Said the chief of the marriage feast to the groom,
Whence is this blood of the vine?
Men serve at first the best, he said,
And at the last, poor wine.
Said the chief of the marriage feast to the groom,
When the guests have drunk their fill
They drink whatever wine you serve,
Nor know the good from the ill.
How have you kept the good till now
When our hearts nor care nor see?
Said the chief of the marriage feast to the groom,
Whence may this good wine be?
Said the chief of the marriage feast, this wine
Is the best of all by far.
Said the groom, there stand six jars without
And the wine fills up each jar.
Said the chief of the marriage feast, we lacked
Wine for the wedding feast.
How comes it now one jar of wine
To six jars is increased?
Who makes our cup to overflow?
And who has the wedding blest?
Said the groom to the chief of the feast, a stranger
Is here as a wedding guest.
Said the groom to the chief of the wedding feast,
Moses by power divine
Smote water at Meribah from the rock,
But this man makes us wine.
Said the groom to the chief of the wedding feast,
Elisha by power divine
Made oil for the widow to sell for bread,
But this man, wedding wine.
He changed the use of the jars, he said,
From an outward rite and sign:
Where water stood for the washing of feet,
For heart's delight there's wine.
So then 'tis he, said the chief of the feast,
Who the wedding feast has blest?
Said the groom to the chief of the feast, the stranger
Is the merriest wedding guest.
He laughs and jests with the wedding guests,
He drinks with the happy bride.
Said the chief of the wedding feast to the groom,
Go bring him to my side.
Jesus of Nazareth came up,
And his body was fair and slim.
Jesus of Nazareth came up,
And his mother came with him.
Jesus of Nazareth stands with the dancers
And his mother by him stands.
The bride kneels down to Jesus of Nazareth
And kisses his rosy hands.
The bridegroom kneels to Jesus of Nazareth
And Jesus blesses the twain.
I go a way, said Jesus of Nazareth,
Of darkness, sorrow and pain.
After the wedding feast is labor,
Suffering, sickness, death,
And so I make you wine for the wedding,
Said Jesus of Nazareth.
My heart is with you, said Jesus of Nazareth,
As the grape is one with the vine.
Your bliss is mine, said Jesus of Nazareth,
And so I make you wine.
Youth and love I bless, said Jesus,
Song and the cup that cheers.
The rosy hands of Jesus of Nazareth
Are wet with the young bride's tears.
Love one another, said Jesus of Nazareth,
Ere cometh the evil of years.
The rosy hands of Jesus of Nazareth
Are wet with the bridegroom's tears.
Jesus of Nazareth goes with his mother,
The dancers are dancing again.
There's a woman who pauses without to listen,
'Tis Mary Magdalen.
Forth to the street a Scribe from the wedding
Goes with a Sadducee.
Said the Scribe, this shows how loose a fellow
Can come out of Galilee!
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON
By the waters of Babylon by the sea,
On the sand where the waters died,
The sea wind and the tide
Drowned the words you spoke to me.
The sea fell at our feet. The sand
Hushed the whispering waters, near
The babble of boats by the pier
Was the ictus to the roar on the strand.
By the waters of Babylon a grief to be,
The waiting ships in the bay,
Awed the words we would say
Against the sound of the sea:
For France was below the waters, and the west
Behind me where the rains
Come in November on the window panes,
And the blast shakes the ruined nest
Under the dripping eaves. What then remains
But memory of the waters of Babylon,
And the ships like swan after swan,
Under the drone of angry hydroplanes?
By the waters of Babylon we did not weep,
Though love comes and is gone,
As the wind is, as waters drawn
In spray from the deep.
Neither for things foreseen and ominous,
For newer hands that somewhere wait
To thrill afresh, the reblossomed fate
Did we surrender dolorous....
Change now is yours beyond the waters, nights
Of waiting and of doubt have dimmed desire.
Our hands are calm before the dying fire
Of lost delights.
Babylon by the sea knows us no more.
Between the surge's hushes
When on the sand the water rushes
There is no voice of ours upon the shore.
THE DREAM OF TASSO
O Earth that walls these prison bars—O Stones
Which shut my body in—could I be free
If these fell and the grated door which groans
For every back scourged hither oped for me?
Freedom were what to travel you, O Earth,
When my heart makes its daily agony?
And longing such as mine cannot ungirth
Its bands and its mortality o'erleap.
Our life is love unsatisfied from birth,
Our life is longing waking or asleep,
And mine has been a vigil of quick pain.
O Leonora, thus it is I keep
Grief in my heart and weariness of brain.
How did I know these chains and bars are wrought
Of frailer stuff than space, that I could gain
In earth no respite, but a vision brought
The truth, O Leonora? It was this:
I dreamed this hopeless love, so long distraught
Was never caged, but from the first was bliss,
And moved like music from the meeting hour
To the rapt moment of the earliest kiss
Bestowed upon your hands, to gathering flower
Of lips so purely yielded, the embrace
Tender as dawn in April when a shower
Quenches with gentleness each flowering place;
So were your tears of gladness—so my hands
Which stroked your golden hair, your sunny face,
Even as flying clouds o'er mountain lands
Caress with fleeting love the morning sun.
Now I was with you, and by your commands.
Your love was mine at last completely won,
And waited but the blossom. How you sang,
Laughed, ran about your palace rooms and none
Closed doors against me, desks and closets sprang
To my touch open, all your secrets lay
Revealed to me in gladness—and this pang
Which I had borne in bitterness day by day
Was gone, nor could I bring it back, or think
How it had been, or why—this heart so gay
In sudden sunshine could no longer link
Itself with what it was.
Look! Every room
Had blooms your hands had gathered white and pink,
And drained from precious vases their perfume.
And fruits were heaped for me in golden bowls,
And tapestries from many an Asian loom
Were hung for me, and our united souls
Shone over treasure books—how glad you were
To listen to my epic, from the scrolls
Of Jerusalem, the holy sepulcher.
Still as a shaft of light you sat and heard
With veilèd eyes which tears could scarcely blur,
But flowed upon your cheek with every word.
And your hand reached for mine—you did not speak,
But let your silence tell how you were stirred
By love for me and wonder! What to seek
In earth and heaven more? Heaven at last
Was mine on earth, and for a sacred week
This heaven all of heaven.
So it passed
This week with you—you served me ancient wine.
We sat across a table where you cast
A cloth of chikku, or we went to dine
There in the stately room of heavy plate.
Or tiring of the rooms, the day's decline
Beheld us by the river to await
The evening planet, where in elfin mood
You whistled like the robin to its mate,
And won its answering call. Then through the wood
We wandered back in silence hand in hand,
And reached the sacred portal with our blood
Running so swift no ripples stirred the sand
To figures of reflection.
Once again
Within your room of books, upon the stand
The reading lights are brought to us, and then
You read to me from Plato, and my heart
Breathes like a bird at rest; the world of men,
Strife, hate, are all forgotten in this art
Of life made perfect. Or when weariness
Comes over us, you dim the lamp and start
The blue light back of Dante's bust to bless
Our twilight with its beauty.
So the time
Passes too quickly—our poor souls possess
Beauty and love a moment—and our rhyme
Which captures it, creates the illusion love
Has permanence, when even at its prime
Decay has taken it from the light above,
Or darkness underneath.
I must recur
To our first sleep and all the bliss thereof.
How did you first come to me, how confer
On me your beauty? That first night it was
The blue light back of Dante, but a blur
Of golden light our spirits, when you pass
Your hand across my brow, our souls go out
To meet each other, leave as wilted grass
Our emptied bodies. Then we grow devout,
And kneel and pray together for the gift
Of love from heaven, and to banish doubt
Of change or faithlessness. Then with a swift
Arising from the prayer you disappear.
I sleep meanwhile, you come again and lift
My head against your bosom, bringing near
A purple robe for me, and say, "Wear this,
And to your chamber go." And thus I hear,
And leave you; on my couch, where calm for bliss
I wait for you and listen, hear your feet
Whisper their secret to the tapestries
Of your ecstatic coming—O my sweet!
I touched your silken gown, where underneath
Your glowing flesh was dreaming, made complete
My rapture by upgathering, quick of breath,
Your golden ringlets loosened—and at last
Hold you in love's embrace—would it were Death!...
For soon 'twixt love and sleep the night was past,
And dawn cob-webbed the chamber. Then I heard
One faintest note and all was still—the vast
Spherule of heaven was pecked at by a bird
As it were to break the sky's shell, let the light
Of morning flood the fragments scattered, stirred
By breezes of the dawn with passing night.
We woke together, heard together, thrilled
With speechless rapture! Were your spirit's plight
As mine is with this vision, had I willed
To torture you with absence? Would I save
Your spirit if its anguish could be stilled
Only among the worms that haunt the grave?
My dream goes on a little: Day by day,
These seven days we lived together, gave
Our spirits to each other. With dismay
You watched my hour's departure. On you crept
Light shadows after moments sunny, gay.
But when the hour was come, you sat and wept,
And said to me: "I hear the rattling clods
Upon the coffin of our love." You stepped
And stood beside the casement, said "A god's
Sarcophagus this room will be as soon
As you have gone, and mine shall be the rod's
Bitterness of memory both night and noon
Amid the silence of this palace." So
I spoke and said, "If you would have the boon—
O Leonora, do I live to know
This hope too passionate made consummate?—
Yet if it be I shall return, nor go
But to return to you, and make our fate
Bound fast for life." How happy was your smile,
Your laughter soon,—and then from door to gate
I passed and left you, to be gone awhile
Around Ferrara.
In three days, it seemed,
I came again, and as I walked each mile
Counting to self—my feet lagged as I dreamed—
And said ten miles, nine miles, eight miles, at last
One mile, so many furlongs, then I dreamed
Your reading lamps were lighted for me, cast
Their yellow beams upon the mid-night air.
But oh my heart which stopped and stood aghast
To see the lamp go out and note the glare
Of blue light set behind the Dante mask!
Who wore my robe of purple false and fair?
Who drank your precious vintage from the flask
Roman and golden whence I drank so late?
Who held you in his arms and thus could ask?
Receive your love? Mother of God! What fate
Was mine beneath the darkness of that sky,
There at your door who could not leave or wait,
And heard the bird of midnight's desolate cry?
And saw at last the blue light quenched, and saw
A taper lighted in my chamber—why
This treachery, Leonora? Why withdraw
The love you gave, or eviler, lead me here,
O sorceress, before whom heaven's law
Breaks and is impotent—whose eyes no tear
Of penitence shall know, whose spirit fares
Free, without consequence, as a child could sear
Its fellow's hands with flame, or unawares,
Or with premeditation, and then laugh and turn
Upon its play. For you, light heart, no snares
Or traps of conscience wait, who thus could spurn
A love invited.
Thus about your lawn
I listened till the stars had ceased to burn,
But when I saw the imminence of the dawn
And heard our bird cry, I could stand no more,
My heart broke and I fled and wandered on
Down through the valley by the river's shore.
For when the bird cried, did you wake with him?
Did you two gaze as we had gazed before
Upon that blissful morning? I was dim
Of thought and spirit, by the river lay
Watching the swallows over the water skim,
And plucking leaves from weeds to turn or stay
The madness of my life's futility,
Grown blank as that terrific dawn—till day
Flooded upon me, noon came, what should be?
Where should I go? What prison chains could rest
So heavily on the spirit, as that free,
But vast and ruined world?
O arrowed breast
Of me, your Tasso! And you came and drew
The arrows out which kept the blood repressed,
And let my wounds the freer bleed: 'Twas you
By afternoon who walked upon an arm
More lordly than mine is. You stopped nor knew,
I saw him take your body lithe and warm
Close to his breast, yes, even where we had stood
Upon our day, embraced—feed on the charm
Of widened eyes and swiftly coursing blood.
I watched you walk away and disappear
In the deep verdure of the river wood,
Too faint to rise and fly, crushed by the fear
Of madness, sudden death!
This was my dream,
From which I woke and saw again the sheer
Walls of my prison, which no longer seem
The agony they did, even though the cell
Is the hard penalty and the cursed extreme
Hate in return for love. But oh you hell,
You boundless earth to wander in and brood—
Great prison house of grief in which to dwell,
Remembering love forgotten, pride subdued,
And love desired and found and lost again.
That is the prison which no fortitude
Can suffer, and the never dying pain
From which the spacious luring of the earth
Tempts flight for spirit freedom, but in vain!
Ah Leonora! Even from our birth
We build our prisons! What are walls like these
Beside the walls of memory, or the dearth
Of hope in all this life, the agonies
Of spiritual chains and gloom? I suffer less,
Imprisoned thus, than if the memories
Of love bestowed and love betrayed should press
Round my unresting steps. And I send up
To heaven thanks that spared that bitterness,
That garden of the soul's reluctant cup!
THE CHRISTIAN STATESMAN
He hears his father pray when he's a boy:
"Jesus we know, the Savior, and we ask,
In Thy great plenitude of mercy, grace,
Forgiveness for our waywardness; we invoke
Thy blessing, and may righteousness and peace
Prevail in all the earth. Meekly we rest
Upon the precious promise of Thy word.
Gather us home with Thine own people, Lord,
And all the glory shall be Thine."
So much
To show the father's prayer which he heard.
The father is a saint, a quietist,
Save that he has his hatreds, strong enough:
Turns face of stone and silence to the men
Whose ways of life are laid in sin, he thinks
And calls them dirty dogs and scalawags,
Because they vote a ticket he dislikes,
Or love a game of cards, a glass of beer,
Or go to see the County Fair, where once
A drunken bus-man drives upon a boy
And kills him. Then the saint is all aflame,
And tries to have the fair put out for good.
And so the son, who will become at last
The Christian Statesman, hears his father pray,
And prays himself, and takes the lesson in
Of godliness, the Bible as the source
Of truth infallible, divine.
This boy
Is blessed with health, a body without flaw,
His forehead is a little low, perhaps,
And has a transverse dent which keeps the brain
Shaped to the skull; a perfect brain is sphered,
As perfect things are circles; but a brain
Something below perfection, which is fed
By a great body and an obdurate will,
And sense of moral purpose will go far,
Farther than better brains in craft of states,
For some years anyway, if a voice be given
Which reaches to the largest crowded room,
To speak the passionate moralities
Which come into that brain creased straight across
The forehead with a dent.
He goes to school,
And from the first believes he has a mission
To make the world a better place, avows
His mission in the world, bends all his strength
To make his armor ready: health of body,
A blameless life, hard studies, practices
With word and voice.
It is a country college
Where he matriculates—the father wished it;
A college where the boys are mostly poor,
And waste no time, have not the cash to buy
Delight, if they desired.
He ruminates
Upon the pebbles and Demosthenes,
And sets his will to be an orator
That he may herald truth and save the world.
After much toil, re-writing, he delivers
A speech he calls, "Ich Dien," and loses out
Against a youth who speaks on Liberty.
And then he uses Gladstone for his theme,
The Christian Statesman; for exordium
Tells of the ermine which will die before
It suffers soilure—that was Gladstone—yes!
But still he cannot win the prize; a boy
Who talks about the labors of Charles Darwin,
His suffering and sacrifice, is awarded
The prize this time—a boy who had the wit
To speak in praise of Darwin's virtues—saying
Nothing about his hellish doctrines, thus
Winning the cautious judges to his theme.
But is our little Gladstone crushed, dismayed?
He plucks up further strength and takes a hint:
A larger subject may bring down the prize.
He thinks of Thomas Jefferson—but then
Jefferson was a deist, took the Bible
And cut out everything but Jesus' words.
"Yet I can speak on what was good in him,
His work for liberty, the Declaration,
And close my eyes to all his heterodoxy."
Then something of this plan crept like a snake
Into his brain, he petted it with hands:
Be ye as wise as serpents, and as doves
Harmless, he smiled—and went to work again,
And won the prize.
And now he has stepped forth
Into the world's arena to become
A Savior, an evangel, as he thinks,
In truth a pest. He runs for Congress first
And when his manager takes out a check
And shows him, given by the local brewery,
Another check a bank gives, he maintains
A smiling silence, thinking to himself,
Jesus accepted gifts from publicans,
And if I am elected then this money,
However dirty, will be purified
By what I do.
But then he was defeated.
He thinks the banks and breweries did the trick.
In truth they knew the Christian Statesman, knew
The oleaginous smile and silver voice
Concealed the despot. Did he scourge them then?
Well, scarcely then—he wrote a public letter
And said the people had decided it.
And what the people said was law. He nerved
His purpose for another trial—that body
So big and flawless could not be exhausted—
That voice still carried to the farthest corner,
That oily smile deceived the multitude
That he was hurt, embittered, only waited
To see if body, voice and oily smile
Could win by any means; if not, the scourge
Would be brought forth, the smile dropped, the complaints
Against the breweries, what not, opened up,
Unmasked. For when your hope is gone, you're free
To scold and tell your bitterness.
And then
He made a third and last attempt, though edging
Toward the sophistry that moral questions
Make those political, and by this means
Trying to win the churches. Still he stuck
To matters economic, as before
Took what the breweries gave to help his cause,
His campaign fund. By this time many more
Had found him out, and knew him for a voice
And tireless body nourishing a brain
As mediocre as the world contained,
And only making louder noise because
Of body strong and voice mellifluous.
They put him down for good: the Christian Statesman
Had cause to think he was no statesman, or
No Christian, or the electorate not Christian.
And so he took the mask off, dropped the smile,
And let his mouth set like a concrete crack
And went about to punish men, while seeming
To save the world.
Out of that indentation,
That fosse of mediocrity, came up
A crocodile with wagging tail upreared,
And smile toothed to the gullet—it was this:
Questions political are moral questions,
And moral questions are political,
And terms convertible are equipollent,
And wholly true. Therefore, I rise to preach
To moral America, draw audiences
In churches, of the churches. If I win
Majorities upon—no matter what—
A law will blossom; as all moral questions
Are equally political, procure
For their adoption the majority.
Upon this fortress I can stand and shoot—
Who can attack me, since I seek for self
Nothing, but for my country righteousness?
And as an instrument of God I punish
My enemies as well.
Who are my enemies?
The intelligencia, as they call themselves,
Who flaunt the Bible wholly or in part,
Or try to say that Darwin's evolution
Honors the Deity more than Genesis.
Who are my enemies? The thinkers, yes,
The strivers for a higher culture, yes,
The scorners of old fashioned ways, the things
Really American!—I know the crowd—
That smart minority I overwhelm,
Blot out, drown out, by massing under me
The great majority, the common folk,
Believers in the Bible—first for them!
And on the way the vile saloon I crush,
The abominable brewery—then I take away
From banqueters and diners, diners out,
The seekers after happiness, not God,
The cocktail and the wine they love so well.
This is a moral question, being so
Is also a political—the majority
Can do what they desire. I am consistent,
For from the first I've preached the people's rule,
Abided by the people's voice and taken
Defeat with grace because the people gave it.
So now I say the people have the right
To pass upon all questions. As I said
When starting as a public man, the people
Could have what Government they desired, in fact
A King, or despotism, if they voted for it.
For all this talk of rights, or realms of right,
Or individual preferences, beliefs
And courses in the world is swallowed up
By right of the majority—the serpent
Of Moses, so to speak, which swallowed up
All other serpents.
If he thought so much
The Christian Statesman thought this way—at least
He acted out a part which seemed to say
He analyzed so far. He went to work
To make his country just a despotism
Not governed by a King, but by the people
Laying the hand of law on everything
Most intimate and private, having thought
For moral aspects, as all politics
Are moral in their essence, to repeat.
Did not the Christian Statesman have revenge
In building his theocracy, who saw
All bills of right and fruit of revolution
Ground into mortar, made into a throne
For Demos?
And behold King Demos now!
A slouch hat for a crown upon his brow,
Stuffed full of bacon and of apple pie,
The Christian Statesman leaning on his shoulder
A tableau of familiarity.
The Christian Statesman having lost his hair
Betrays the Midas ears—the oily smile
Beams on the republic he has overthrown!
THE LAMENT OF SOPHONIA
You who have wasted this June for me,
Bitter be the seed of your love.
Long midnights by the sea
Have I waited for your return,
Counting the stars—
Bitter be the seed of your love.
And as stars go out in the crocus light of dawn,
As waters drip from a failing fountain,
So passed these days of June.
As a boy strips from a stalk of snap-dragons
The perfect blossoms,
And treads them into the earth,
So you have taken the June days from me—
Bitter be the seed of your love.
On my couch by the sea,
My golden curls loosened,
Resting after the cool ablution of evening waters,
My body white as whitecaps, under the moon,
My eyes large as the fox's lurking in darkness,
I have waited for your return.
May the scourge of Asia mar your beautiful body,
Beloved!
You have wasted my loveliest June.
As the unheeding wind
Drives the falling cherry blossoms
Into the purple waves,
So you have scattered my days of June—
Bitter be the seed of your love!
I have distilled henbane for you,
Beloved,
And put it in a crystal vial.
The moon of October will shine,
Then you will come to me,
Your wanderings and treasons finished!
And when you slip exhausted from my arms
I will give you wine from a golden cup,
And pour the henbane in it—
I shall give you henbane for the poison of defeated love;
I shall kiss your dead lips, Beloved.
Then I shall drink, too.
Our bodies shall feed the worms
As these June days have fed my writhing sorrow,
Beloved murderer of my June!
AT DECAPOLIS
Mark, Chap. V
I
THE ACCUSATION
I am a farmer and live
Two miles from Decapolis.
Where is the magistrate? Tell me
Where the magistrate is!
Here I had made provision
For children and wife,
And now I have lost my all;
I am ruined for life.
I, a believer, too,
In the synagogues.—
What is the faith to me?
I have lost my hogs.
Two thousand hogs as fine
As ever you saw,
Drowned and choked in the sea—
I want the law!
They were feeding upon a hill
When a strolling teacher
Came by and scared my hogs—
They say he's a preacher,
And cures the possessed who haunt
The tombs and bogs.
All right; but why send devils
Into my hogs?
They squealed and grunted and ran
And plunged in the sea.
And the lunatic laughed who was healed,
Of the devils free.
Devils or fright, no matter
A fig or straw.
Where is the magistrate, tell me—
I want the law!