Toward the Gulf

     I

     When the sea has devoured the ships,
     And the spires and the towers
     Have gone back to the hills.
     And all the cities
     Are one with the plains again.
     And the beauty of bronze,
     And the strength of steel
     Are blown over silent continents,
     As the desert sand is blown—
     My dust with yours forever.

     II

     When folly and wisdom are no more,
     And fire is no more,
     Because man is no more;
     When the dead world slowly spinning
     Drifts and falls through the void—
     My light with yours
     In the Light of Lights forever!

     Amid the din of cars and automobiles,
     At the corner of a towering pile of granite,
     Under the city's soaring brick and stone,
     Where multitudes go hurrying by, you stand
     With eyeless sockets playing on a flute.
     And an old woman holds the cup for you,
     Wherein a curious passer by at times
     Casts a poor coin.

     You are so blind you cannot see us men
     As walking trees!
     I fancy from the tune
     You play upon the flute, you have a vision
     Of leafy trees along a country road-side,
     Where wheat is growing and the meadow-larks
     Rise singing in the sun-shine!
     In your darkness
     You may see such things playing on your flute
     Here in the granite ways of mad Chicago!

     And here's another on a farther corner,
     With head thrown back as if he searched the skies,
     He's selling evening papers, what's to him
     The flaring headlines? Yet he calls the news.
     That is his flute, perhaps, for one can call,
     Or play the flute in blindness.

     Yet I think
     It's neither news nor music with these blind ones—
     Rather the hope of re-created eyes,
     And a light out of death!
     "How can it be," I hear them over and over,
     "There never shall be eyes for me again?"

     —His Own Words
     IN MEMORY OF KIFFIN ROCKWELL

     Eagle, whose fearless
     Flight in vast spaces
     Clove the inane,
     While we stood tearless,
     White with rapt faces
     In wonder and pain. ...

     Heights could not awe you,
     Depths could not stay you.
     Anguished we saw you,
     Saw Death way-lay you
     Where the storm flings
     Black clouds to thicken
     Round France's defender!
     Archangel stricken
     From ramparts of splendor—
     Shattered your wings! ...

     But Lafayette called you,
     Rochambeau beckoned.
     Duty enthralled you.
     For France you had reckoned
     Her gift and your debt.
     Dull hearts could harden
     Half-gods could palter.
     For you never pardon
     If Liberty's altar
     You chanced to forget. ...

     Stricken archangel!
     Ramparts of splendor
     Keep you, evangel
     Of souls who surrender
     No banner unfurled
     For ties ever living,
     Where Freedom has bound them.
     Praise and thanksgiving
     For love which has crowned them—
     Love frees the world! ...

     Who is that calling through the night,
     A wail that dies when the wind roars?
     We heard it first on Shipley's Hill,
     It faded out at Comingoer's.

     Along five miles of wintry road
     A horseman galloped with a cry,
     "'Twas two o'clock," said Herman Pointer,
     "When I heard clattering hoofs go by."

     "I flung the winder up to listen;
     I heerd him there on Gordon's Ridge;
     I heerd the loose boards bump and rattle
     When he went over Houghton's Bridge."

     Said Roger Ragsdale: "I was doctorin'
     A heifer in the barn, and then
     My boy says: 'Pap, that's Billy Paris.'
     'There,' says my boy, it is again."

     "Says I: 'That kain't be Billy Paris,
     We seed 'im at the Christmas tree.
     It's two o'clock,' says I, 'and Billy
     I seed go home with Emily.'

     "'He is too old for galavantin'
     Upon a night like this,' says I.
     'Well, pap,' says he, 'I know that frosty,
     Good-natured huskiness in that cry.'

     "'It kain't be Billy,' says I, swabbin'
     The heifer's tongue and mouth with brine,
     'I never thought—it makes me shiver,
     And goose-flesh up and down the spine.'"

     Said Doggie Traylor: "When I heard it
     I 'lowed 'twas Pin Hook's rowdy new 'uns.
     Them Cashner boys was at the schoolhouse
     Drinkin' there at the Christmas doin's."

     Said Pete McCue: "I lit a candle
     And held it up to the winder pane.
     But when I heerd again the holler
     'Twere half-way down the Bowman Lane."

     Said Andy Ensley: "First I knowed
     I thought he'd thump the door away.
     I hopped from bed, and says, 'Who is it?'
     'O, Emily,' I heard him say.

     "And there stood Billy Paris tremblin',
     His face so white, he looked so queer.
     'O Andy'—and his voice went broken.
     'Come in,' says I, 'and have a cheer.'

     "'Sit by the fire,' I kicked the logs up,
     'What brings you here?—I would be told.'
     Says he. 'My hand just ... happened near hers,
     It teched her hand ... and it war cold.

     "'We got back from the Christmas doin's
     And went to bed, and she was sayin',
     (The clock struck ten) if it keeps snowin'
     To-morrow there'll be splendid sleighin'.'

     "'My hand teched hers, the clock struck two,
     And then I thought I heerd her moan.
     It war the wind, I guess, for Emily
     War lyin' dead. ... She's thar alone.'

     "I left him then to call my woman
     To tell her that her mother died.
     When we come back his voice was steady,
     The big tears in his eyes was dried.

     "He just sot there and quiet like
     Talked 'bout the fishin' times they had,
     And said for her to die on Christmas
     Was somethin' 'bout it made him glad.

     "He grew so cam he almost skeered us.
     Says he: 'It's a fine Christmas over there.'
     Says he: 'She was the lovingest woman
     That ever walked this Vale of Care.'

     "Says he: 'She allus laughed and sang,
     I never heerd her once complain.'
     Says he: "It's not so bad a Christmas
     When she can go and have no pain.'

     "Says he: 'The Christmas's good for her.'
     Says he: ... 'Not very good for me.'
     He hid his face then in his muffler
     And sobbed and sobbed, 'O Emily.'"

     I

     What will happen, Widow La Rue?
     For last night at three o'clock
     You woke and saw by your window again
     Amid the shadowy locust grove
     The phantom of the old soldier:
     A shadow of blue, like mercury light—
     What will happen, Widow La Rue?

     What may not happen
     In this place of summer loneliness?
     For neither the sunlight of July,
     Nor the blue of the lake,
     Nor the green boundaries of cool woodlands,
     Nor the song of larks and thrushes,
     Nor the bravuras of bobolinks,
     Nor scents of hay new mown,
     Nor the ox-blood sumach cones,
     Nor the snow of nodding yarrow,
     Nor clover blossoms on the dizzy crest
     Of the bluff by the lake
     Can take away the loneliness
     Of this July by the lake!

     Last night you saw the old soldier
     By your window, Widow La Rue!
     Or was it your husband you saw,
     As he lay by the gate so long ago?
     With the iris of his eyes so black,
     And the white of his eyes so china-blue,
     And specks of blood on his face,
     Like a wall specked by a shake a brush;
     And something like blubber or pinkish wax,
     Hiding the gash in his throat——
     The serum and blood blown up by the breath
     From emptied lungs.

     II

     So Widow La Rue has gone to a friend
     For the afternoon and the night,
     Where the phantom will not come,
     Where the phantom may be forgotten.
     And scarcely has she turned the road,
     Round the water-mill by the creek,
     When the telephone rings and daughter Flora
     Springs up from a drowsy chair
     And the ennui of a book,
     And runs to answer the call.
     And her heart gives a bound,
     And her heart stops still,
     As she hears the voice, and a faintness courses
     Quick as poison through all her frame.
     And something like bees swarming in her breast
     Comes to her throat in a surge of fear,
     Rapture, passion, for what is the voice
     But the voice of her lover?
     And just because she is here alone
     In this desolate summer-house by the lake;
     And just because this man is forbidden
     To cross her way, for a taint in his blood
     Of drink, from a father who died of drink;
     And just because he is in her thought
     By night and day,
     The voice of him heats her through like fire.
     She sways from dizziness,
     The telephone falls from her shaking hand. ...
     He is in the village, is walking out,
     He will be at the door in an hour.

     III

     The sun is half a hand above the lake
     In a sky of lemon-dust down to the purple vastness.
     On the dizzy crest of the bluff the balls of clover
     Bow in the warm wind blowing across a meadow
     Where hay-cocks stand new-piled by the harvesters
     Clear to the forest of pine and beech at the meadow's end.
     A robin on the tip of a poplar's spire
     Sings to the sinking sun and the evening planet.
     Over the olive green of the darkening forest
     A thin moon slits the sky and down the road
     Two lovers walk.

                      It is night when they reappear
     From the forest, walking the hay-field over.
     And the sky is so full of stars it seems
     Like a field of buckwheat. And the lovers look up,
     Then stand entranced under the silence of stars,
     And in the silence of the scented hay-field
     Blurred only by a lisp of the listless water
     A hundred feet below.
     And at last they sit by a cock of hay,
     As warm as the nest of a bird,
     Hand clasped in hand and silent,
     Large-eyed and silent.

     O, daughter Flora!
     Delicious weakness is on you now,
     With your lover's face above you.
     You can scarcely lift your hand,
     Or turn your head
     Pillowed upon the fragrant hay.
     You dare not open your moistened eyes
     For fear of this sky of stars,
     For fear of your lover's eyes.
     The trance of nature has taken you
     Rocked on creation's tide.
     And the kinship you feel for this man,
     Confessed this night—so often confessed
     And wondered at—
     Has coiled its final sorcery about you.
     You do not know what it is,
     Nor care what it is,
     Nor care what fate is to come,—
     The night has you.
     You only move white, fainting hands
     Against his strength, then let them fall.
     Your lips are parted over set teeth;
     A dewy moisture with the aroma of a woman's body
     Maddens your lover,
     And in a swift and terrible moment
     The mystery of love is unveiled to you. ...

     Then your lover sits up with a sigh.
     But you lie there so still with closed eyes.
     So content, scarcely breathing under that ocean of stars.
     A night bird calls, and a vagrant zephyr
     Stirs your uncoiled hair on your bare bosom,
     But you do not move.
     And the sun comes up at last
     Finding you asleep in his arms,
     There by the hay cock.
     And he kisses your tears away,
     And redeems his word of last night,
     For down to the village you go
     And take your vows before the Pastor there,
     And then return to the summer house. ...
     All is well.

     IV

     Widow La Rue has returned
     And is rocking on the porch—
     What is about to happen?
     For last night the phantom of the old soldier
     Appeared to her again—
     It followed her to the house of her friend,
     And appeared again.
     But more than ever was it her husband,
     With the iris of his eyes so black,
     And the white of his eyes so china-blue.
     And while she thinks of it,
     And wonders what is about to happen,
     She hears laughter,
     And looking up, beholds her daughter
     And the forbidden lover.

     And then the daughter and her husband
     Come to the porch and the daughter says
     "We have just been married in the village, mother;
     Will you forgive us?
     This is your son; you must kiss your son."
     And Widow La Rue from her chair arises
     And calmly takes her child in her arms,
     And clasps his hand.
     And after gazing upon him
     Imperturbably as Clytemnestra looked
     Upon returning Agamemnon,
     With a light in her eyes which neither fathomed,
     She kissed him,
     And in a calm voice blessed them.
     Then sent her daughter, singing,
     On an errand back to the village
     To market for dinner, saying:
     "We'll talk over plans, my dear."

     V

     And the young husband
     Rocks on the porch without a thought
     Of the lightning about to strike.
     And like Clytemnestra, Widow La Rue
     Enters the house.
     And while he is rocking, with all his spirit in a rythmic rapture,
     The Widow La Rue takes a seat in the room
     By a window back of the chair where he rocks,
     And drawing the shade
     She speaks:

     "These two nights past I have seen the phantom of the old soldier
     Who haunts the midnights
     Of this summer loneliness.
     And I knew that a doom was at hand. ...
     You have married my daughter, and this is the doom. ...
     O, God in heaven!"
     Then a horror as of a writhing whiteness
     Winds out of the July glare
     And stops the flow of his blood,
     As he hears from the re-echoing room
     The voice of Widow La Rue
     Moving darkly between banks
     Of delirious fear and woe!

     "Be calm till you hear me through. ...
     Do not move, or enter here,
     I am hiding my face from you. ...
     Hear me through, and then fly.
     I warned her against you, but how could I tell her
     Why you were not for her?
     But tell me now, have you come together?
     No? Thank God for that. ...
     For you must not come together. ...
     Now listen while I whisper to you:
     My daughter was born of a lawless love
     For a man I loved before I married,
     And when, for five years, no child came
     I went to this man
     And begged him to give me a child. ...
     Well then ... the child was born, your wife as it seems. ...
     And when my husband saw her,
     And saw the likeness of this man in her face
     He went out of the house, where they found him later
     By the entrance gate
     With the iris of his eyes so black,
     And the white of his eyes so china-blue,
     And specks of blood on his face,
     Like a wall specked by a shake of a brush.
     And something like blubber or pinkish wax
     Hiding the gash in his throat—
     The serum and blood blown up by the breath
     From emptied lungs. Yes, there by the gate, O God!
     Quit rocking your chair! Don't you understand?
     Quit rocking your chair! Go! Go!
     Leap from the bluff to the rocks on the shore!
     Take down the sickle and end yourself!
     You don't care, you say, for all I've told you?
     Well, then, you see, you're older than Flora. ...
     And her father died when she was a baby. ...
     And you were four when your father died. ...
     And her father died on the very day
     That your father died,
     At the verv same moment. ...
     On the very same bed. ...
     Don't you understand?"

     VI

     He ceases to rock. He reels from the porch,
     He runs and stumbles to reach the road.
     He yells and curses and tears his hair.
     He staggers and falls and rises and runs.
     And Widow La Rue
     With the eyes of Clytemnestra
     Stands at the window and watches him
     Running and tearing his hair.

     VII

     She seems so calm when the daughter returns.
     She only says: "He has gone to the meadow,
     He will soon be back. ..."
     But he never came back.

     And the years went on till the daughter's hair
     Was white as her mother's there in the grave.
     She was known as the bride whom the bridegroom left
     And didn't say good-bye.

     I lectured last upon the morbus sacer,
     Or falling sickness, epilepsy, of old
     In Palestine and Greece so much ascribed
     To deities or devils. To resume
     We find it caused by morphological
     Changes of the cortex cells. Sometimes,
     More times, indeed, the anatomical
     Basis, if one be, escapes detection.
     For many functions of the cortex are
     Unknown, as I have said.

                                And now remember
     Mercier's analysis of heredity:
     Besides direct transmission of unstable
     Nervous systems, there remains the law
     Hereditary of sanguinity.
     Then here's another matter: Parents may
     Have normal nervous systems, yet produce
     Children of abnormal nerves and minds,
     Caused by unsuitable sexual germs.
     Let me repeat before I leave the matter
     The factors in a perfect organization:
     First quality in the germ producing matter;
     Then quality in the sperm producing force,
     And lastly relative fitness of the two.
     We are but plants, however high we rise,
     Whatever thoughts we have, or dreams we dream
     We are but plants, and all we are and do
     Depends upon the seed and on the soil.
     What Mendel found in raising peas may lead
     To perfect knowledge of the human mind.
     There is one law for men and peas, the law
     Makes peas of certain matter, and makes men
     And mind of certain matter, all depends
     Not on a varying law, but on a law
     Varied in its course by matter, as
     The arm, which is a lever and which works
     By lever principle cannot make use
     And form cement with trowel to the forms
     It makes of paint or marble.

                                  To resume:
     A child may take the qualities of one parent
     In some respects, and of the other parent
     In some respects. A child may have the traits
     Of father at one period of his life,
     The mother at one period of his life.
     And if the parents' traits are similar
     Their traits may be prepotent in a child,
     Thus giving rise to qualities convergent.
     So if you take a circle and draw off
     A line which would become another circle
     If drawn enough, completed, but is left
     Half drawn or less, that illustrates a mind
     Of cumulative heredity. Take John,
     My gardener, John, within his sphere is perfect,
     John has a mind which is a perfect circle.
     A perfect circle can be small, you know.
     And so John has good sense within his sphere.
     But if some force began to work like yeast
     In brain cells, and his mind shot forth a line
     To make a larger thinking circle, say
     About a great invention, heaven or God,
     Then John would be abnormal, till this line
     Shot round and joined, became a larger circle.
     This is the secret of eccentric genius,
     The man is half a sphere, sticks out in space
     Does not enclose co-ordinated thought.
     He's like a plant mutating, half himself
     Half something new and greater. If we looked
     To John's heredity we'd find this change
     Was manifest in mother or in father
     About the self-same period of life,
     Most likely in his father. Attributes
     Of fathers are inherited by sons,
     Of mothers by the daughters.

                                  Now this morning
     I take up paranoia. Paranoics
     Are often noted for great gifts of mind.
     Mahomet, Swedenborg were paranoics,
     Joan of Arc, and Ossawatomie Brown,
     Cellini, many others. All who think
     Themselves inspired of God, and all who see
     Themselves appointed to a work, the subjects
     Of prophecies are paranoics. All
     Who visions have of God or archangels,
     Hear voices or celestial music, these
     Are paranoics. And whether it be they rise
     Enough above the earth to look along
     A longer arc and see realities,
     Or see strange things through atmospheric strata
     Which build up or distort the things they see
     Remains the question. Let us wait the proof.

     Last week I told you I would have to-day
     The skull and brain of Jacob Groesbell here,
     And lecture on his case. Here is the brain:
     Weight sixteen hundred grammes. Students may look
     After the lecture at the brain and skull.
     There's nothing anatomical at fault
     With this fine brain, so far as I can find.
     You'll note how deep the convolutions are,
     Arrangement quite symmetrical. The skull
     Is well formed too. The jaws are long you'll note,
     The palate roof somewhat asymmetrical.
     But this is scarce significant. Let me tell
     How Jacob Groesbell looked:

                                 The man was tall,
     Had shapely hands and feet, but awkward limbs.
     His hair was brown and fine, his forehead high,
     And ran back at an angle, temples full.
     His nose was long and fleshy at the point,
     Was tilted to one side. His eyes were gray,
     The iris flecked. They looked as if a light
     As of a sun-set shone behind them. Ears
     Were very large, projected at right angles.
     His neck was slender, womanish. His skin
     Of finest texture, white and very smooth.
     His voice was quiet, musical. His manner
     Patient and gentle, modest, reasonable.
     His parents, as I learned through inquiry,
     Were Methodists, devout and greatly loved.
     The mother healthy both in mind and body.
     The father was eccentric, perhaps insane.
     They were first cousins.

                              I knew Jacob Groesbell
     Ten years before he died. I knew him first
     When he was sent to mend my porch. A workman
     With saw and hammer never excelled him. Then
     As time went on I saw him when he came
     At my request to do my carpentry.
     I grew to know him, and by slow degrees
     He told me of his readings in the Bible,
     And gave me his interpretations. At last
     Aged forty-six, had ulcers of the stomach,
     Which took him off. He sent for me, and said
     He wished me to attend him, which I did.
     He told me I could have his body and brain
     To lecture on, dissect, since some had said
     He was insane, he told me, and if so
     I should find something wrong with brain or body.
     And if I found a wrong then all his visions
     Of God and archangels were just the fancies
     That come to madmen. So he made provision
     To give his brain and body for this cause,
     And here's his brain and skull, and I am lecturing
     On Jacob Groesbell as a paranoic.

     As I have said before, in making tests
     And observations of the patient, have
     His conversation taken stenographically,
     In order to preserve his speech exactly,
     And catch the flow if he becomes excited.
     So we determine if he makes new words,
     If he be incoherent, or repeats.
     I took my secretary once to make
     A stenographic record. Strange enough
     He would not talk while she was writing down.
     And when I asked him why, he would not tell.
     So I devised a scheme: I took a satchel,
     And put in it a dictaphone, and when
     A cylinder was full I'd stoop and put
     My hand among my bottles in the satchel,
     As if I was compounding medicine,
     Instead I'd put another cylinder on.
     And thus I got his story in his voice,
     Just as he talked, with nothing lost at all,
     Which you shall hear. For with this megaphone
     The students in the farthest gallery
     Can hear what Jacob Groesbell said to me,
     And weigh the thought that stirred within the brain
     Here in this jar beside me. Listen now
     To Jacob Groesbell's voice:

                                 "Will you repeat
     From the beginning connectedly the story
     Of your religious life, illumination,
     Vhat you have called your soul's escape?"

                                          "I will,
     Since I shall never tell it again."

                                      "I grew up
     Timid and sensitive, not very strong,
     Not understood of father or of mother.
     They did not love me, and I never felt
     A tenderness for them. I used to quote:
     'Who is my mother and who are my brothers?'
     At school I was not liked. I had a chum
     From time to time, that's all. And I remember
     My mother on a day put with my luncheon
     A bottle of milk, and when the noon hour came
     I missed it, found some boys had taken it,
     And when I asked for it, they made the cry:
     'Bottle of milk, bottle of milk,' and I
     Flushed through with shame, and cried, and to this hour
     It hurts me to remember it. Such days,
     All misery! For all my clothes were patched.
     They hooted at me. So I lived alone.
     At twelve years old I had great fears of death,
     And hell, heard devils in my room. One night
     During a thunderstorm heard clanking chains,
     And hid beneath the pillows. One spring day
     As I was walking on the village street
     Close to the church I heard a voice which said
     'Behold, my son'—and falling on my knees
     I prayed in ecstacy—but as I prayed
     Some passing school boys laughed, threw stones at me.
     A heat ran through me, I arose and fled.
     Well, then I joined the church and was baptized.
     But something left me in the ceremony,
     I lost my ecstacy, seemed slipping back
     Into the trap. I took to wandering
     In solitary places, could not bear
     To see a human face. I slept for nights
     In still ravines, or meadows. But one time
     Returning to my home, I found the room
     Filled up with visitors—my heart stopped short,
     And glancing at the faces of my parents
     I hurried, bolted through, and did not speak,
     Entered a bed-room door and closed it. So
     I tell this just to illustrate my shyness,
     Which cursed my youth and made me miserable,
     Something I fought but could not overcome.
     And pondering on the Scriptures I could see
     How I resembled the saints, our Saviour even,
     How even as my brothers called me mad
     They called our Saviour so.

                                "At fourteen years
     My father taught me carpentry, his trade,
     And made me work with him. I seemed to be
     The butt for jokes and laughter with the men—
     I know not why. For now and then they'd drop
     A word that showed they knew my secrets, knew
     I had heard voices, knew I loathed the lusts
     Of women, drink. Oh these were sorry years,
     God was not with me though I sought Him ever
     And I was persecuted for His sake. My brain
     Seemed like to burst at times, saw sparkling lights,
     Heard music, voices, made strange shapes of leaves,
     Clouds, trunks of trees,—illusions of the devil.
     I was turned twenty years when on an evening
     Calm, beautiful in June, after a day
     Of healthful toil, while sitting on the porch,
     The sun just sinking, at my left I heard
     A voice of hollow clearness: "You are Christ."
     My eyes grew blind with tears for the evil
     Of such a thought, soul stained with such a thought,
     So devil stained, soul damned with blasphemy.
     I ran into my room and seized a pistol
     To end my life. God willed it otherwise.
     I fainted and awoke upon the floor
     After some hours. To heap my suffering full
     A few days after this while in the village
     I went into a store. The friendly clerk—
     I knew him always—said 'What will you have?
     I wait first always on the little boys.'
     I laughed and went my way. But in an hour
     His saying rankled, I began to brood
     On ways of vengeance, till it seemed at last
     His life must pay. O, soul so full of sin,
     So devil tangled, tortured—which not prayer
     Nor watching could deliver. So I thought
     To save my soul from murder I must fly—
     I felt an urging as one does in sleep
     Pursued by giant things to fly, to fly
     From terror, death, from blankness on the scene,
     From emptiness, from beauty gone. The world
     Seemed something seen in fever, where the steps
     Of men are muffled, and a futile scheme
     Impels all steps. So packing up my kit,
     My Bible in my pocket, secretly
     I disappeared. Next day took up my life
     In Barrington, a village thirty miles
     From all I knew, besides a lovely lake,
     Reached by a road that crossed a bridge
     Over a little bay, the bridge's ends
     Clustered with boats for fishermen. And here
     Night after night I fished, or stood and watched
     The star-light on the water.

                                  I grew calmer
     Almost found peace, got work to do, and lived
     Under a widow's roof, who was devout
     And knew my love for God. Now listen, doctor,
     To every word: I was now twenty-five,
     In perfect health, no longer persecuted,
     At peace with all the world, if not my soul
     Had wholly found its peace, for truth to tell
     It had an ache which sometimes I could feel,
     And yet I had this soul awakening.
     I know I have been counted mad, so watch
     Each detail here and judge.

                                 At four o'clock
     The thirtieth day of June, my work being done,
     My kit upon my back I walked this road
     Toward the village. 'Twas an afternoon
     Of clouds, no rain, a little breeze, the tinkle
     Of cow bells in the air, a heavenly silence
     Pervading nature. Reaching the hill's foot
     I sat down by a tree to rest, enjoy
     The greenness of the forests, meadows, flats
     Along the bay, the blueness of the lake,
     The ripple of the water at my feet,
     The rythmic babble of the little boats
     Tied to the bridge. And as I sat there musing,
     Myself lost in the self, in time the clouds
     Lifted, blew off, to let the sun go down
     Over the waters gloriously to rest.
     So as I stared upon the sun on the water,
     Some minutes, though I know not for how long,
     Out of the splendor of the shining sun
     Upon the water, Jesus of Nazareth
     Clothed all in white, the nimbus round his brow,
     His face all wisdom, love, rose to my view,
     And then he spake: 'Jacob, my son, arise
     And come with me.'

                        "And in an instant there
     Something fell from me, I became a cloud,
     A soul with wings. A glory burned about me.
     And in that glory I perceived all things:
     I saw the eternal wheels, the deepest secrets
     Of creatures, herbs and grass, and stars and suns
     And I knew God, and knew all things as God:
     The All loving, the Perfect One, the Perfect Wisdom,
     Truth, love and purity. And in that instant
     Atoms and molecules I saw, and faces,
     And how they are arranged order to order,
     With no break in the order, one harmonious
     Whole of universal life all blended
     And interfused with universal love.
     And as it was with Shelley so I cried,
     And clasped my hands in ecstacy and rose
     And started back to climb the hill again,
     Scarce knowing, neither caring what I did,
     Nor where I went, and thinking if this be
     A fancy only of the Saviour then
     He will not follow me, and if it be
     Himself, indeed, he will not let me fall
     After the revelation. As I reached
     The brow of the hill, I felt his presence with me
     And turned, and saw Him. 'Thou hast faith, my son,
     Who knowest me, when they who walked with me
     Toward Emmaus knew me not, to whom I told
     All secrets of the scriptures beginning at Moses,
     Who knew me not till I brake bread and then,
     As after thought could say, Did not our heart
     Within us burn while he talked. O, Jacob Groesbell,
     Thou carpenter, as I was, greatly blessed
     With visions and my Father's love, this walk
     Is your walk toward Emmaus.' So he talked,
     Expounding all the scriptures, telling me
     About the race of men who live and move
     Along a life of meat and drink and sleep
     And comforts of the flesh, while here and there
     A hungering soul is chosen to lift up
     And re-create the race. 'The prophet, poet
     Must seek and must find God to keep the race
     Awake to the divine and to the orders
     Of universal and harmonious life,
     All interfused with Universal love,
     Which love is God, lest blindness, atheism,
     Which sees no order, reason, no intent
     Beat down the race to welter in the mire
     When storms, and floods come. And the sons of God,
     The leaders of the race from age to age
     Are chosen for their separate work, each work
     Fits in the given order. All who suffer
     The martyrdom of thought, whether they think
     Themselves as servants of my Father, or even
     Mock at the images and rituals
     Which prophets of dead creeds did symbolize
     The mystery they sensed, or whether they be
     Spirits of laughter, logic, divination
     Of human life, the human soul, all men
     Who give their essence, blindly or in vision
     In faith that life is worth their utmost love,
     They are my brothers and my Father's sons.'
     So Jesus told me as we took my walk
     Toward my Emmaus. After a time we turned
     And walked through heading rye and purple vetch
     Into an orchard where great rows of pears
     Sloped up a hill. It was now evening:
     Stretches of scarlet clouds were in the west,
     And a half moon was hanging just above
     The pears' white blossoms. O, that evening!
     We came back to the boats at last and loosed
     One of them and rowed out into the bay,
     And fished, while the stars appeared. He only said
     'Whatever they did with me you too shall do.'
     A haziness came on me now. I seem
     To find myself alone there in that boat.
     At mid-night I awoke, the moon was sunk,
     The whippoorwills were singing. I walked home
     Back to the village in a silence, peace,
     A happiness profound.

                           "And the next morning
     I awoke with aching head, spent body, yet
     With spiritual vision so intense I looked
     Through things material as if they were
     But shadows—old things passed away or grew
     A lovelier order. And my heart was full.
     Infinitely I loved, and infinitely was loved.
     My landlady looked at me sharply, asked
     What hour I entered, where I was so late.
     I only answered fishing. For I told
     No person of my vision, went my way
     At carpentry in silence, in great joy.
     For archangels and powers were at my side,
     They led me, bore me up, instructed me
     In mysteries, and voices said to me
     'Write' as the voice in Patmos said to John.
     I wrote and printed and the village read,
     And called me mad. And so I grew to see
     The deepest truths of God, and God Himself,
     The geniture of all things, of the Word
     Becoming flesh in Christ. I knew all ages,
     Times, empires, races, creeds, the human weakness
     Which makes life wearisome, confused and pained,
     And how the search for something (it is God)
     Makes divers worships, fire, the sun, and beasts
     Takes form in Eleusinian mysteries
     Or festivals where sex, the vine, the Earth
     At harvest time have praise or reverence.
     I knew God, talked with God, and knew that God
     Is more than Thought or Love. Our twisted brains
     Are but the wires in the bulb which stays,
     Resists the current and makes human thought.
     As the electric current is not light
     But heat and power as well. Our little brains
     Resist God and make thought and love as well.
     But God is more than these. Oh I heard much
     Of music, heard the whirring as of wheels,
     Or buzzing as of ears when a room is still.
     That is the axis of profoundest life
     Which turns and rests not. And I heard the cry
     And hearing wept, of man's soul, heard the ages,
     The epochs of this earth as it were the feet
     Of multitudes in corridors. And I knew
     The agony of genius and the woe
     Of prophets and the great.

                                "From that next morning
     I searched the scriptures with more fervid zeal
     Than I had ever done. I could not open
     Its pages anywhere but I could find
     Myself set forth or mirrored, pointed to.
     I could not doubt my destiny was bound
     With man's salvation. Jeremiah said
     'Take forth the precious from the vile.' Those words
     To me were spoken, and to no one else.
     And so I searched the scriptures. And I found
     I never had a thought, experience, pang,
     A state in human life our Saviour had not.
     He was a carpenter, and so was I.
     He had his soul's illumination, so had I.
     His brethren called him mad, they called me mad.
     He triumphed over death, so shall I triumph.
     For I could, I can feel my way along
     Death's stages as a man can reach and feel
     Ahead of him along a wall. I know
     This body is a shell, a butterfly's
     Excreta pushed away with rising wings.

     "I searched the scriptures. How should I believe
     Paul's story, not my own? Did he not see
     At mid-day in the way a light from heaven
     Above the brightness of the sun and hear
     The voice of Jesus saying to him 'Saul,'
     Why persecutest thou me?' And did not Festus,
     Before whom Paul stood speaking for himself,
     Call Paul a mad man? Even while he spake
     Such words as none but men inspired can speak,
     As well as words of truth and soberness,
     Such as myself speak now.

                               "And from the scriptures
     I passed to studies of the men who came
     To great illuminations. You will see
     There are two kinds: One's of the intellect,
     The understanding, one is of the soul.
     The x-ray lets the eye behind the flesh
     To see the ribs, or heart beat, choose! So men
     In their illumination see the frame-work
     Of life or see its spirit, so align
     Themselves with Science, Satire, or align
     Themselves with Poetry or Prophecy.
     So being Aristotle, Rabelais,
     Paul, Swedenborg.

                       "And as the years
     Went on, as I had time, was fortunate
     In finding books I read of many men
     Who had illumination, as I had it. Read
     Of Dante's vision, how he found himself
     Saw immortality, lost fear of death.
     Read Swedenborg, who left the intellect
     At fifty-four for God, and entered heaven
     Before he quitted life and saw behind
     The sun of fire, a sun of love and truth.
     Read Whitman who exclaimed to God: 'Thou knowest
     My manhood's visionary meditations
     Which come from Thee, the ardor and the urge.
     Thou lightest my life with rays ineffable
     Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages.'
     Read Blake, Spinoza, Emerson, read Wordsworth
     Who wrote of something 'deeply interfused,
     Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
     And the round ocean and the living air,
     And the blue skies, and in the mind of man—
     A motion and a spirit that impels
     All thinking things, all objects of all thought
     And rolls through all things.'

                          "And at last they called me
     The mad, and learned carpenter. And then—
     I'm growing faint. Your hand, hold ..."

                                      At this point
     He fainted, sank into a stupor. There
     I watched him, to discover if 'twas death.
     But soon I saw him rally, then he spoke.
     There was some other talk, but not of moment.
     I had to change the cylinder—the talk
     Was broken, rambling, and of trifling things,
     Throws no light on the case, being sane enough.
     He died next morning.

                           Students who desire
     To examine the skull and brain may do so now
     At their convenience in the laboratory.