So my friend to me.
“Good land,” I answered, “I inherited them,
I did not buy these lots. But apropos
Of what you say, I’ve wondered what’s the matter.
I write and write for statements of my taxes,
And cannot get them. Then I take the train,
And travel through the heat to Winston Prairie.
And I stand before a window asking for them.
Your property was sold, I am informed.
So I redeem, and go out to the grave-yard
To look at Cato Braden’s grave, and then
Catch the next train for home. A week or so
Elapses and I get a letter—hum!
Winston Prairie—office of the controller;
Your property was sold for special numbered
Two thousand and eighty-six, when you reply
Please mention sale 1019.—Damn these thieves!
So I pay that. I see! your court-house ring,—
The men who’re sworn to enforce the law are those
Who break it, and who use it to despoil you—
Well, let me tell you.

In this very June
I went to Winston Prairie on this errand,
And after I had written several times
To get a statement. I arrived at noon—
And yet the court-house offices were closed,
The treasurer’s, the clerk’s, controller’s, all.
I met a janitor who said: All closed
Till half past one. That meant I’d miss my train
Back to Chicago, and would have to stay
In Winston Prairie until six o’clock.
I sat down in the hall-way with a curse.
But in a minute there were hideous yells,
Shrieks, curses, as it were of women beaten,
Tortured, or strangled. So I went to see,
And found a door behind which I could hear
Intolerable tears, the scratching of weak hands
Against the door and wall. What is the matter?
I hallooed through the door. O, go to hell
A woman said, you know what is the matter.
I don’t, I said, I’ll help you if I can.
Then followed sobs and wails, and incoherent
Blubbering of words. At last I saw a finger
Stuck through the broken plaster by the door,
And leaning down I said: look through at me.
And then I stooped and looking through the crack
Saw a gray eye, which looked as it might be
Of Slavic birth. But who can read an eye
Shown singly through a crack? So while I talked
To get the story of these girls in prison,
(For where they were was called the calaboose,
Built in the court-house) some one back of me
Said: They’ll be quiet in due time, the cooler
Cools people off. I turned and saw a man
Who seemed to be a judge, and was a judge,
As I discovered later. Well, I said,
I cannot bear to see a human being
In such distress and terror—what’s their ages?
One’s sixteen and one’s seventeen, said the judge,
But they are bad ones, so I made the fine
Enough to hold them thirty days. I asked
What did they do? They were soliciting,
The judge replied, and here in Winston Prairie
The law is law and we enforce the law.
We do not do as you do in Chicago.
I felt my heart shut tight its valves and stop,
And was about to say: You are a fool.
You are what some would have America,
You are an Illinoisan, damn your soul.
You are a figure in the court-house ring,
Whereof the tax shark is a figure too.
But then I thought these girls might prove to be
Worth while some time. But even if they live
Street walkers all their lives, they stone no prophets,
Devour no widows’ houses, do less harm
Than court-house rings and judges in the rings.
So this is what I said: May I enquire
What are your Honor’s hours for holding court?
And he replied: Court has adjourned till two.
I hold till six o’clock, we do not loaf
As judges in Chicago do, good-day!

Well, then at half past one I paid my taxes,
With interest, penalties and all the costs.
At two o’clock I stood before the bar
And to the judge addressed these words: Your Honor,
I represent Miss Christine Leichentritt,
Miss Garda Gerstenburg, who are in jail
Under your Honor’s sentence. I have seen
The state’s attorney, who is satisfied
To let them go, if all the costs are paid.
I went to see him on a matter of taxes,
And this came up. The state’s attorney rose
And said: Your Honor, they are very young,
And though they have been caught before at this,
And warned that Winston Prairie is no place
For them to ply their trade, I am inclined
To think they will not break our laws again.

I thought I saw his honor’s eye light up
As if it caught a wireless, so he said:
“The court is satisfied.” I paid the costs
And took Christine and Garda to Chicago.
But at the station, as I said good bye,
Christine flared up: You don’t suppose that I
Will let you pay those costs, I am not cheap.
I may be bad, but I am square, she said.
And I have money in my room, come on
To Twelfth and Wabash and I’ll pay you back
For me and Garda.

No, I said, go on.
Try to be good, but if you can’t be good,
Be wise, and do not go to Winston Prairie.
I turned and disappeared among the crowds.

He then declared
That Jesus was a poet, but he said:
“What are his figures? Never a word of stars,
And never a word of oceans, nor of mountains
Save Olivet or Zion, so you see
His limitations as to imagery.
Then have you noted how his sombre soul
Picked blasted fig-trees, tares, the leprous poor,
And sepulchres and sewers, dirty cups,
Wherewith to make interpretations, yes
He spoke of lilies, too. Well, so have I.
And yet you people call me pessimist
Because I’ve tried to rescue Winston Prairie,
And have not shrunk from charging Winston Prairie
With Cato Braden’s death. The difference
Between the Man of Galilee and me
Is this: He wanted to fulfill the law
Of Moses and Isaiah, make Jerusalem,
Which was a Winston Prairie in a way,
A Hebrew citadel to rule the world.
And I, if I could have my way, would make
Of Winston Prairie Athens.”

Then he said
“I have four thoughts to-day to touch upon.
The first one is concerning hogs—you start:
Well, look at Matthew chapter eight and find
How certain hogs had cast in them the devils
Of fierceness, blindness, lustfulness and ran
Down in the sea to kill themselves for being
Made perfecter as hogs. Go get some hogs
And let me try my hand at exorcising

The Sunday after Cato Braden died
Will Boyden lectured in the Masons’ Hall
Upon the theme, “Was Jesus Really Great?”
At first he pointed out that Jesus knew
No history except that of the Jews.
And if he’d heard of Athens never spoke
A word about it, never read a line
Of Homer, Sophocles, or Aristotle,
Or Plato, or of Virgil, never a word
Concerning Egypt’s wisdom, or of India’s.
And then he dropped this point with the remark
That one could know one’s people’s history
And that alone, and still be great, perhaps.
But still he thought it was unfortunate
That Jesus gave the Hebrews such a lift
So that to-day they rule the Occident
Where Athens should have ruled, if only Time
Had given her the right dramatic touch
To catch the populace.

He then declared
That Jesus was a poet, but he said:
“What are his figures? Never a word of stars,
And never a word of oceans, nor of mountains
Save Olivet or Zion, so you see
His limitations as to imagery.
Then have you noted how his sombre soul
Picked blasted fig-trees, tares, the leprous poor,
And sepulchres and sewers, dirty cups,
Wherewith to make interpretations, yes
He spoke of lilies, too. Well, so have I.
And yet you people call me pessimist
Because I’ve tried to rescue Winston Prairie,
And have not shrunk from charging Winston Prairie
With Cato Braden’s death. The difference
Between the Man of Galilee and me
Is this: He wanted to fulfill the law
Of Moses and Isaiah, make Jerusalem,
Which was a Winston Prairie in a way,
A Hebrew citadel to rule the world.
And I, if I could have my way, would make
Of Winston Prairie Athens.”

Then he said
“I have four thoughts to-day to touch upon.
The first one is concerning hogs—you start:
Well, look at Matthew chapter eight and find
How certain hogs had cast in them the devils
Of fierceness, blindness, lustfulness and ran
Down in the sea to kill themselves for being
Made perfecter as hogs. Go get some hogs
And let me try my hand at exorcising

The Winston Prairie devils which destroyed
Poor Cato Braden.
“My next thought is found
In Matthew chapter nine; and it is this;
When Jesus saw the multitude all fainting,
And scattered abroad as sheep without a shepherd,
His soul was stirred—that is a way with genius,
Whether it be your Altgeld, Pericles,
Or yet your artist soul like Heinrich Heine.
But think of this: If you would lead and save
The multitude, assuming that can be,
Shall you accomplish it by rules and laws
Applied externally, which is the way
Ecclesiastic powers pursue and find
Divine authority in Jesus for it?
Or shall you teach the way of opening up
The soul of man to sun-light, letting in
The Power which is around us, in the which
We live and move, and so give chance for growth
To what is in us? For your shepherd drives.
No, Jesus hit it better when he spoke
Of leaven than of shepherds.
“So if one
Find leaven and would give it, let there be
A few to watch the final hour with him,
When he would be delivered from the cup,
But knows it cannot be, that to refuse
The cup is to deny the inexorable law.

“So now I come to what is chiefest here:
Destroy this temple and I will re-build it
In three days. Now you know what preachers say:
This means the resurrection—not at all!
These were the greatest words that Jesus said.
And here his genius seized its fullest power,
Here was it that he hid Jerusalem
Under his hands as if it were a toy,
And tossed the world up as it were a ball.
Why, what are temples, cities, cultures, ages
Of beauty, glory, but the work of genius?
What earth and stone and flesh but plastic stuff
Responsive to the touch of prophet hands?
What Winston Prairie, what America
And all this turbulence of bobbing heads
In fields and markets, temples, halls across
This continent of sovereign states but puppets
Which may be changed in flesh, in deepest spirit,
Made more erect, heroic, God-like, wise
By genius’ hands, not revolutionists’,
Nor shepherds’. So destroy America,
But not by picks and axes, let it be
As in the movies where a lovelier face
Steals in and blots with brighter light a face,
Which must fade out to let the lovelier face
Complete the story.
Now in a moment’s silence
Let’s pray for Cato Braden.”

The sun has sunk below the level plain,
And yet above the forest’s leafy gloom
The glory of the evening lightens still.
Smooth as a mirror is the river’s face
With Heaven’s light, and all its radiant clouds
And shadows which against the river’s shore
Already are as night. From some retreat
Obscure and lonely, evening’s saddest bird
Whistles, and beyond the water comes
The musical reply, and silence reigns—
Save for the noisy chorus of the frogs,
And undistinguished sounds of faint portent
That night has come. There is a rustic bridge
Which spans the stream, from which we look below
At Heaven above, till revery reclaims
The mind from hurried thought and merges it
Into the universal mind which broods
O’er such a scene. Strange quietude o’erspreads
The restless flame of being, and the soul
Beholds its source and destiny and feels
Not sorrowful to sink into the breast
Of that large life whereof it is a part.
What are we? But the question is not solved
Here in the presence of intensest thought,
Where nature stills the clamor of the world,
And leaves us in communion with ourselves.
Hence to the strivings of the clear-eyed day
What take we that shall mitigate the pangs
That each soul is alone, and that all friends
Gentle and wise and good can never soothe
The ache of that sub-consciousness which is
Something unfathomed and unmedicined?
Yet this it is which keeps us in the path
Of some ambition cherished or pursued;
The still, small voice that is not quieted
By disregard, but ever speaks to us
Its mandates while we wake or sleep, and asks
A closer harmony with that great scheme
Which is the music of the universe.

So as the cherubim of Heaven defend
The realms of the unknown with flaming swords,
Thence are we driven to the world which is
Ours to be known through Art, who beckons us
To excellence, and in her rarer moods
Casts shadowy glances of serener lands,
Where all the serious gods, removed from stress
And interruption, build, as we conceive,
In fellowship that knows not that reserve
Which clouds the hearts of those who wish to live
As they, in that large realm of perfect mind.

I do not like my garden, but I love
The trees I planted and the flowers thereof.
How does one choose his garden? O with eyes
O’er which a passion or illusion lies.
Perhaps it wakens memories of a lawn
You knew before somewhere. Or you are drawn
By an old urn, a little gate, a roof
Which soars into a blue sky, clear, aloof.
One buys a garden gladly. Even the worst
Seems tolerable or beautiful at first.
Their very faults give loving labor scope:
One can correct, adorn; ’tis sweet to hope
For beauty to emerge out of your toil,
To build the walks and fertilize the soil.
Before I knew my garden or awoke
To its banality I set an oak
At one end for a life-long husbandry,
A white syringa and a lilac tree,
Close to one side to hide a crumbling wall,
Which was my neighbor’s, held in several
Title and beyond my right to mend—
One cannot with an ancient time contend.
Some houses shadowed me. I did not dream
The sun would never look o’er them and gleam,
Save at the earliest hour. So all the day
One half my garden under twilight lay.
Another soul had overlooked the shade:
I found the boundaries of a bed he made
For tulips. Well, I had a fresher trust
And spent my heart upon this sterile dust.
What thing will grow where never the sun shines?
Vainly I planted flowering stalks and vines.
What years to learn the soil! Why even weeds
Look green and fresh. But if one concedes
Salvia will flourish not, nor palest phlox
One might have hope left for a row of box.

Why is it that some silent places thrill
With elfin comradeship, and others fill
The heart with sickening loneliness? My breast
Seems hollow for great emptiness, unrest
Casting my eyes about my garden where
I still must live, breathing its lifeless air.
Why should I have a garden anyway?
I have so many friends who pass the day
In streets or squares, or little barren courts,
I fancy there are gardens of all sorts,
Far worse than mine. And who has this delight:
There’s my syringa with its blooms of white!
It flourishes in my garden! In this brief
Season of blossoms and unfolding leaf
What if I like my garden not but love
The oak tree and the lilac tree thereof,
And hide my face, lest one my rapture guess,
Amid the white syringa’s loveliness?

I woke a stranger to it all,
But quickly grew to understand
The ways and customs which prevailed:
Those who won favor, those who failed;
What feasting rooms had echoed laughter;
What kisses stolen in what hall;
What corners where the old had cried;
What stairways where the breathless bride
Paused for a moment just to toss
Among the bridesmaids her bouquet;
What rooms where men in work or play
Approved or cursed for gain or loss
The Tavern’s roof-tree, roof and rafter.

Then when I woke, as I have said,
Save a few children there was none
Who was not older far than I.
Many were trembling gray of head;
The strong walked forth in rain or sun
And seemed all danger to defy.
All welcomed me and called me fair,
And told me strange events which passed
Around the Tavern while I slept.
Soon there were changes. Scarce aware
Of their departure many stept
Out of the door and seemed to cast
Their fortunes elsewhere, but as fast
New guests came in to take the places
Of those who left. And through the day
I lost the old, remembering faces
Freshly arrived. When it was noon
I knew what things were opportune,
I had become one of the crowd
In all their ways initiate:
Knew what their love was, what their hate,
Myself stole kisses in the hall,
And saw the old who sat and cried
In corners, saw the rosy bride
Pause for a moment just to toss
Among the bridesmaids her bouquet,
Where I stood best man to the groom.
Was myself of the noisy room,
Where men in work or men in play
Approve or curse the gain or loss.

Toward afternoon I seemed to feel
More people knew me than I knew.
Then it was good to meet with you.
I saw you as you left the stair.
And who were you? I do not dare
To praise your brow, or paint your hair,
Your eyes how gray, or were they blue?
A pain strikes through me if I let
The full strength of my love have sway.
I only know I can forget
All others who had gone away
Remembering our happy day
Together in the house and yard.
It was to you all fair and new.
You listened with such rapt regard
To all the stories of the guests,
And what had been their interests.
And was the Tavern just the same
As it had been before you came,
You asked me, and I answered, yes,
No change, my dear, not even the name.

No change, except the people change,
And change they do, I must confess.
In truth a few alone remain
Of those who lived here when I first
Entered the door there, most are strange.
And as I rose much earlier
Than you arose, you may suppose
I shall grow drowsy, yet who knows
Before you do, and leave the stir
The dancing, feasting, just to creep
Back for another night of sleep.
I’d like so well to stay awake
And watch the dancing for your sake.
It may be, though it scarce may be—
No one remained awake for me.

You cannot fail to find the bed
When you are sleepy, but no doubt
It will be black with the light out.
Come dear, that sleep is loveliest
Where side by side two lovers rest,
That sweetens sleep—it may be best!

Thereon in fitting state, the waiter took
And bowed in admiration, then
You snapped your silver case again
And from the holders shook
Such cigarettes as Turkish grandees smoke,
And blew the perfumed incense forth,
Descanting on our life, the worth
Of lawyers, noted folk:

Of judges, politicians, governors,
Until the dinner came at last.
And there amid the rich repast
We poor solicitors

Gloried in life, and ruddy faced would laugh
At any mishap, any fate
That we could fancy might await,
And glorying would quaff

Incredible goblets of the quickening juice,
With blackest coffee topping all,
And afterwards a cordial—
Nothing we could abuse

And nothing hurt us, Edward! It was well
We lived, I think, and memories stored:
For now I am a little bored
With the invariable

And settled round of nights and days wherein
I must have sleep to work, and keep
Abstemious to work and sleep—
While you long since have been
The tangled lion of a woman’s hair
Who reads you novels and the news,
And mends you, tends you, even brews
Your broth and gives you care

In these dyspeptic mornings. As for me
The cafés, gardens haunt me yet.
I go about as one who can’t forget
A dead felicity—

The Bismarck, Rector’s where I enter not—
The music all is changed—and where
No faces that we knew are there,
And where we are forgot.

And in between the tangled arms and legs,
And clinches which you break, you glide
Red-haired, athletic, watchful eyed,
And like a lager keg’s
Round fulness is your chest, your arms all bare,
Coatless, a figure memorable.
You should not be forgotten—well
And if it be to dare

The censure of a taste American
To celebrate your courage, wit,
I write you down what here is writ:
A referee, a man!

A judge who loved the game and whose decree
Had no taint on it, was more pure
Than much of our judicature,
Of every knavery free.

And what is here to shock or shake such nerves
As children’s are, delicate women’s?
There goes the short hook of Fitzsimmons,
And Thorne a moment swerves,

Then topples over, and lies quiet while
You count from one slowly to nine.
And Thorne lies there without a sign
Of life, but with a smile

After a time gets up, and reels across
The ring to his own corner, there
Flops wobbly in his corner’s chair,
And wonders at his loss.

While full ten thousand cheer, and watch you shake
The master hand, the general’s.
Such was our sport at Tattersall’s
Before the Puritan rake

Combed through the city. Now the sport is dead,
And you are dust these several years.
And we who drift to stale careers,
And live along and tread

The old deserted ways we loved and knew,
Ask sometimes how it was a cough
Could seize upon you, take you off—
A lad as strong as you?

If I say to you “Come, Ponto, want some meat?”
You laugh in your dog-way and bark your “Yes.”
And if I say “Shall we go walking” or
“Stand up, nice Ponto,” then you stand up, or
If I say to you “Lie down” you lie down.
You know what meat is, what it is to walk.
You see the meat perhaps or get an image
Of scampering on the street or chasing dogs
While sniffing in fresh air, exploring bushes.
Upon these levels our minds meet at once,
As if they were the same stuff for such thoughts.
But if I look into your eye and say:
I’ll read to you a chapter on harmonics,
Here’s mad Spinoza’s close wrought demonstration
Of God as substance, here is Isaac Newton’s
Great book on gravitation, here’s a thesis
Upon the logos, of the word made man.
Or if I say let’s talk about my soul—
Since I have talked to yours in terms of meat—
Which sails out like a spider on its thread
Through mathematics, music,—look at you
You merely lie there with half open eye,
And thump your tail quite feebly just because,
And for no other reason save I’m talking,
And I’m your master and you’re fond of me,
And through affection would no doubt be glad
To know what I am saying, as ’twere meat
I might be saying. But I know a way
To make you howl for things not understood:
It makes you howl to hear my new Victrola
With a Beethoven record, why is this?
Perhaps this is to you a maddening token
Of realms that lie above the realms of meat,
And torture you because they have suggestions
Of things beyond you.

But in any case,
Dear Ponto, if you were an infidel
“You might say “What’s harmonics? they’re a joke.”
“And who’s Spinoza, Newton, they are myths.”
“And mathematics, music, can you eat them,”
“For what you cannot eat has no existence.”
Deny them as you will these spheres of thought
Lie as the steps of mountains over you.
They wait for you to gain them, you can find them
By rising to them, then how real they are!
As real as scampering when I take a walk.
But are they all? How do I know what spheres
Of life lie all around me and above me,
Just waiting not for me, but till I climb
And rest awhile and take their meaning in.
How do I know what hand plays a Victrola
With records greater than Beethoven’s song,
Which make me howl as piteously as you?
But here again our minds meet on a level:
I know no more than you do why I howl;
Nor what it is that makes me howl, nor why,
Though not content with meat, I want to know,
And keep as all my own this higher music.