Iii

As I built cob-houses with small cousins on the floor: (The talk was not meant for me). Daguerreotypes shone. The back log sizzled And my grandmother traced the family tree. Then she swept to the proverbs of Campbell again. And we glanced at the portrait of that most benign of men Looking down through the evening gleam With a bit of Andrew Jackson’s air, More of Henry Clay And the statesmen of Thomas Jefferson’s day: With the face of age, And the flush of youth, And that air of going on, forever free.

For once upon a time ... Long, long ago ... In the holy forest land There was a jolly pre-millennial band, When that text-armed apostle, Alexander Campbell Held deathless debate with the wicked “infi-del.” The clearing was a picnic ground. Squirrels were barking. The seventeen year locust charged by. Wild turkeys perched on high. And millions of wild pigeons Broke the limbs of trees, Then shut out the sun, as they swept on their way. But ah, the wilder dove of God flew down To bring a secret glory, and to stay, With the proud hunter-trappers, patriarchs that came To break bread together and to pray And oh the music of each living throbbing thing When Campbell arose, A pillar of fire, The great high priest of the Spring.

He stepped from out the Brush Run Meeting House To make the big woods his cathedrals, The river his baptismal font, The rolling clouds his bells, The storming skies his waterfalls, His pastures and his wells. Despite all sternness in his word Richer grew the rushing blood Within our fathers’ coldest thought. Imagination at the flood Made flowery all they heard. The deep communion cup Of the whole South lifted up.

Who were the witnesses, the great cloud of witnesses With which he was compassed around? The heroes of faith from the days of Abraham Stood on that blue-grass ground-- While the battle-ax of thought Hewed to the bone That the utmost generation Till the world was set right Might have an America their own. For religion Dionysian Was far from Campbell’s doctrine. He preached with faultless logic An American Millennium: The social order Of a realist and farmer With every neighbor Within stone wall and border. And the tongues of flame came down Almost in spite of him. And now all but that Pentecost is dim.