in waking, that we are Somewhere between a story and a dream.

And so, you see, I find a kind of peace In this last foray, will not rail at the sun, Eat, drink and sleep, in spite of what is past, Talk with my daughter, watch the turning skies. The Spanish lady found her Englishman. Well, we may find this boy I’ve half-forgot, Although our story is another story.

So life works in us for a little while And then the ferment’s quiet. So we do Wrongs much beyond intent, and suffer them. So we go looking for the wilderness-stone.

I shall smell lilac in Connecticut No doubt, before I die, and see the clean White, reticent, small churches of my youth, The gardens full of phlox and mignonette, The pasture-bars I broke to run away.

It was my thought to lie in an uncropped And savage field no plough had ever scored, Between a bee-tree and a cast deer-horn. It was my thought to lie beside a stream Too secret for the very deer to find, Too solitary for remembrance. It was a dream. It does not matter now.

Bury me where the soldiers of retreat Are buried, underneath the faded star, Bury me where the courtiers of escape Fall down, confronted with their earth again. Bury me where the fences hold the land And the sun sinks beyond the pasture-bars Never to fall upon the wilderness-stone.

And yet I have escaped, in spite of all.”

Lucy Weatherby smoothed out clothes in a trunk With a stab at her heart. The trunk was packed to the lid. There wasn’t an empty corner anywhere, Pack as she would—but the blue dress wouldn’t go in. Of course she’d be getting a lot of new dresses soon And the blue was old—but she couldn’t leave it behind. If only Henry wasn’t so selfish, at times! But Henry was like all brothers and like all men, Expecting a lady to travel to Canada With just one trunk and the boxes! It was too bad. He had a trunk of his own for razors and shirts, And yet she couldn’t take two—and there were the hoops; He kept on fussing because she wouldn’t leave them When she knew he was hoping to take all those silly books, As if you couldn’t buy books wherever you went!

She pinched her cheek and stared at the trunk again. The green could come out, of course, and the blue go in, But she couldn’t bear the idea of leaving the green.

The war, of course, and one thinks so much of the war, And those terrible Yankees actually at our gates, In spite of our fine, brave boys and poor Mr. Davis, In spite of wearing old dresses for two whole years And sending the servants out to work at the forts, In spite of the cheers and the songs and the cause and the right. Only, one must not be selfish. One must be brave. One must think about Henry’s health and be sensible, And Henry actually thinks we can get away. …

The blue or the green? She couldn’t decide it yet, And there were all those letters to write tonight. She’d simply have to write to Clay and Huger About Henry’s health—and how it just breaks my heart, But one cannot leave one’s sick brother—and afterwards, One can always send one’s address—and I’m sure if they do We’ll give them a real, old-fashioned Richmond welcome, Though they say that the British leftenants are simply sweet And every Southern girl is an absolute belle. They play the “Bonnie Blue Flag” at the dances there, And Sara Kenefick is engaged to an earl.

She saw herself, for an instant, walking the safe Street of a calm and British-looking town. She had on a new dress. Her shoes and her hat were new. A white-haired, dim-faced man in a British coat Walked beside her and looked and was listening, While she told him all about it, and hearing the guns, And how they’d actually lived without butcher’s meat For weeks and weeks—and the wounded—and General Lee— And only Henry’s health had forced them at last To leave the dear South. She choked. He patted her hand. He hoped they would stay in Canada for a while.

The blue or the green? It was dreadfully hard to choose, And with all the letters to write—and Jim Merrihew And that nice Alabama Major— She heard the bells Ring for a wedding, but this was a different groom, This was a white-haired man with stars on his coat, This was an Order wrapped in an English voice.

Honey, sugar-lump honey I love so dearly, You have eluded the long pursuit that sought you, You have eluded the hands that would so enclose you And with strange passion force you. What was this passion? We do not know, you and I, but we would not bear it And are gone free. So at last, if fair girls must marry, As young girls should, it is after another fashion And not with youth but wisely. So we are ransomed, And I am yours forever and you are mine, Honey, sugar-lump honey. So we attain, The white-haired bridegrooms with the stars on their coats And yet have the beaus to dance with, for we like dancing, So all the world finds our wifely devotion charming, So we play all day in the heat of the sun.

She held the blue dress under her chin once more And smoothed it with one white hand. Then she put it down Smiling a little. No, it couldn’t go in, But she would see if she couldn’t help Henry pack, And if she did, the blue could go with his shirts. It hardly mattered, leaving some shirts behind.

Sherman’s buzzin’ along to de sea, Jubili, Jubilo! Sherman’s buzzin’ along to de sea, Like Moses ridin’ on a bumblebee, Settin’ de prisoned and de humble free! Hit’s de year of Jubilo!

Massa was de whale wid de big inside, Jubili, Jubilo! Massa was de lion and de lion’s hide. But de Lord God smacked him in his hardheart pride, And de whale unswallered, and de lion died! Hit’s de year of Jubilo!

Oh, hit don’t matter if you’s black or tan, Jubili, Jubilo! Hit don’t matter if you’s black or tan, When you hear de noise of de freedom-ban’ You’s snatched bald-headed to de Promise Lan’, Hit’s de year of Jubilo!

Oh, hit don’t matter if you pine or ail, Jubili, Jubilo! Hit don’t matter if you pine or ail, Hit don’t matter if you’s been in jail, De Lord’s got mercy for your mumblin’ tale! Hit’s de year of Jubilo!

Every nigger’s gwine to own a mule, Jubili, Jubilo! Every nigger’s gwine to own a mule, An’ live like Adam in de Golden Rule, An’ send his chillun to de white-folks’ school! In de year of Jubilo!

Fall down on your knees and bless de Lord, Jubili, Jubilo! Fall down on your knees and bless de Lord, Dat chased old Pharaoh wid a lightnin’-sword, And rose up Izzul fum de withered gourd, Hit’s de year of Jubilo!

Shout thanksgivin’ and shout it loud! Jubili, Jubilo! Shout thanksgivin’ and shout it loud, We was dead and buried in de Lazrus-shroud, But de Lord came down in a glory-cloud, An’ He gave us Jubilo!

So Sherman goes from Atlanta to the sea Through the red-earth heart of the land, through the pine-smoke haze Of the warm, last months of the year. In the evenings The skies are green as the thin, clear ice on the pools That melts to water again in the heat of noon. A few black trees are solemn against those skies. The soldiers feel the winter touching the air With a little ice. But when the sun has come up, When they halt at noonday, mopping their sweaty brows, The skies are blue and soft and without a cloud.

Strange march, half-war, half trooping picnic-parade, Cutting a ruinous swathe through the red earth land; March of the hardy bummers and coffee-coolers Who, having been told to forage, loot as they can And leave a wound that rankles for sixty years. March of the honest, who did not loot when they could And so are not remembered in Southern legend. Rough-bearded Sherman riding the red-earth roads, Writing home that his rascals are fat and happy, Saying or else not saying that war is hell, Saying he almost trembles himself to think Of what will happen when Charleston falls in the hands Of those same rascals—and yet, when we read that march, Hardly the smoking dragon he has been called, But the mere rough-handed man who rode with a hard Bit through the land, unanxious to spare his foe Nor grimly anxious to torture for torture’s sake, Smashing this and that—and yet, in the end, Giving such terms to the foe struck down at last That the men in Washington disavow them and him For over-kindness. So now, through the pine-smoke Fall, The long worm of his army creeps toward Savannah Leaving its swathe behind. In the ruined gardens The buried silver lies well hid in the ground. A looter pocks bullet-marks in an old oil-portrait. A woman wails and rages against the thieves Who carry her dead child’s clothes on their drunken bayonets. A looter swings from a pine tree for thefts too crude. A fresh-faced boy gets scars he will carry long Hauling a crippled girl from a burning house, But gets no thanks but hate from the thing he saved, And everywhere, A black earth stirs, a wind blows over black earth, A wind blows into black faces, into old hands Knotted with long rheumatics, cramped on the hoe, Into old backs bent double over the cotton, The wind of freedom, the wind of the jubilo.

They stray from the lost plantations like children strayed, Grinning and singing, following the blue soldiers, They steal from the lonesome cabins like runaways Laden with sticks and bundles and conjur-charms; A huge black mother carries her sucking child Wrapped in a quilt, a slim brown girl and her lover Wander November woods like Adam and Eve, Living on roots and rabbits and liberty, An old grey field hand dimly plods through the mud, Looking for some vague place he has heard about Where Linkum sits at a desk in his gold silk hat With a bag of silver dollars in either hand For every old grey field hand that comes to him, All God’s chillun got shoes there and fine new clothes, All God’s chillun got peace there and roastin’-ears, Hills of barbecue, rivers of pot-licker, Nobody’s got to work there, never no more.

His feet are sore with the road but he stumbles on, A hundred, a thousand others stumble as he, Chanting, dizzied, drunken with a strange fever, A child’s delight, a brightness too huge to grasp, The hidden nation, untaught, unrecognized, Free at last, but not yet free with the free, Ignorant, joyful, wronged, child-minded and searching, Searching the army’s road for this new wild thing That means so much but can’t be held in the hand, That must be there, that yet is so hard to find, This dream, this pentecost changing, this liberty.

Some wander away to strange death or stranger life, Some wander awhile and starve and come back at last, Some stay by the old plantation but will not work To the great disgust of masters and mistresses, Sing idly, gamble, sleep through the lazy hours, Waiting for friendly heaven to rain them down The mule and the forty acres of their desire. Some, faithful beyond the bond that they never signed, Hold to that bond in ruin as in the sun, Steal food for a hungry mistress, keep her alive, Keep the house alive, try to pick the weeds from the path, Gather the wood and chop it and make the fire, With pitying scorn for the runaway sheep of freedom, Freedom’s a ghost and freedom’s a foolish talk, What counts is making the fire as it should be made. … Oh, blackskinned epic, epic with the black spear, I cannot sing you, having too white a heart, And yet, some day, a poet will rise to sing you And sing you with such truth and mellowness, —Deep mellow of the husky, golden voice Crying dark heaven through the spirituals, Soft mellow of the levee roustabouts, Singing at night against the banjo-moon— That you will be a match for any song Sung by old, populous nations in the past, And stand like hills against the American sky, And lay your black spear down by Roland’s horn.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, the scythe of the march mows on, The Southern papers discount it as best they can. Lincoln is anxious, Davis more anxious still. The war is in its last winter of strife and pain.

Cudjo buried the silverware On a graveyard night of sultry air While the turned sods smelled of the winter damp And Mary Lou Wingate held the lamp. They worked with a will. They did not speak. The light was yellow. The light was weak. A tomb-light casting a last, brief flame Over the grave of Wingate fame. The silver bowl of the Wingate toasts, The spoons worn hollow by Wingate ghosts, Sconce and ladle and bead-rimmed plate With the English mark and the English weight, The round old porringer, dented so By the first milk-teeth of the long ago, And the candlesticks of Elspeth Mackay That she brought with her youth on her wedding-day To light the living of Wingate Hall While the mornings break and the twilights fall And the night and the river have memories. …

There was a spook in Cudjo’s eyes As he lowered the chests where they must lie And patted the earth back cunningly. He knew each chest and its diverse freight As a blind man knows his own front gate And, decade by decade and piece by piece, With paste and shammy and elbow-grease, He had made them his, by the pursed-up lips And the tireless, polishing fingertips, Till now as he buried them, each and all, What he buried was Wingate Hall, Himself and the moon and the toddy-sippers, The river-mist and the dancing-slippers, Old Marse Billy and Mary Lou And every bit of the world he knew, Master and lady and house and slave, All smoothed down in a single grave. He was finished at length. He shook his head. “Mistis, reckon we’s done,” he said. They looked at each other, black and white, For a slow-paced moment across the light.

Then he took the lamp and she smoothed her shawl And he lit her back to the plundered Hall, To pray, with her old serene observance For the mercy of God upon faithful servants And a justice striking all Yankees dead On her cold, worn knees by the great carved bed, Where she had lain by a gentleman’s side, Wife and mother and new-come bride, Sick with the carrying, torn with the borning, Waked by the laughter on Christmas morning, Through love and temper and joy and grief, And the years gone by like the blowing leaf.

She finished her prayer with Louisa’s child, And, when she had risen, she almost smiled. She struck her hand on the bedstead head, “They won’t drive me from my house,” she said, As the wood rang under her wedding-ring. Then she stood for a moment, listening, As if for a step, or a gentleman’s name, But only the gnats and the echoes came.

Cudjo, being less fortified, Covered his ears with his hands and tried To shut the noise of the risen wind Out of the trouble of his mind. He thought, “Ain’t right for dat wind to blow. She wasn’t blowing awhile ago. Jus’ riz up fum de earth somewhere When we buried dat orphan silver dere. Got to hide it, and so we tried, But silver like dat don’t like to hide, Silver’s ust to be passed aroun’ Don’t like lyin’ in lonesome groun’, Wants to come back to de Hall, all right. Silver, I always shone you bright, You could see yo’self in de shine— Silver, it wasn’t no fix of mine! Don’t you come projeckin’ after me!”

His eyes were shut but he still could see The slow chests rising out of the ground With an ominous clatter of silver sound, The locks undoing, the bags unfastening, And every knife and platter and spoon Clinking out of the grave and hastening Back to the Hall, in the witches’ moon; And the wind in the chimney played such tricks That it was no wind, be it soft or loud, But Elspeth seeking her candlesticks All night long in her ruffled shroud, The deep voice haunting the ocean-shell To give her judgment and weave her spell, “Thrift and love for the house and the chief And a scone on the hob for the son of grief, But a knife in the ribs for the pleasant thief.”

Cudjo heard it, and Cudjo shook, And Cudjo felt for the Holy Book, And the wind blew on without peace or rest, Blowing the straws from the dried-up nest.

Bailey, tramping along with Sherman’s bummers, Grumbled and found life pleasant and hummed his tune. He was well, the blood ran in him, he ate for ten, He and the gang had salvaged a wall-eyed nig To fix their victuals—and if the captain was on, The captain had a blind eye. Last night it was turkey, The night before it was duck—well, you couldn’t expect Such things to keep on forever, but while they did It was pretty soft—it was war like it ought to be. The Old Man marched ’em hard, but that was all right. The Old Man knew his job and the nig was a buster And the gang was as good a gang as you’d hope to find, None of your coffee-coolers and straggle-tails But a regular gang that ran like an eight-day clock. Oh it was gravy, it was the real duck soup, Marchin’ into Atlanta after the fight And then this marchin’—well, they were due for it, And he was a sergeant now. And up in his pack Were souvenirs for the red-haired widow in Cairo, Some of ’em bought and some just sort of picked up But not a dam one stolen, to call it stealin’. He wasn’t a coffee-cooler or a slick Susio. Poor little kid—she’d had a pretty tough time— Cry like a fool when she gets a squint at that brooch— They said you couldn’t tell about widows much, But what the hell—he wasn’t a barnyard virgin— He liked a woman who’d been over the bumps And kept her get-up-and-git and her sassiness. Spitfire-sweetie, you’re my valentine now, Bet the kids have red hair—well you can’t help that— But they’ll all look like Poppa or he’ll know why.

He mused a moment, thinking of Ellyat now. There was another kid and a crazy kid, Sort of missed him, hope he’s gettin’ it soft, Must have got a banger at Gettysburg, Wrote me a letter a couple of months ago, Maybe six, I dunno, I sort of forget. Ought to give him his old spread-eagle now, Darn good kid, but done enough for his pay. Hope he finds that girl he was talkin’ about, Sounds like a pretty good piece for a storm-and-strife, Skinny, though—we like ’em more of a weight, Don’t we, Carrots? Well, it’s all in a life. Ought to write him sometime if we get a chance, Wish we was West—we’d have him out to the weddin’, Me and Bessie, show him the Cairo girls, Hand him the fireman’s grip and give him a time.

His heart was overflowing with charity, But his throat was dry as the bottom of his canteen. There was a big, white house, some way from the road. …

He found his captain, saluted and put his question. The captain’s eyes were satiric but not displeased. “All right, Sergeant, take your detail and forage, We’re running low on bacon, it seems to me, And if you happen to find a pigeon or two Remember the Colonel’s penchant for pigeon-pie. But don’t waste time and don’t put your hopes too high, The Nth Corps must have gone by there hours ago And they’re the biggest thieves in this whole, wide army. You’ll be back, in ranks, all sober, in just two hours Or you won’t have stripes. And if I find one more man Trying to take a pet with him on this march, I don’t care if it’s only a treetoad, I’ll skin him alive.”

So Bailey came to the door of Wingate Hall, With the high wind blowing against him and gave his orders. “Make it quick now, boys—don’t cut any monkeyshines, But be sure and get the pigeons if they’re around. Clark, you and Ellis stay with me by the door, I’m going to talk to the house if there’s anyone left.”

He knocked and called. There was a long, heavy silence. “Hey you, the house!” The silence made him feel queer. He cursed impatiently and pushed at the door. It swung wide open. He turned to Ellis and Clark. “I’m goin’ in,” he said. “If you hear me yell Come in bilin’.” They watched him with mocking eyes. “Wish to hell they’d make me a sergeant, Clark,” “A three-stripe souvenir sergeant.” “Aw, hell,” said Clark, “Bailey’s all right. He’ll let us in on the juice If there’s any lawful juice that a man could get.” “Sure he’s all right. Who says that he ain’t all right!” “But all the same, he’s a sergeant.” Bailey, meanwhile Was roving like a lost soul through great, empty rooms And staring at various objects that caught his eye. Funny old boy with a wig, hung up on the wall, Queer sort of chairs, made your hands feel dirty to touch ’em Though they were faded. Everything faded and old And quiet—and the wind blowin’—he moved as on tiptoe Though he couldn’t say why he did. Old workbasket there. He opened it idly—most of the things were gone But there was a pair of little, gold-mounted scissors Made like a bird, with the blades the beak of the bird. He picked it up and opened and shut the blades. Hadn’t rusted—sort of handsome and queer— Bessie would certainly like it— He held it a minute. Wouldn’t take up any room. Then he frowned at the thing. “Aw hell,” he said, “I got enough souvenirs. I ain’t no damn coffee-cooler.”

He started to put the scissors back in the case And turned to face a slight grey-headed old woman Dressed in black, with eyes that burned through his skin And a voice that cut at his mind like a rawhide whip, Calling him fifty different kinds of a thief And Yankee devil and liar and God knows what, Tearing the throat of her dress with her thin old hands And telling him he could shoot her down like a dog But he’d steal her children’s things over her dead body. My God, as if you went around shootin’ old women For fun, my God! He couldn’t even explain. She was like all of ’em, made him sick in his lunch. “Oh hell,” he yelled. “Shut up about your damn scissors, This is a war, old lady!” “That’s right,” she said, “Curse a helpless female, you big, brave soldier.” Well, what was a man to do? He got out of the house, Sore and angry, mean as a man could feel, But her voice still followed, reviling, making him burn. Now, where in hell was that detail? He saw them now, All except Clark and Ellis, gathered around A white-polled nigger wringing his hands and weeping. One man had a neck-wrung pigeon stuffed in his blouse. Well, that was something. He laid his hand on the nigger. “Hey, Uncle, where’s the well? You folks got a well?” But the nigger just kept on crying like an old fool. “He thinks we’re goin’ to scalp him,” said one of the men, “I told him twict that he’s free but the shine won’t listen. I give him some money, too, but he let it drop. The rest of ’em run away when the army came.”

“Well, tell him he’s safe and make him rustle some water, I’m dry as a preacher’s tongue. Where’s Ellis and Clark?”

He found Clark solemnly prodding the hard dirt floor Of a negro cabin, while Ellis lighted the task With a splinter of burning pine. His rage exploded In boiling lava. They listened respectfully. “And next time, I give you an order,” he ended up, “Why you ⸻ ⸻ ⸻” Clark wiped his face with his sleeve. “Sorry, Sergeant,” he said in an awed, low voice. “Well you better be! What the hell do you think you’re at, Playin’ tit-tat-toe or buryin’ somebody’s dog?” “Well, Sergeant,” said Ellis, humbly, “I allus heard They buried stuff, sometimes, under these here cabins. Well, I thought we could take a look—well—” “Huh?” said Bailey He seized the torch and looked at the trodden floor For an instant. Then his pride and his rage returned. “Hell’s fire!” he said, and threw the splinter aside, “That’s just about what you would think, you and Clark. Come out of there on the double! Yes, I said you!”

They were halfway down the driveway when Ellis spoke. “Sergeant,” he said. “There’s somethin’ on fire back there.” Bailey stopped—looked back—a smoke-puff climbed in the sky And the wind was high. He hesitated a moment. The cabin must have caught from the burning splinter. Then he set his jaw. Well, suppose the cabin had caught? —Damned old woman in black who called him a thief. Serve her right if all her cabins burnt up. The house wouldn’t catch—and here they were, losing time—

“Oh well,” he said. “That nigger’ll put it out. It ain’t our detail—mosey along with it there— The Cap won’t mind if we run it on him a little, Now we got the Colonel’s squab, but we better step.”

They hurried along. The smoke rose higher behind them. The wind blew the burning flakes on Wingate Hall.

Sally Dupré stared out of her bedroom window As she had stared many times at that clump of trees, And saw the smoke rise out of it, thick and dark.

They hadn’t had much trouble at Appleton. It was too far off the main road—and, as for the slaves, Those who straggled after the troops were better away. The aunts complained, of course—well, the aunts complained. They were old, and, at least, they had a man in the house, Even if the man were but crippled old Uncle Paul. It was the end of the world for him and the aunts. It wasn’t for her. The years had worn on her youth, Much had worn, but not the crook from her smile Nor the hidden lightness out of her narrow feet.

She looked at the smoke again, and her eyes were grey And then they were black as that smoke. She felt the fire Run on her flesh. “It’s Wingate Hall and it’s burning! House that married my lover before he saw me, You are burning, burning away in a little smoke, Burning the wall between us with your fierce burning, Burning the strife between us in your black flame, Burning down.” She trod for an instant there A light glass floor of omen, brighter than sleet Over a hurtless fire. Then she caught her breath. The flesh was cool, the blackness died from her eyes. “We’ll have to get the slaves if the slaves will go. I know Ned will. I’m not sure about Bob or Jim. Uncle Paul must give me his pistol. I’ll have to start them. They won’t go without me. The aunts won’t be any use. Why wouldn’t she come over here when we all first heard? I know why she wouldn’t. I never liked her so much. Hurry, Sally!” She ran downstairs like the wind.

They worked at the Hall that night till the dawn came up, Two smoke-stained women, Cudjo and Bob and Ned, But when the dawn had risen, the Hall was gone And Elspeth’s candles would not light it again.

Wingate wearily tried to goad A bag of bones on a muddy road Under the grey and April sky While Bristol hummed in his irony “If you want a good time, jine the cavalry! Well, we jined it, and here we go, The last event in the circus-show, The bareback boys in the burnin’ hoop Mounted on cases of chicken-croup, The rovin’ remains of the Black Horse Troop! Though the only horse you could call real black Is the horsefly sittin’ on Shepley’s back, But, women and children, do not fear, They’ll feed the lions and us, next year. And, women and children, dry your eyes, The Southern gentleman never dies. He just lives on by his strength of will Like a damn ole rooster too tough to kill Or a brand-new government dollar-bill That you can use for a trousers-patch Or lightin’ a fire, if you’ve got a match, Or makin’ a bunny a paper collar, Or anythin’ else—except a dollar.

Old folks, young folks, never you care, The Yanks are here and the Yanks are there, But no Southern gentleman knows despair. He just goes on in his usual way, Eatin’ a meal every fifteenth day And showin’ such skill in his change of base That he never gets time to wash his face While he fights with a fury you’d seldom find Except in a Home for the Crippled Blind, And can whip five Yanks with a palmleaf hat, Only the Yanks won’t fight like that.

Ladies and gentlemen, here we go! The last event in the minstrel show! Georgia’s genuine gamboliers, (Ladies and gentlemen, dry those tears!) See the sergeant, eatin’ the hay Of his faithful horse, in a lifelike way! See the general, out for blood, And try to tell the man from the mud! See the platoon in its savage lair, A half-grown boy on a wheezy mare. Ladies and gentlemen, pass the hat! We’ve got one trick that you won’t forget, ‘The Vanishin’ Commissariat’ And nobody’s found the answer yet! Here we go, here we go, The last parade of the circus-show, Longstreet’s orphans, Lee’s everlastin’s Half cast-iron and half corn-pone, And if gettin’ to heaven means prayer and fastin’s We ought to get there on the fasts alone.

Here we go with our weddin’ bells, Mr. Davis’s immortelles, Mr. Lincoln’s Thanksgivin’ turkey, Run right ragged but actin’ perky, Chased right handsome, but still not carved, —We had fleas, but the fleas all starved. We had rations and new recruits, Uniforms and cavalry-boots, Must have mislaid, for we can’t find ’em. They all went home with their tails behind ’em. Here we are, like the old man’s mutton, Pretty well sheared, but not past buttin’, Lee’s last invalids, heart and hand, All wropped up in a woolen band, Oh, Dixie land … oh, Dixie land! …” He tossed his hat and caught it again And Wingate recalled, without grief or pain Or any quietus but memory Lucy, under another sky, White and gold as a lily bed, Giving toy ribbons to all her dead. She had been pretty and she was gone, But the dead were here—and the dead rode on, Over a road of mud and stones, Each one horsed on a bag of bones.

Lucy, you carried a golden head, But I am free of you, being dead. Father’s back in that cluttered hall Where the beds are solid from wall to wall And the scrubbed old floor has a rusty stain. He’ll never ride with the dogs again, Call Bathsheba or Planter’s Child In the old, high quaver that drives them wild —Rocketing hounds on a red-hot scent— After such wounds, men do not ride. I think that his heart was innocent. I know he rode by the riverside, Calling Blue Ruin or Georgia Lad With the huntsman’s crotchet that sets them mad. His face was ruddy—his face is white— I wonder if Father died last night? That cloud in the sky is a thunderhead. The world I knew is a long time dead.

Shepley looks like a knife on guard, Reckon he’s taking it mighty hard, Reckon he loved her and no mistake, Glad it isn’t my wedding cake, Wainscott oughtn’t to plague him so, Means all right but he doesn’t know. “Here we go, here we go, The last events of the minstrel-show!”

Shepley suddenly turned his head. “Mr. Bristol’s funny,” he said. The voice was flat with an injury. Bristol stared at him, puzzledly. “What’s the matter with you, Huger? Lost your dog or your rosy cheeks? Haven’t been human for weeks and weeks. I’ll sing you a hymn, if you’re so inclined, But the rest of the boys don’t seem to mind. Are you feelin’ poorly or just unkind?”

Shepley looked at him with the blind Eyes of a man too long at war And too long nursing a secret sore. “Mr. Bristol’s funny,” said he, In a level voice of enmity. Bristol laughed, but his face grew red. “Well, if you take it like that—” he said.

“Here we go, here we go, The old Confederate minstrel-show!” His mouth was merry, he tossed his hat, “Belles skedaddled and left us flat—”

Shepley leaned from his swaying hips And flicked him over the singing lips. “Will you take it?” he said, “or let it go?” You never could sing for shucks, you know.”

The color drained out of Bristol’s face. He bowed with an odd, old-fashioned grace. “Name your people and choose your land, I don’t take a slap from God’s own hand. Mr. Shepley, your servant, sir.”

They stared at each other across a blur. The troop stared with them, halted and still.

A rider lunged from the top of the hill, Dusty man with a bandaged hand Spilling his orders. “Who’s in command? Well, it doesn’t signify, more or less. You can hold the Yanks for a while, I guess. Make ’em think you’re the whole rear guard If you can do it—they’re pressin’ hard And somebody’s got to lose some hair. Keep ’em away from that bend down there As long as a horse or a man can stand. You might give ’em a charge, if you think you can, And we’ll meet sometime in the Promised Land, For I can’t spare you another man.”

Bristol whistled, a shrill, sweet slur. “Beg to acknowledge the orders, sir. Boys, we’re booked for the shivaree. Give our regards to the infantry And tell Marse Robert, with fortitude, We stacked up pretty as hickory-wood. While might I ask, while bein’ polite, How many Yank armies we aim to fight?”

“Well,” said the other, “about a corps. Roughly speakin’—there may be more.”

“Thank you,” said Bristol, “that’s mighty sweet. You will not remain at the mourner’s seat? No sir? Well, I imagined not, For from this time hence it will be right hot. He turned to Shepley with his punctilious Air of the devil turned supercilious When the damned display a vulgar nettlement. “Sir, I regret that our little settlement Must be postponed for a fitter season, But war and necessity know no reason, And should we survive in this comin’ fracas I’ll do you the honors—you damned old jackass!”

Shepley grinned at his sometime friend. They took the cover they must defend.

Wingate, fighting from tree to tree, Felt a red-hot skewer surgeon his knee And felt his shoulder hitting the ground. He rolled on his side and made a sound, Dimly seeing through failing sight The last brief passion of his last fight. One Cotter dying, the other dead With the brains run out of his shattered head. Stuart Cazenove trying to squirm His way to the road like a scythe-cut worm, Weakly humming “Cadet Rousselle,” Shot through the belly and half in hell, While Shepley croaked through a bloody spray, “Come on, you bastards, and get your pay. We’ve fought you mounted and fought you standin’ And I got a hole I could put my hand in— And they’re comin’, Wayne—and it hurts my head—” Bristol looked at him, lying dead. “Got the start of me, Shep,” he said. “Dirty welchers, killin’ Huger Before we could settle up properly.” He stooped to the body and took its pistol And Wingate saw, through a rising mist, The last, cold madness of Wainscott Bristol, Walking out like a duellist With his torn coat buttoned up at the throat As if it were still the broadcloth coat Duellists button to show no fleck Of telltale white at the wrists or neck.

He stepped from his cover and dropped his hat. “Yanks, come get it!” he said and spat While his pistols cracked with a single crack, “Here we go on the red dog’s back! High, low, jack and the goddam game.” And then the answering volley came.

Wingate waked from a bloodshot dream. They were touching his leg and he heard his scream. A blue-chinned man said a word or two. “Well now, Johnny, you ought to do Till the sawbones comes with his movin’-van, And you’re lucky you’re livin’, little man. But why the hell did you act so strict, Fightin’ like that when you know you’re licked, And where’s the rest of your damn brigade?” The voice died out as the ripples fade Into the flow of the running stream, And Wingate sank to the bloodshot dream.

Richmond is fallen—Lincoln walks in its streets, Alone, unguarded, stops at George Pickett’s house, Knocks at George Pickett’s door. George Pickett has gone But the strange, gaunt figure talks to George Pickett’s wife A moment—she thinks she is dreaming, seeing him there— “Just one of George Pickett’s old friends, m’am.” He turns away. She watches him down the street with wondering eyes. The red light falls upon him from the red sky. Houses are burning, strange shadows flee through the streets. A gang of loafers is broaching a liquor-barrel In a red-lit square. The liquor spills on the cobbles. They try to scoop it up in their dirty hands.

A long, blue column tramps by, shouting “John Brown’s Body.” The loafers scatter like wasps from a half-sucked pear, Come back when the column is gone. A half-crazy slave Mounts on a stoop and starts to preach to the sky. A white-haired woman shoos him away with a broom. He mumbles and reels to the shadows. A general passes, His escort armed with drawn sabres. The sabres shine In the red, low light. Two doors away, down the street, A woman is sobbing the same long sob all night Beside a corpse with crossed hands. Lincoln passes on.

On the way to Appomattox, the ghost of an army Staggers a muddy road for a week or so Through fights and weather, dwindling away each day. For a brief while Davis is with them and then he goes To be tracked by his private furies into the last Sad farce of his capture, and, later, to wear his chains. Benjamin is with them for some few days, Still sleek, still lively, still impeccably dressed, Taking adversity as he took success With the silk-ribbed fan of his slight, unchangeable smile. Behind that fan, his mind weighs war and defeat In an old balance. One day he is there and smiling. The next he is gone as if he had taken fernseed And walked invisible so through the Union lines. You will not find that smile in a Northern prison Though you seek from now till Doomsday. It is too wise. You will find the chief with the chin like John Calhoun’s, Gadfly-stung, tormented by hostile fate, You will find many gallant blockheads and tragic nobles But not the black-eyed man with life in his eyes.

So this week, this death-march, these final, desperate strokes, These last blood-spots on the harvest—until, at length, The battered grey advance guard, hoping to break A last, miraculous hole through the closing net, Sees Ord’s whole corps as if risen out of the ground Before them, blocking all hope. The letters are written, The orders given, while stray fighting goes on And grey men and blue men die in odd clumps of ground Before the orders can reach them. An aide-de-camp Seeks a suitable house for the council from a chance farmer. The first one found is too dirty to please his mind, He picks another. The chiefs and the captains meet, Lee erect in his best dress uniform, His dress-sword hung at his side and his eyes unaltered. Chunky Grant in his mudsplashed private’s gear With the battered stars on his shoulders. They talk a while Of Mexico and old days. Then the terms are stated. Lee finds them generous, says so, makes a request. His men will need their horses for the spring-ploughing. Grant assents at once. There is no parade of bright sword’s Given or taken. Grant saw that there should not be. It is over, then. … Lee walks from the little room. His face is unchanged. It will not change when he dies. But as he steps on the porch and looks toward his lines He strikes his hands together once with a sound. …

In the room he has left, the blue men stare at each other For a space of heartbeats, silent. The grey ride off. They are gone—it is over. …

The room explodes like a bomb, they are laughing and shouting, Yelling strange words, dragging chairs and tables outdoors, Bearded generals waltzing with one another For a brief, wild moment, punching each others’ ribs, Everyone talking at once and nobody listening, “It’s over—it’s done—it’s finished!” Then, order again. The grey ghost-army falls in for the last time, Marching to stack its arms. As the ranks move forward The blue guns go to “Present.” Gordon sees the gesture. He sweeps his sabre down in the full salute.

There are no cheers or words from blue lines or grey. Only the sound of feet. … It is over, now. … The arms are stacked from the war. A few bronzed, tattered grey men, weeping or silent, Tear some riddled bits of cloth from the color-staffs And try to hide them under their uniforms.

Jake Diefer, ploughing, a day of the early Spring, Smelt April steam from the ground as he turned it up And wondered how the new forty would do this year.

The stump of his left arm ached in the living wind. It was not a new pain. When he got back to the house The woman would ease it some with her liniments But there wasn’t much you could do. The boy had been smart. The boy had fixed the jigger so he could plough. It wasn’t an arm you could show to company With a regular-looking hand, but it did the work. The woman still hankered after the varnished one They’d seen that day in the Philadelphia store —Well, he’d tried it on, and it was a handsome arm, And, if the new forty did well— Meanwhile, the huge Muscles of his right shoulder bulged with the strain As the plough sheared on. Sometimes, the blade of the plough Still turned up such odd harvest as bullets leave, A spoilt canteen, the brass of a cartridge-pouch, An eyeless skull, too white for the grin it wore. But these were rarer now. They had cleaned the well. They could drink from the well again. The earth was in plough.

He turned his team and started the backward furrow. He was clumsy still, in some matters, but he could manage. This year he’d see his own wheat. He thought to himself: “You ain’t the feller you was but the ground looks good. It smells like good plantin’ weather. We cleaned the well. Maybe some time we’ll get you that varnished arm, For Sundays, maybe. It’d look good on Sundays.” He gazed ahead. By the end of the farther fence A ragamuffin-something leaned on the rail, Regarding him and his team. “Tramp feller,” he thought, “Colored man, too—well, he can’t hang around this farm, Him or no other tramps. I wish I could get An honest to God cheap hired man.” The team drew near. The negro did not move. Jake halted the team.

They stared at each other. One saw a crippled ox, The other a scar-faced spectre with haunted eyes Still dressed in the rags of a shoddy uniform. “Well, feller?” said Jake. The negro said “ ’Scuse me, Sarjun.” He scratched his head with the wreck of a forage-cap. His eyes remembered a darkness. “Huh!” said Jake, Sharply, “Where did you get it?” The negro shrank. “I was in de Crater, boss,” he said with a dull Stain in his voice. “You mebbe heard about us. You mebbe heard of de Crater at Petersburg. I doan’ like thinkin’ about it. You need a fiel’-han’?”

Jake thought for a moment. “Crater,” he said at last. “Yuh, I heard about that Crater.” The wind blew on, Hurting his arm. “I wasn’t to there,” he said. “I knew some boys that was there.” The negro said, “I’d work for my keep, boss, honest. I knows a team. I knows how to work. I got hurt bad in de Crater But I knows how to work a farm.” He coughed and was dumb. Jake looked at him as he might have looked at a horse, Measuringly. “I ain’t runnin’ a hospital,” He said, in an aggrieved voice. “You was to the Crater. I seen the way you colored folks farm down South. It ain’t no way to farm. You ought to be et. We’ll eat you up to the house when it’s mealin’-time. I don’t know where we’ll sleep you. How do I know You can work your keep?” The negro said nothing at all. His eyes had resumed their darkness. “Huddup!” said Jake, As the team swung round. “Dat’s ploughin’!” the negro said.

Jake spat. “The woman’ll fix you a snack to eat If you holler the house.” The negro shook his head. “I’ll wait till you’s done furrowin’, boss,” he said. “Mebbe I kin help you unhitch when it’s time for dat.”

“Well,” said Jake, “I ain’t payin’ a hired man much.”

“Dey call me Spade,” said the negro. The plough went on. The negro watched it, cutting the furrow clean.

Jack Ellyat, an old cudgel in his fist, Walked from the town, one day of melting ice, Past fields still patched with old snow but warm in the sun, His heart and mind being something like those fields. … Behind him, in the town, the spangled flags Still fluttered or hung limp for fallen Richmond, And here or there, in corners, you could see The burst firecracker-cases, rotten with rain, The guttered stumps of torches flung away And other odds and ends of celebration Not yet swept up. The old cannon in the Square Still had a blackened mouth from its salutes, The little boys would not be good all week And everything wore airs of Monday morning. …

Jack Ellyat, remembering it all, Was glad enough when he got past the houses And could see nothing but the road ahead Going up hills and down. “It’s over now. Finished for good. Well, I was part of it. Well, it is over.” When he reached the crest Of the Long Hill, he paused and felt the wind Blow on his face, and leaned upon his stick, Gazing at troubled Spring. He carried still Wounds of a sort, some healed into the scars And some that hardly would be healed awhile, Being in stuff few surgeries can reach, But he was well enough, although the wind Felt colder than it had in other Springs.

“Oh, yes,” he thought, “I guess that I’m all right. I guess I’m lucky. I remember once Coming along this road with poor old Ned Before they fired on Sumter. Well, it’s over. I was a part of it.” He flipped a stone Down toward the hill and watched it strike and strike And then lie quiet, while his mind recalled The long, white, bloodless months of getting well And the strange feel of first civilian clothes. Well, that was over, too, and he was back, And everybody knew he’d settled down, Only he couldn’t stand it any more.

He had a picture of Melora’s face, Dim with long looking-at, a carried image, He tried to see it now, but it was faint. He’d tried to find her but he couldn’t find her. Couldn’t get any news while he was sick, And then, at last, the news that they were gone— That and no more—and nobody knew where.

He saw the clock upon the mantelpiece Back in the house, ticking its fettered time To fettered Phaëton. “I’ll settle down. I will forget. I’ll wear my riddled coat Fourth of Julys and have boys gape at me. I’ll drink and eat and sleep, marry a girl; Be a good lawyer, wear the hunger out. I hardly knew her. It was years ago. Why should the hunger stay? A dozen men Might find a dozen girls and lose them so And never once think of it, but perhaps As a dim fragrance, lost with their first youth, A seashell in a box of cedarwood, A silver mist that vanished with the day.

It was such years ago. She must have changed. I know that I have changed. We find such things And lose them, and must live in spite of it. Only a fool goes looking for the wind That blew across his heartstrings yesterday, Or breaks his hands in the obscure attempt To dig the knotted roots of Time apart, Hoping to resurrect the golden mask Of the lost year inviolate from the ground. Only a fool drives horses in the sky.”

And here he was, out walking on this road For no more reason than a crazy yarn Just heard, about some gipsy travellers Going through towns and looking for a soldier. And even and supposing it were she …

He saw Melora walking down from the wood With the sun behind her, low in the western cloud. He saw the long shadow that her slight body made.

The fetters fell like straws from the clock of time. The horses moved from the gate. This life, this burning, This fictive war that is over, this toy death, These were the pictures of Phaëton. This is Phaëton. He cast a final look down at the town, Another at the fields still patched with snow. The wind blew on his face. He moved away Out toward the crossroads, where the wagons pass, And when he got there, waited patiently Under a windbreak of three twisted elms Half-hidden from the road. “Find her,” he said. “I guess we’ll go back West then. Well, that’s that.” The wind burned at his flesh. He let it burn, Staring at a lost year. So he perceived A slow cart creaking up a slope of hill, Drawn by a horse as gaunt as poverty And driven by a woman with great eyes.

Edmund Ruffin, old Secessionist, Firer of the first gun that rang against Sumter, Walks in his garden now, in the evening-cool, With a red, barred flag slung stiffly over one arm And a silver-butted pistol in his right hand. He has just heard of Lee’s surrender and Richmond’s fall And his face is marble over his high black stock. For a moment he walks there, smelling the scents of Spring, A gentleman taking his ease, while the sun sinks down. Now it is well-nigh sunken. He smiles with the close, Dry smile of age. It is time. He unfolds the flag, Cloaks it around his shoulders with neat, swift hands, Cocks the pistol and points it straight at his heart. The hammer falls, the dead man slumps to the ground. The blood spurts out in the last light of the sun Staining the red of the flag with more transient red.

The gaunt man, Abraham Lincoln, woke one morning From a new dream that yet was an old dream For he had known it many times before And, usually, its coming prophesied Important news of some sort, good or bad, Though mostly good as he remembered it.

He had been standing on the shadowy deck Of a black formless boat that moved away From a dim bank, into wide, gushing waters— River or sea, but huge—and as he stood, The boat rushed into darkness like an arrow, Gathering speed—and as it rushed, he woke.

He found it odd enough to tell about That day to various people, half in jest And half in earnest—well, it passed the time And nearly everyone had some pet quirk, Knocking on wood or never spilling salt, Ladders or broken mirrors or a Friday, And so he thought he might be left his boat, Especially now, when he could breathe awhile With Lee surrendered and the war stamped out And the long work of binding up the wounds Not yet begun—although he had his plans For that long healing, and would work them out In spite of all the bitter-hearted fools Who only thought of punishing the South Now she was beaten. But this boat of his. He thought he had it. “Johnston has surrendered. It must be that, I guess—for that’s about The only news we’re waiting still to hear.” He smiled a little, spoke of other things.

That afternoon he drove beside his wife And talked with her about the days to come With curious simplicity and peace. Well, they were getting on, and when the end Came to his term, he would not be distressed. They would go back to Springfield, find a house, Live peaceably and simply, see old friends, Take a few cases every now and then. Old Billy Herndon’s kept the practice up, I guess he’ll sort of like to have me back. We won’t be skimped, we’ll have enough to spend, Enough to do—we’ll have a quiet time, A sort of Indian summer of our age.

He looked beyond the carriage, seeing it so, Peace at the last, and rest.

They drove back to the White House, dressed and ate, Went to the theatre in their flag-draped box. The play was a good play, he liked the play, Laughed at the jokes, laughed at the funny man With the long, weeping whiskers. The time passed. The shot rang out. The crazy murderer Leaped from the box, mouthed out his Latin phrase, Brandished his foolish pistol and was gone.

Lincoln lay stricken in the flag-draped box. Living but speechless. Now they lifted him And bore him off. He lay some hours so. Then the heart failed. The breath beat in the throat. The black, formless vessel carried him away.

Sally, waiting at Appleton On an autumn day of clear, bright sun, Felt her heart and body begin to burn As she hummed the lesson she had to learn. “Yellow cornmeal and a jackass colt And a door that swings on a broken bolt. Comfort the old and pity the wise And see your lover with open eyes. Mend the broken and patch the frayed And carry the sorrow undismayed When your lover limps in the falling rain, Never quite to be whole again. Clear the nettle and plant the corn And keep your body a hunting-horn. Succor your love at fire and frost When your lover remembers the blood he lost, And break your hands on the hard-moved wheel Till they are tougher than hands of steel, Till the new grass grows on the barren plain And the house is built from the dust again, With thrift and love for the house and the chief, A scone on the hob for the son of grief, A knife in the ribs for the pleasant thief, While the night and the river have memories …” She stared at the future with equal eyes. And yet, in her glance, there was something still Not to be ground by Wingate will Or under the honor of Elspeth’s name, A dancing flicker that went and came But did not falter for joy or grief Or the years gone by with the blowing leaf. —French Dupré with his alien grace Always turning the buried ace. French Dupré in his dancer’s pride, Leading a reel with his stolen bride—

She smiled a little and turned to see A weed-grown path and a scarlet tree And Wingate coming there, painfully.

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave. Spread over it the bloodstained flag of his song, For the sun to bleach, the wind and the birds to tear, The snow to cover over with a pure fleece And the New England cloud to work upon With the grey absolution of its slow, most lilac-smelling rain, Until there is nothing there That ever knew a master or a slave Or, brooding on the symbol of a wrong, Threw down the irons in the field of peace. John Brown is dead, he will not come again, A stray ghost-walker with a ghostly gun. Let the strong metal rust In the enclosing dust And the consuming coal That was the furious soul And still like iron groans, Anointed with the earth, Grow colder than the stones While the white roots of grass and little weeds Suck the last hollow wildfire from the singing bones.

Bury the South together with this man, Bury the bygone South. Bury the minstrel with the honey-mouth, Bury the broadsword virtues of the clan, Bury the unmachined, the planters’ pride, The courtesy and the bitter arrogance, The pistol-hearted horsemen who could ride Like jolly centaurs under the hot stars. Bury the whip, bury the branding-bars, Bury the unjust thing That some tamed into mercy, being wise, But could not starve the tiger from its eyes Or make it feed where beasts of mercy feed. Bury the fiddle-music and the dance, The sick magnolias of the false romance And all the chivalry that went to seed Before its ripening.

And with these things, bury the purple dream Of the America we have not been, The tropic empire, seeking the warm sea, The last foray of aristocracy Based not on dollars or initiative Or any blood for what that blood was worth But on a certain code, a manner of birth, A certain manner of knowing how to live, The pastoral rebellion of the earth Against machines, against the Age of Steam, The Hamiltonian extremes against the Franklin mean, The genius of the land Against the metal hand, The great, slave-driven bark, Full-oared upon the dark, With gilded figurehead, With fetters for the crew And spices for the few, The passion that is dead, The pomp we never knew, Bury this, too.

Bury this destiny unmanifest, This system broken underneath the test, Beside John Brown and though he knows his enemy is there He is too full of sleep at last to care.

He was a stone, this man who lies so still, A stone flung from a sling against a wall, A sacrificial instrument of kill, A cold prayer hardened to a musket-ball: And yet, he knew the uses of a hill, And he must have his justice, after all.

He was a lover of certain pastoral things, He had the shepherd’s gift. When he walked at peace, when he drank from the watersprings, His eyes would lift

To see God, robed in a glory, but sometimes, too, Merely the sky, Untroubled by wrath or angels, vacant and blue, Vacant and high.

He knew not only doom but the shape of the land, Reaping and sowing. He could take a lump of any earth in his hand And feel the growing.

He was a farmer, he didn’t think much of towns, The wheels, the vastness. He liked the wide fields, the yellows, the lonely browns, The black ewe’s fastness.

Out of his body grows revolving steel, Out of his body grows the spinning wheel Made up of wheels, the new, mechanic birth, No longer bound by toil To the unsparing soil Or the old furrow-line, The great, metallic beast Expanding West and East, His heart a spinning coil, His juices burning oil, His body serpentine. Out of John Brown’s strong sinews the tall skyscrapers grow, Out of his heart the chanting buildings rise, Rivet and girder, motor and dynamo, Pillar of smoke by day and fire by night, The steel-faced cities reaching at the skies, The whole enormous and rotating cage Hung with hard jewels of electric light, Smoky with sorrow, black with splendor, dyed Whiter than damask for a crystal bride With metal suns, the engine-handed Age, The genie we have raised to rule the earth, Obsequious to our will But servant-master still, The tireless serf already half a god—

Touch the familiar sod Once, then gaze at the air And see the portent there, With eyes for once washed clear Of worship and of fear: There is its hunger, there its living thirst, There is the beating of the tremendous heart You cannot read for omens. Stand apart From the loud crowd and look upon the flame Alone and steadfast, without praise or blame. This is the monster and the sleeping queen And both have roots struck deep in your own mind, This is reality that you have seen, This is reality that made you blind.

So, when the crowd gives tongue And prophets, old or young, Bawl out their strange despair Or fall in worship there, Let them applaud the image or condemn But keep your distance and your soul from them, And, if the heart within your breast must burst Like a cracked crucible and pour its steel White-hot before the white heat of the wheel, Strive to recast once more That attar of the ore In the strong mold of pain Till it is whole again, And while the prophets shudder or adore Before the flame, hoping it will give ear, If you at last must have a word to say, Say neither, in their way, “It is a deadly magic and accursed,” Nor “It is blest,” but only “It is here.”