Toward the Gulf

     Said Friar Yves: "God will bless
     Saint Louis' other-worldliness.
     Whatever the fate be, still I fare
     To fight for the Holy Sepulcher.
     If I survive, I shall return
     With precious things from Palestine—
     Gold for my purse, spices and wine,
     Glory to wear among my kin.
     Fame as a warrior I shall win.
     But, otherwise, if I am slain
     In Jesus' cause, my soul shall earn
     Immortal life washed white from sin."

     Said Friar Yves: "Come what will—
     Riches and glory, death and woe—
     At dawn to Palestine I go.
     Whether I live or die, I gain
     To fly the tepid good and ill
     Of daily living in Champagne,
     Where those who reach salvation lose
     The treasures, raptures of the earth,
     Captured, possessed, and made to serve
     The gospel love of Jesus' birth,
     Sacrifice, death; where even those
     Passing from pious works and prayer
     To paradise are not received
     As those who battled, strove, and lived,
     And periled bodies, as I choose
     To peril mine, and thus to use
     Body and soul to build the throne
     Of Louis the Saint, where Joseph's care
     Lay Jesus under a granite stone."

     Then Friar Yves buckled on
     His breastplate, and, at break of dawn,
     With crossboy, halberd took his way,
     Walked without resting, without pause,
     Till the sun hovered at midday
     Over a tree of glistening leaves,
     Where a spring gurgled. "Hunger gnaws
     My stomach," whispered Friar Yves.
     "If I," he sighed, "could only gain,
     Like yonder spring, an inner source
     Of life, and need not dew or rain
     Of human love, or human friends,
     And thus accomplish my soul's ends
     Within myself! No," said the friar;
     "There is one water and one fire;
     There is one Spirit, which is God.
     And what are we but streams and springs
     Through which He takes His wanderings?
     Lord, I am weak, I am afraid;
     Show me the way!" the friar prayed.
     "Where do I flow and to what end?
     Am I of Thee, or do I blend
     Hereafter with Thee?"

                           Yves heard,
     While praying, sounds as when the sod
     Teems with a swarm of insect things.
     He dropped his halberd to look down,
     And then his waking vision blurred,
     As one before a light will frown.
     His inner ear was caught and stirred
     By voices; then the chestnut tree
     Became a step beside a throne.
     Breathless he lay and fearfully,
     While on his brain a vision shone.
     Said a Great Voice of sweetest tone:
     "The time has come when I must take
     The form of man for mankind's sake.
     This drama is played long enough
     By creatures who have naught of me,
     Save what comes up from foam of the sea
     To crawling moss or swimming weeds,
     At last to man. From heaven in flame,
     Pure, whole, and vital, down I fly,
     And take a mortal's form and name,
     And labor for the race's needs."
     Then Friar Yves dreamed the sky
     Flushed like a bride's face rosily,
     And shot to lightning from its bloom.
     The world leaped like a babe in the womb,
     And choral voices from heaven's cope
     Circled the earth like singing stars:
     "O wondrous hope, O sweetest hope,
     O passion realized at last;
     O end of hunger, fear, and wars,
     O victory over the bottomless, vast
     Valley of Death!"

                       A silence fell,
     Broke by the voice of Gabriel:
     "Music may follow this, O Lord!
     Music I hear; I hear discord
     Through ages yet to be, as well.
     There will be wars because of this,
     And wars will come in its despite.
     It's noon on the world now; blackest night
     Will follow soon. And men will miss
     The meaning, Lord! There will be strife
     'Twixt Montanist and Ebionite,
     Gnostic, Mithraist, Manichean,
     'Twixt Christian and the Saracen.
     There will be war to win the place
     Where you bend death to sovereign life.
     Armed kings will battle for the grace
     Of rulership, for power and gold
     In the name of Jesus. Men will hold
     Conclaves of swords to win surcease
     Of doctrines of the Prince of Peace.
     The seed is good, Lord, make the ground
     Good for the seed you scatter round!"

     Said the Great Voice of sweetest tone:
     "The gardener sprays his plants and trees
     To drive out lice and stop disease.
     After the spraying, fruit is grown
     Ruddy and plump. The shortened eyes
     Of men can see this end, although
     Leaves wither or a whole tree dies
     From what the gardener does to grow
     Apples and plums of sweeter flesh.
     The gardener lives outside the tree;
     The gardener knows the tree can see
     What cure is needed, plans afresh
     An end foreseen, and there's the will
     Wherewith the gardener may fulfil
     The orchard's destiny."

                            So He spake.
     And Friar Yves seemed to wake,
     But did not wake, and only sunk
     Into another dreaming state,
     Wherein he saw a woman's form
     Leaning against the chestnut's trunk.
     Her body was virginal, white, and straight,
     And glowed like a dawning, golden, warm,
     Behind a robe of writhing green:
     As when a rock's wall makes a screen
     Whereon the crisscross reflect moves
     Of circling water under the rays
     Of April sunlight through the sprays
     Of budding branches in willow groves—
     A liquid mosaic of green and gold—
     Thus was her robe.

                        But to behold
     Her face was to forget the youth
     Of her white bosom. All her hair
     Was tangled serpents; she did wear
     A single eye in the middle brow.
     Her cheeks were shriveled, and one tooth
     Stuck from shrunken gums. A bough
     O'ershadowed her the while she gripped
     A pail in either hand. One dripped
     Clear water; one, ethereal fire.
     Then to the Graia spoke the friar:
     "Have mercy! Tell me your desire
     And what you are?"

                       Then the Graia said:
     "My body is Nature and my head
     Is Man, and God has given me
     A seeing spirit, strong and free,
     Though by a single eye, as even
     Man has one vision at a time.
     I lift my pails up; mark them well.
     With this fire I will burn up heaven,
     And with this water I will quench
     The flames of hell's remotest trench,
     That men may work in righteousness.
     Not for the fears of an after hell,
     Nor for the rewards which heaven will bless
     The soul with when the mountains nod
     And the sun darkens, but for love
     Of Man and Life, and love of God.
     Now look!"

                She dashed the pail of fire
     Against the vault of heaven. It fell
     As would a canopy of blue
     Burned by a soldier's careless torch.
     She dashed the water into hell,
     And a great steam rose up with the smell
     Of gaseous coals, which seemed to scorch
     All things which on the good earth grew.
     "Now," said the Graia, "loiterer,
     Awake from slumber, rise and speed
     To fight for the Holy Sepulcher—
     Nothing is left but Life, indeed—
     I have burned heaven! I have quenched hell."

     Friar Yves no longer slept;
     Friar Yves awoke and wept.

     June, but we kept the fire place piled with logs,
     And every day it rained. And every morning
     I heard the wind and rain among the leaves.
     Try as I would my spirits grew no better.
     What was it? Was I ill or sick in mind?
     I spent the whole day working with my hands,
     For there was brush to clear and corn to plant
     Between the gusts of rain; and there at night
     I sat about the room and hugged the fire.
     And the rain dripped and the wind blew, we shivered
     For cold and it was June. I ached all through
     For my hard labor, why did muscles grow not
     To hardness and cure body, if 'twere body,
     Or soul if it were soul?

                              But there at night
     As I sat aching, worn, before the hour
     Of sleep, and restless in this interval
     Of nothingness, the silence out-of-doors,
     Timed by the dripping rain, and by the slap
     Of cards upon a table by a boarder
     Who passed the time in playing solitaire,
     Sometimes my ancient host would fill his pipe,
     And scrape away the dust of long past years
     To show me what had happened in his life.
     And as he smoked and talked his aged wife
     Would parallel his theme, as a brooks' branches
     Formed by a slender island, flow together.
     Or yet again she'd intercalate a touch,
     An episode or version. And sometimes
     He'd make her hush; or sometimes he'd suspend
     While she went on to what she wished to finish,
     When he'd resume. They talked together thus.
     He found the story and began to tell it,
     And she hung on his story, told it too.

     This night the rain came down in buckets full,
     And Claude who brought the logs in showed his breath
     Between the opening of the outer door
     And the swift on-rush of the room's warm air.
     And my host who had hoed the whole day long,
     Hearty at eighty years, sat with his pipe
     Reading the organ of the Adventists,
     His wife beside him knitting.

                                   On the table
     Are several magazines with their monthly grist
     Of stories and of pictures. O such stories!
     Who writes these stories? How does it happen people
     Are born into the world to read these stories?
     But anyway the lamp is very bad,
     And every bone in me aches—and why always
     Must one be either reading, knitting, talking?
     Why not sit quietly and think?

                                     At last
     Between the clicking needles and the slap
     Of cards upon the table and the swish
     Of rain upon the window my host speaks:
     "It says here when the Germans are defeated,
     And that means when the Turks are beaten too,
     The Christian world will take back Palestine,
     And drive the Turks out. God be praised, I hope so."
     "Amen" breaks in the wife. "May we both live
     To see the day. Perhaps you'll get your trunk back
     From Jaffa if the Allies win."

                                     To me
     The wife turns and goes on, "He has a trunk,
     At least his trunk went on to Jaffa, and
     It never came back. The bishop's trunk came back,
     But his trunk never came."

                                And then the husband:
     "What are you saying, mother, you go on
     As if our friend here knew the story too.
     And then you talk as if our hope of the war
     Was centered on recovering that trunk."

                                         "Oh, not at all
     But if the Allies win, and the trunk is there
     In Jaffa you might get it back. You know
     You'll never get it back while infidels
     Rule Palestine."

                      The husband says to me:
     "It looks as if she thought that trunk of mine,
     Which went to Jaffa fifty years ago,
     Is in existence yet, when chances are
     They kept it for awhile, and sold it off,
     Or threw it away."

                        "They never threw it away.
     Why I made him a dozen shirts or more,
     And knitted him a lot of lovely socks,
     And made him neck-ties, and that trunk contained
     Everything that a man might need in absence
     A year from home. And yet they threw it away!"

     "They might have done so."

                             "But they never did,
     Perhaps they threw your cabinet tools away?"
     "They were too valuable."

                               "Too valuable,
     Fine socks and shirts are worthless are they, yes."

     "Not worthless, but fine tools are valuable."
     He turns to me: "I lost a box of tools
     Sent on to Jaffa, too. The scheme was this:
     To work at cabinet making while observing
     Conditions there in Palestine, and get ready
     To drive the Turks from Palestine."

                                   What's this?
     I rub my eyes and wake up to this story.
     I'm here in Illinois, in a farmer's house
     Who boards stray fishermen, and takes me in.
     And in a moment Turks and Palestine,
     And that old dream of Louis the Saint arise
     And show me how the world is small, and a man
     Native to Illinois may travel forth
     And mix his life with ancient things afar.
     To-day be raising corn here and next month
     Walking the streets of Jaffa, in Mycenæ,
     Digging for Grecian relics.

                                 So I asked
     "Were you in Palestine?" And the wife spoke quick:
     "He didn't get there, that's the joke of it."
     And the husband said: "It wasn't such a joke.
     You see it was this way, myself and the bishop,
     He lived in Springfield, I in Pleasant Plains,
     Had planned to meet in Switzerland."

                        "Montreaux"
     The wife broke in.

                       "Montreaux" the husband added.
     "You said you two had planned it," she went on.
     Now looking over specks and speaking louder:
     "The bishop came to him, he planned it out.
     My husband didn't plan the trip at all.
     He knows the bishop planned it."

                                     Then the husband:
     "Oh for that matter he spoke of it first,
     And I acceded and we worked it out.
     He was to go ahead of me, I was
     To come in later, soon as I could raise
     What funds my congregation could afford
     To spare for this adventure."

                                 "Guess," she said,
     "How much it was."

                      I shook my head and she
     Said in a lowered and a tragic voice:
     "Four hundred dollars, and you can believe
     It strapped his church to raise so great a sum.
     And if they hadn't thought that Christ would come
     Scarcely before the plan could be put through
     Of winning back the Holy Land, that sum
     Had never been made up and put in gold
     For him to carry in a chamois belt."

     And then the husband said: "Mother, be still,
     I'll tell our friend the story if you'll let me."
     "I'm done," she said. "I wanted to say that.
     Go on," she said.

                       And so he started over:
     "The bishop came to me and said he thought
     The Advent would be June of seventy-six.
     This was the winter of eighteen seventy-one.
     He said he had a dream; and in this dream
     An angel stood beside him, told him so,
     And told him to get me and go to Jaffa,
     And live there, learn the people and the country,
     We were to live disguised the better to learn
     The people and the country. I was to work
     At my trade as a cabinet maker, he
     At carpentry, which was his trade, and so
     No one would know us, or suspect our plan.
     And thus we could live undisturbed and work,
     And get all things in readiness, that in time
     The Lord would send us power, and do all things.
     We were the messengers to go ahead
     And make the ways straight, so I told her of it."

     "You told me, yes, but my trust was as great
     As yours was in the bishop, little the good
     To tell me of it."

                        "Well, I told you of it.
     And she said, 'If the Lord commands you so
     You must obey.' And so she knit the socks
     And made that trunk of things, as she has said,
     And in six weeks I sailed from Philadelphia."

     "'Twas nearer two months," said the wife.

                                           "Perhaps,
     Somewhere between six weeks and that. The bishop
     Left Springfield in a month from our first talk.
     I knew, for I went over when he left.
     And I remember how his poor wife cried,
     And how the children cried. He had a family
     Of some eight children."

                              "Only seven then,
     The son named David died the year before."

     "Mother, you're right, 'twas seven children then.
     The oldest was not more than twelve, I think,
     And all the children cried, and at the train
     His congregation almost to a man
     Was there to see him off."

                               "Well, one was missing.
     You know, you know," the wife said pregnantly.

     "I'll come to that in time, if you'll be still.
     Well, so the bishop left, and in six weeks,
     Or somewhere there, I started for Montreaux
     To meet the bishop. Shipped ahead my trunk
     To Jaffa as the bishop did. But now
     I must tell you my dream. The night before
     I reached Montreaux I had a wondrous dream:
     I saw the bishop on the station platform
     His face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearing
     His gold head cane. And sure enough next day
     As I stepped from the train I saw the bishop
     His face with brandy blossoms splotched and wearing
     His gold head cane. And I thought something wrong,
     And still I didn't act upon the thought."

     "I should say not," the wife broke in again.

     "Oh, well what could I do, if I had thought
     More clearly than I did that things were wrong.
     You can't uproot the confidence of years
     Because of dreams. And as to brandy blossoms
     I knew his face was red, but didn't know,
     Or think just then, that brandy made it red.
     And so I went up to the house he lived in—
     A mansion beautiful, and we sat down.
     And he sat there bolt upright in a rocker,
     Hands spread upon his knees, his black eyes bigger
     Than I had ever seen them, eyeing me
     Silently for a moment, when he said:
     'What money did you bring?' And so I told him.
     And he said quickly 'let me have it.' So
     I took my belt off, counted out the gold
     And gave it to him. And he took it, thrust it
     With this hand in this pocket, that in that,
     And sat there and said nothing more, just looked!
     And then before a word was spoke again
     I heard a step upon the stair, the stair
     Came down into this room where we were sitting.
     And I looked up, and there—I rubbed my eyes—
     I looked again, rose from my chair to see,
     And saw descending the most lovely woman,
     Who was"—

                 "A lovely woman," sneered the wife
     "Well, she was just affinity to the bishop,
     That's what she was."

                           "Affinity is right—
     You see she was the leader in the choir,
     And she had run away with him, or rather
     Had gone abroad upon another boat
     And met him in Montreaux. Now from this time
     For forty hours or so all is a blank.
     I just remember trying to speak and choking,
     And flying from the room, the bishop clutching
     At my coat sleeve to hold me. After that
     I can't recall a thing until I saw
     A little cottage way up in the Alps.
     I was knocking at the door, was faint and sick,
     The door was opened and they took me in,
     And warmed me with a glass of wine, and tucked me
     In a good bed where I slept half a week.
     It seems in my bewilderment I wandered,
     Ran, stumbled, climbed for forty hours or so
     By rocky chasms, up the piney slopes."

     "He might have lost his life," the wife exclaimed.

     "These were the kindest people in the world,
     A French family. They gave me splendid food,
     And when I left two francs to reach the place
     Where lived the English Consul, who arranged
     After some days for money for my passage
     Back to America, and in six weeks
     I preached a sermon here in Pleasant Plains."

     "Beware of false prophets was the text!" she said.

     And I who heard this story through spoke up:
     "The thing about this that I fail to get
     Concerns this woman, the affinity.
     If, as seems evident, she and the bishop
     Had planned this run-a-way and used the faith,
     And you, the congregation to get money
     To do it with, or used you in particular
     To get the money for themselves to live on
     After they had arrived there in Montreaux,
     If all this be" I said, "why did this woman
     Descend just at the moment when he asked you
     For the money that you had. You might have seen her
     Before you gave the money, if you had
     You might have held it back."

                                   "I would indeed,
     You can be sure I should have held it back."

     And then the old wife gasped and dropped her knitting.

     "Now, James, you let me answer that, I know.
     She was done with the bishop, that's the reason.
     Be still and let me answer. Here's the story:
     We found out later that the bishop's trunk
     And kit of tools had been returned from Jaffa
     There to Montreaux, were there that very day,
     Which means the bishop never meant to go
     To Palestine at all, but meant to meet
     This woman in Montreaux and live with her.
     Well, that takes money. So he used my husband
     To get that money. Now you wonder I see
     Why she would chance the spoiling of the scheme,
     Descend into the room before my husband
     Had given up this money, and this money,
     You see, was treated as a common fund
     Belonging to the church and to be used
     To get back Palestine, and so the bishop
     As head of the church, superior to my husband,
     Could say 'give me the money'—that was natural,
     My husband could not be surprised at that,
     Or question it. Well, why did she descend
     And almost lose the money? Oh, the cat!
     I know what she did, as well as I had seen
     Her do it. Yes, she listened at the landing.
     And when she heard my husband tell the sum
     Which he had brought, it wasn't enough to please her,
     And Satan entered in her heart, and she
     Waited until she heard the bishop's pockets
     Clink with the double eagles, then descended
     To expose the bishop and disgrace him there
     And everywhere in all the world. Now listen:
     She got that money or the most of it
     In spite of what she did. For in six weeks
     After my husband had returned, she walked,
     The brazen thing, the public streets of Springfield
     As jaunty as you please, and pretty soon
     The bishop died and all the papers printed
     The story of his shame."

                              She had scarce finished
     When the man at solitaire threw down the deck
     And make a whacking noise and rose and came
     Around in front of us and stood and looked
     The old man and old woman over, me
     He studied too. Then in an organ voice:
     "Is there a single verse in the New Testament
     That hasn't sprouted one church anyway,
     Letting alone the verses that have sprouted
     Two, three or four or five? I know of one:
     Where is it that it says that "Jesus wept"?
     Let's found a church on that verse, "Jesus wept."
     With that he went out in the rain and slammed
     The door behind him.

                            The old clergyman
     Had fallen asleep. His wife looked up and said,
     "That man is crazy, ain't he? I'm afraid."

     A lassie sells the War Cry on the corner
     And the big drum booms, and the raucous brass horns
     Mingle with the cymbals and the silver triangle.
     I stand a moment listening, then my friend
     Who studies all religions, finds a wonder
     In orphic spectacles like this, lays hold
     Upon my arm and draws me to a door
     Through which we look and see a room of seats,
     A platform at the end, a table on it,
     And signs upon the wall, "Jesus is Waiting,"
     And "God is Love."

                        We enter, take a seat.
     The band comes in and fills the room to bursting
     With horns and drums. They cease and feet are heard,
     The crowd has followed, half the seats are full.
     After a prayer, a song, the captain mounts
     The platform by the table and begins:
     "Praise God so many girls are here to-night,
     And Sister Trickey, by the grace of God
     Saved from the wrath to come, will speak to you."
     So Sister Trickey steps upon the platform,
     A woman nearing forty, one would say.
     Blue-eyed, fair skinned, and yellow haired, a figure
     Once trim enough, no doubt, grown stout at last.
     She was a pretty woman in her time,
     'Twas plain to see. A shrewd intelligence
     From living in the world shines in her face.
     We settle down to hear from Sister Trickey
     And in a moment she begins:

                                 "Young girls:
     I thank the Lord for Jesus, for he saved me,
     I thank the Lord for Jesus every hour.
     No woman ever stained with redder sins.
     Had greater grace than mine. Praise God for Jesus!
     Praise God for blood that washes sins away!
     I was a woman fallen till Lord Jesus
     Forgave me, helped me up and made me clean.
     My name is Lilah Trickey. Let me tell you
     How music was my tempter. Oh, you girls,
     If there be one before me who can sing
     Beware the devil and beware your voice
     That it be used for Jesus, not for Satan."

     "I had a voice, was leader of the choir,
     But Satan entered in my voice to tempt
     The bishop of the church, and in my heart
     To tempt and use the bishop; in the bishop
     Old Satan slipped to lure me from the path.
     He fell from grace for listening. And I
     Whose voice had turned him over to the devil
     Fell as he fell. He dragged me down with him.
     No use to make it long, one word's enough:
     Old Satan is the first word and the last,
     And all between is nothing. It's enough
     To say the bishop and myself eloped
     Went to Montreaux. He left a wife and children.
     And I poor silly thing with promises
     Of culture of my voice in Paris, lost
     Good name and all. And he lost all as well.
     Good name, his soul I fear, because he took
     The church's money saying he would use it
     To win the Holy Sepulchre, in fact
     Intending all the while to use the money
     For travel and for keeping up a house
     With me as soul-mate. For he never meant
     To let me go to Paris for my voice,
     He never got enough to pay for that.
     On that point he betrayed me, now I see
     'Twas God who used him to deceive me there,
     And leave me to return to Springfield broken,
     An out-cast, fallen woman, shamed and scorned."

     "We took a house in Montreaux, plain enough
     As we looked at it passing, but within
     'Twas sweet and fair as Satan could desire:
     Engravings on the wall and marble mantels,
     Gilt clocks upon the mantels, lovely rugs,
     Chests full of linen, silver, pewter, china,
     Soft beds with canopies of figured satin,
     The scent of apple blossoms through the rooms.
     A little garden, vines against the wall.
     There were the lake and mountains. Oh, but Satan
     Baited the hook with beauty. But the bishop
     Seemed self-absorbed, depressed and never smiled.
     And every time his face came close to mine
     I smelled the brandy on him. Conscience whipped
     Its venomed tail against his peace of mind.
     And so he took the brandy to benumb
     The sting of conscience and to dull the pain.
     He told me he had business in Montreaux
     Which would require some weeks, would there be met
     By people who had money for him. I
     Was twenty-three and green, besides I walked
     In dreamland thinking of the promised schooling
     In Paris—oh 'twas music, as I said.". ...

     "At last one day he said a friend was coming,
     And he went to the station. Very soon
     I heard their steps, the bishop and his friend.
     They entered. I was curious and sat
     Upon the stair-way's landing just to hear.
     And this is what I heard. The bishop asked:
     'You've brought some money, how much have you brought?'

     The man replied 'four hundred dollars.' Then
     The bishop said: 'I'll take it.' In a moment
     I heard the clinking gold and heard the bishop
     Putting it in his pocket.'

                                "God forgive me,
     I never was so angry in my life.
     The bishop had been talking in big figures,
     We would have thousands for my voice and Paris,
     And here was just a paltry sum. Scarce knowing
     Just what I did, perhaps I wished to see
     The American who brought the money—well,
     No matter what it was, I walked in view
     Upon the landing, stood there for a moment
     And saw our visitor, a clergyman
     From all appearances. He stared, grew red,
     Large eyed and apoplectic, then he rose,
     Walked side-ways, backward, stumbled toward the door,
     Rattled with shaking hand the knob and jerked
     The door ajar, with open mouth backed out
     Upon the street and ran. I heard him run
     A square at least."

                         "The bishop looked at me,
     His face all brandy blossoms, left the room,
     Came back at once with brandy on his breath.
     And all that day was tippling, went to bed
     So drunk I had to take his clothing off
     And help him in."

                       "Young girls, beware of music,
     Save only hymns and sacred oratorios.
     Beware the theatre and dancing hall.
     Take lesson from my fate.

                               "The morning came.
     The bishop called me, he was very ill
     And pale with fear. He had a dream that night.
     Satan had used him and abandoned him.
     And Death, whom only Jesus can put down,
     Was standing by the bed. He called to me,
     And said to me:

                     "'That money's in that drawer.
     Use it to reach America, but use it
     To send my body back. Death's in the corner
     Behind that cabinet—there—see him look!
     I had a dream—go get a pen and paper,
     And write down what I tell you. God forgive me—
     Oh what a blasphemer am I. O, woman,
     To lie here dying and to know that God
     Has left me—hell awaits me—horrible!
     Last night I dreamed this man who brought the money,
     This man and I were walking from Damascus,
     And in a trice came down to Olivet.
     Just then great troops of men sprang up around us
     And hailed us as expecting our approach.
     And there I saw the faces—hundreds maybe,
     Of congregations who had trusted me
     In all the long past years—Oh, sinful woman,
     Why did you cross my path,' he moaned at times,
     'And wreck my ministry.'

                              "'And so these crowds
     Armed as it seemed, exulted, called me general,
     And shouted forward. So we ran like mad
     And came before a building with a dome—
     You know—I've seen a picture of it somewhere.
     And so the crowds yelled: let the bishop enter
     And see the sepulchre, while we keep guard.
     They pushed me in. But when I was inside
     There was no dome, above us was the sky,
     And what seemed walls was nothing but a fence.
     Before us was a stable with a stall
     Where two cows munched the hay. There was a farmer
     Who with a pitchfork bedded down the stall.
     "Where is the holy sepulchre?" I asked—
     "My army's at the door." He kept at work
     And never raised his eyes and only said:
     "Don't know; I haven't time for things like that.
     You're 'bout the hundredth man who's asked me that.
     We don't know where it is, nor do we care.
     We live here and we knew him, so we feel
     Less interest than you. But have you thought
     If you should find it it would only be
     A tomb like other tombs? Why look at this:
     Here is the very manger where he lay—
     What is it? Just a manger filled with straw.
     These cows are not the very cows you know—
     But cows are cows in every age and place.
     I think that board there has been nailed on since.
     Outside of that the place is just the same.
     Now what's the good of seeing it? His mother
     Lay in that corner there, what if she did?
     That lantern on the wall's the very one
     They came to see the child with from the inn—
     What of it? Take your army and go on,
     And leave me with my barn and with my cows."

     "'So all the glory vanished! Devil magic
     Stripped all the glory off. No angels singing,
     No star of Bethlehem, no magi kneeling,
     No Mary crowned, no Jesus King, no mystic
     Blood for sins' remission—just a barn,
     A stall, two cows, a lantern—all the glory—
     Swept from the gospel. That's my punishment:
     My poor weak brain filled full of all this dream,
     Which seems as real as life—to lie here dying
     Too weak to shake the dream! To see Death there
     Behind that cabinet—there—see him look—
     By God forsaken—all theology,
     All mystery, all wonder, all delight
     Of spiritual vision swept away as clean
     As winds sweep up the clouds, and thus to see
     While dying, just a manger, and two cows,
     A lantern on the wall.

                            "'And thus to see,
     For blasphemy that duped an honest heart,
     And took the pitiful dollars of the flock
     To win you with—oh, woman, woman, woman,
     A barn, a stall, a lantern limned so clear
     In such a daylight of clear seeing senses
     That all the splendor, the miraculous
     Wonder of the virgin, nimbused child,
     The star that followed till it rested over
     The manger (such a manger) all are wrecked,
     All blotted from belief, all snatched away
     From hands pushed off by God, no longer holding
     The robes of God.'

                        "And so the bishop raved
     While I stood terrified, since I could feel
     Death in the room, and almost see the monster
     Behind the cabinet.

                          "Then the bishop said:
     "'My dream went on. I crossed the stable yard
     And passed into a place of tombs. And look!
     Before I knew I stepped into a hole,
     A sunken grave with just a slab at head,
     And "Jesus" carven on it, nothing else,
     No date, no birth, no parentage.'"

                                        "'I lie
     Tormented by the pictures of this dream.
     Woman, take to your death bed with clear mind
     Of gospel faith, clean conscience, sins forgiven.
     The thoughts that we must suffer with and die with
     Are worth the care of all the days of life.
     All life should be directed to this end,
     Lest when the mind lies fallen, vultures swoop,
     And with their wings blot out the sun of faith,
     And with their croakings drown the voice of God.'

     "He ceased, became delirious. So he died,
     And I still unrepentant buried him
     There in Montreaux, and with what gold remained
     Went on to Paris.

                       "See how I was marked
     For God's salvation.

                          "There I went to see
     The celebrated teacher Jean Strakosch,
     Who looked at me with insolent, calm eyes,
     And face impassive, let me sing a scale,
     Then shook his head. A diva, as I thought,
     Came in just then. They talked in French, and I,
     Prickling from head to foot with shame, ignored,
     Left standing like a fool, passed from the room.
     So music turned on me, but God received me,
     And I came back to Springfield. But the Lord
     Made life too hard for me without the fold.
     I was so shunned and scorned, I had no place
     Save with the fallen, with the mockers, drinkers.
     Thus being in conviction, after struggles,
     And many prayers I found salvation, found
     My work in life: which is to talk to girls
     And stand upon this platform and relate
     My story for their good."

                               She ceased. Amens
     Went up about the room. The big drum boomed,
     And the raucous brass horns mingled with the cymbals,
     The silver triangle and the singing voices.

     My friend and I arose and left the room.

     "Then what is life?" I cried. And with that cry
     I woke from deeper slumber—was it sleep?—
     And saw a hooded figure standing by
     The bed whereon I lay.

                            "Why do you keep,
     O spirit beautiful and swift, this guard
     About my slumber? Shelley, from the deep
     Why do you come with veiled face, mighty bard,
     As that unearthly shape was veiled to you
     At Casa Magni?"

                     Then the room was starred
     With light as I was speaking, and I knew
     The god, my brother, from whose face the veil
     Melted as mist.

                     "What mission fair and true,
     While I am sleeping, brings you? For I pale
     Amid this solemn stillness, for your face
     Unutterably majestic."

                            As when the dale
     At midnight echoes for a little space,
     The night-bird's cry, the god responded "Come,"
     And nothing more. I left my bed apace,
     And followed him with wings above the gloom
     Of clouds like chariots driven on to war,
     Between whose wheels the swift moon raced and swum.

     A mile beneath us lay the earth, afar
     Were mountains which as swift as thought drew near
     As we passed over pines, where many a star
     And heaven's light made every frond as clear
     As through a glass or in the lightning's flash. ...
     Yet I seemed flying from an olden fear,
     A bulk of black that sought to sting or gnash
     My breast or side—which was myself, it seemed,
     The flesh or thinking part of me grown rash
     And violent, a brain soul unredeemed,
     Which sometime earlier in the grip of Death
     Forgot its terror when my soul which streamed
     Like ribbons of silk fire, with quiet breath
     Said to the body, as it were a thing
     Separate and indifferent: "How uneath
     That fellow turns, while I am safe yet cling
     Close to him, both another and the same."
     Now was this mood reversed: That self must wing
     Its fastest flight to fly him, lest he maim
     With fleshly hands my better, stronger part,
     As dragon wings my flap and quench a flame. ...
     But as we passed o'er empires and athwart
     A bellowing strait, beholding bergs and floes
     And running tides which made the sinking heart
     Rise up again for breath, I felt how close
     The god, my brother, was, who would sustain
     My wings whatever dangers might oppose,
     And knowing him beside me, like a strain
     Of music were his thoughts, though nothing yet
     Was spoken by him.

                        When as out of rain
     Suddenly lights may break, the earth was set
     Beneath us, and we stood and paused to see
     The Düssel river from a parapet
     Of earth and rock. Then bending curiously,
     As reaching, in a moment with his hand
     He scraped the turf and stones, pried up a key
     Of harder granite, and at his command,
     When he had made an opening, I slid
     And sank, down, down through the Devonian land
     Until with him I reached a cavern hid
     From every eye but ours, and where no light
     But from our faces was, a pyramid
     Of hills that walled this crypt of soundless night.
     Then in a mood, it seemed more fanciful,
     He bent again and raked, and to my sight
     Upheaved and held the remnant of a skull—
     Gorilla's or a man's, I could not guess.
     Yet brutal though it was, it was a hull
     Too fine and large to house the nakedness
     Of a beast's mind.

                        But as I looked the god
     Began these words: "Before the iron stress
     Of the north pole's dominion fell, he trod
     The wastes of Europe, ere the Nile was made
     A granary for the east, or ere the clod
     In Babylon or India baked was laid
     For hovels, this man lived. Ten thousand years
     Before the earliest pyramid cast its shade
     Upon the desolate sands this thing of fears,
     Lusts, hungers, lived and hunted, woke and slept,
     Mated, produced its kind, with hairy ears,
     And tiger eyes sensed all that you accept
     In terms of thought or vision as the proof
     Of immanent Power or Love. But this skull kept
     The intangible meaning out. This heavy roof
     Of brutish bone above the eyes was dead
     Even to lower ethers, no behoof
     Of seasons, stars or skies took, though they bred
     Suspicions, fears, or nervous glances, thought,
     Which silent as a lizard's shadow fled
     Before it graved itself, passed over, wrought
     No vision, only pain, which he deemed pangs
     Of hunger or of thirst."

                              As you have sought
     The meaning of life's riddle, since it hangs
     In waking or in slumber just above
     The highest reach of prophecy, and fangs
     With poison of despair all moods but love,
     Behold its secret lettered on this brow
     Placed by your own!

                         This is the word thereof:
     Change and progression from the glazed slough,
     Where life creeps and is blind, ascending up
     The jungled slopes for prey till spirits bow
     On Calvaries with crosses, take the cup
     Of martyrdom for truth's sake.
                                     It may be
     Men of to-day make monstrous war, sleep, sup,
     Traffic, build shrines, as earliest history
     Records the earliest day, and that the race
     Is what it was in virtue, charity,
     And nothing better. But within this face
     No light shone from that realm where Hindostan,
     Delving in numbers, watching stars took grace
     And inspiration to explore the plan
     Of heaven and earth. And of the scheme the test
     Is not five thousand years, which leave the van
     Just where it was, but this change manifest
     In fifty thousand years between the mind
     Neanderthal's and Shelley's.

                                  Man progressed
     Along these years, found eyes where he was blind,
     Put instinct under thought, crawled from the cave,
     And faced the sun, till somewhere heaven's wind
     Mixed with the light of Lights descending, gave
     To mind a touch of divinity, making whole
     An undeveloped growth.

                            As ships that brave
     Great storms at sea on masts a flaming coal
     From heaven catch, bear on, so man was wreathed
     Somewhere with lightning and became a soul.
     Into his nostrils purer fire was breathed
     Than breath of life itself, and by a leap,
     As lightning leaps from crag to crag, what seethed
     In man from the beginning broke the sleep
     That lay on consciousness of self, with eyes
     Awakened saw himself, out of the deep
     And wonder of the self caught the surmise
     Of Power beyond this world, and felt it through
     The flow of living.

                         And so man shall rise
     From this illumination, from this clue
     To perfect knowledge that this Power exists,
     And what man is to this Power, even as you
     Have left Neanderthal lost in the mists
     And ignorance of centuries untold.
     What would you say if learned geologists
     Out of the rocks and caverns should unfold
     The skulls of greater races, records, books
     To shame us for our day, could we behold
     Therein our retrogression? Wonder looks
     In vain for these, discovers everywhere
     Proof of the root which darkly bends and crooks
     Far down and far away; a stalk more fair
     Upspringing finds its proof, buds on the stalk
     The eye may see, at last the flowering flare
     Of man to-day!

                    I see the things which balk,
     Retard, divert, draw into sluices small,
     But who beholds the stream turned back to mock,
     Not just itself, but make equivocal
     A Universal Reason, Vision? No.
     You find no proof of this, but prodigal
     Proof of ascending Life!

                              So life shall flow
     Here on this globe until the final fruit
     And harvest. As it were until the glow
     Of the great blossom has the attribute
     In essence, color of eternal things,
     And shows no rim between its hues which suit
     The infinite sky's. Then if the dead earth swings
     A gleaned and stricken field amid the void
     What matters it to you, a soul with wings,
     Whether it be replanted or destroyed?
     Has it not served you?"

                              Now his voice was still,
     Which in such discourse had been thus employed.
     And in that lonely cavern dark and chill
     I heard again, "Then what is life?" And woke
     To find the moonlight on the window sill
     That which had seemed his presence. And a cloak,
     Whose hood was perked upon the moonbeams, made
     The skull of the Neanderthal. The smoke
     Blown from the fireplace formed the cavern's shade.
     And roaring winds blew down as they had tuned
     The voice which left me calm and unafraid.