The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Three Taverns: A Book of Poems This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The Three Taverns: A Book of Poems Author : Edwin Arlington Robinson Release date : September 1, 1997 [eBook #1040] Most recently updated: October 29, 2024 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1040 Credits : Produced by Alan R. Light. HTML version by Al Haines. *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE TAVERNS: A BOOK OF POEMS *** [Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED. Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation is indented two spaces. Some obvious errors may have been corrected.] The Three Taverns A Book of Poems By Edwin Arlington Robinson Author of "The Man Against the Sky", "Merlin, A Poem", etc. [American (Maine) Poet. 1869-1935.] To THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY and LILLA CABOT PERRY Contents The Valley of the Shadow The Wandering Jew Neighbors The Mill The Dark Hills The Three Taverns Demos I Demos II The Flying Dutchman Tact On the Way John Brown The False Gods Archibald's Example London Bridge Tasker Norcross A Song at Shannon's Souvenir Discovery Firelight The New Tenants Inferential The Rat Rahel to Varnhagen Nimmo Peace on Earth Late Summer An Evangelist's Wife The Old King's New Jester Lazarus Several poems included in this book appeared originally in American periodicals, as follows: The Three Taverns, London Bridge, A Song at Shannon's, The New Tenants, Discovery, John Brown; Archibald's Example, The Valley of the Shadow; Nimmo; The Wandering Jew, Souvenir; Neighbors, Tact; Demos; The Mill, An Evangelist's Wife; Firelight; Late Summer; Inferential; The Flying Dutchman; On the Way, The False Gods; Peace on Earth; The Old King's New Jester. ————————— The Three Taverns ————————— The Valley of the Shadow There were faces to remember in the Valley of the Shadow, There were faces unregarded, there were faces to forget; There were fires of grief and fear that are a few forgotten ashes, There were sparks of recognition that are not forgotten yet. For at first, with an amazed and overwhelming indignation At a measureless malfeasance that obscurely willed it thus, They were lost and unacquainted — till they found themselves in others, Who had groped as they were groping where dim ways were perilous. There were lives that were as dark as are the fears and intuitions Of a child who knows himself and is alone with what he knows; There were pensioners of dreams and there were debtors of illusions, All to fail before the triumph of a weed that only grows. There were thirsting heirs of golden sieves that held not wine or water, And had no names in traffic or more value there than toys: There were blighted sons of wonder in the Valley of the Shadow, Where they suffered and still wondered why their wonder made no noise. There were slaves who dragged the shackles of a precedent unbroken, Demonstrating the fulfilment of unalterable schemes, Which had been, before the cradle, Time's inexorable tenants Of what were now the dusty ruins of their father's dreams. There were these, and there were many who had stumbled up to manhood, Where they saw too late the road they should have taken long ago: There were thwarted clerks and fiddlers in the Valley of the Shadow, The commemorative wreckage of what others did not know. And there were daughters older than the mothers who had borne them, Being older in their wisdom, which is older than the earth; And they were going forward only farther into darkness, Unrelieved as were the blasting obligations of their birth; And among them, giving always what was not for their possession, There were maidens, very quiet, with no quiet in their eyes: There were daughters of the silence in the Valley of the Shadow, Each an isolated item in the family sacrifice. There were creepers among catacombs where dull regrets were torches, Giving light enough to show them what was there upon the shelves — Where there was more for them to see than pleasure would remember Of something that had been alive and once had been themselves. There were some who stirred the ruins with a solid imprecation, While as many fled repentance for the promise of despair: There were drinkers of wrong waters in the Valley of the Shadow, And all the sparkling ways were dust that once had led them there. There were some who knew the steps of Age incredibly beside them, And his fingers upon shoulders that had never felt the wheel; And their last of empty trophies was a gilded cup of nothing, Which a contemplating vagabond would not have come to steal. Long and often had they figured for a larger valuation, But the size of their addition was the balance of a doubt: There were gentlemen of leisure in the Valley of the Shadow, Not allured by retrospection, disenchanted, and played out. And among the dark endurances of unavowed reprisals There were silent eyes of envy that saw little but saw well; And over beauty's aftermath of hazardous ambitions There were tears for what had vanished as they vanished where they fell. Not assured of what was theirs, and always hungry for the nameless, There were some whose only passion was for Time who made them cold: There were numerous fair women in the Valley of the Shadow, Dreaming rather less of heaven than of hell when they were old. Now and then, as if to scorn the common touch of common sorrow, There were some who gave a few the distant pity of a smile; And another cloaked a soul as with an ash of human embers, Having covered thus a treasure that would last him for a while. There were many by the presence of the many disaffected, Whose exemption was included in the weight that others bore: There were seekers after darkness in the Valley of the Shadow, And they alone were there to find what they were looking for. So they were, and so they are; and as they came are coming others, And among them are the fearless and the meek and the unborn; And a question that has held us heretofore without an answer May abide without an answer until all have ceased to mourn. For the children of the dark are more to name than are the wretched, Or the broken, or the weary, or the baffled, or the shamed: There are builders of new mansions in the Valley of the Shadow, And among them are the dying and the blinded and the maimed. The Wandering Jew I saw by looking in his eyes That they remembered everything; And this was how I came to know That he was here, still wandering. For though the figure and the scene Were never to be reconciled, I knew the man as I had known His image when I was a child. With evidence at every turn, I should have held it safe to guess That all the newness of New York Had nothing new in loneliness; Yet here was one who might be Noah, Or Nathan, or Abimelech, Or Lamech, out of ages lost, — Or, more than all, Melchizedek. Assured that he was none of these, I gave them back their names again, To scan once more those endless eyes Where all my questions ended then. I found in them what they revealed That I shall not live to forget, And wondered if they found in mine Compassion that I might regret. Pity, I learned, was not the least Of time's offending benefits That had now for so long impugned The conservation of his wits: Rather it was that I should yield, Alone, the fealty that presents The tribute of a tempered ear To an untempered eloquence. Before I pondered long enough On whence he came and who he was, I trembled at his ringing wealth Of manifold anathemas; I wondered, while he seared the world, What new defection ailed the race, And if it mattered how remote Our fathers were from such a place. Before there was an hour for me To contemplate with less concern The crumbling realm awaiting us Than his that was beyond return, A dawning on the dust of years Had shaped with an elusive light Mirages of remembered scenes That were no longer for the sight. For now the gloom that hid the man Became a daylight on his wrath, And one wherein my fancy viewed New lions ramping in his path. The old were dead and had no fangs, Wherefore he loved them — seeing not They were the same that in their time Had eaten everything they caught. The world around him was a gift Of anguish to his eyes and ears, And one that he had long reviled As fit for devils, not for seers. Where, then, was there a place for him That on this other side of death Saw nothing good, as he had seen No good come out of Nazareth? Yet here there was a reticence, And I believe his only one, That hushed him as if he beheld A Presence that would not be gone. In such a silence he confessed How much there was to be denied; And he would look at me and live, As others might have looked and died. As if at last he knew again That he had always known, his eyes Were like to those of one who gazed On those of One who never dies. For such a moment he revealed What life has in it to be lost; And I could ask if what I saw, Before me there, was man or ghost. He may have died so many times That all there was of him to see Was pride, that kept itself alive As too rebellious to be free; He may have told, when more than once Humility seemed imminent, How many a lonely time in vain The Second Coming came and went. Whether he still defies or not The failure of an angry task That relegates him out of time To chaos, I can only ask. But as I knew him, so he was; And somewhere among men to-day Those old, unyielding eyes may flash, And flinch — and look the other way. Neighbors As often as we thought of her, We thought of a gray life That made a quaint economist Of a wolf-haunted wife; We made the best of all she bore That was not ours to bear, And honored her for wearing things That were not things to wear. There was a distance in her look That made us look again; And if she smiled, we might believe That we had looked in vain. Rarely she came inside our doors, And had not long to stay; And when she left, it seemed somehow That she was far away. At last, when we had all forgot That all is here to change, A shadow on the commonplace Was for a moment strange. Yet there was nothing for surprise, Nor much that need be told: Love, with his gift of pain, had given More than one heart could hold. The Mill The miller's wife had waited long, The tea was cold, the fire was dead; And there might yet be nothing wrong In how he went and what he said: "There are no millers any more," Was all that she had heard him say; And he had lingered at the door So long that it seemed yesterday. Sick with a fear that had no form She knew that she was there at last; And in the mill there was a warm And mealy fragrance of the past. What else there was would only seem To say again what he had meant; And what was hanging from a beam Would not have heeded where she went. And if she thought it followed her, She may have reasoned in the dark That one way of the few there were Would hide her and would leave no mark: Black water, smooth above the weir Like starry velvet in the night, Though ruffled once, would soon appear The same as ever to the sight. The Dark Hills Dark hills at evening in the west, Where sunset hovers like a sound Of golden horns that sang to rest Old bones of warriors under ground, Far now from all the bannered ways Where flash the legions of the sun, You fade — as if the last of days Were fading, and all wars were done. The Three Taverns When the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum, and The Three Taverns. (Acts 28:15) Herodion, Apelles, Amplias, And Andronicus? Is it you I see — At last? And is it you now that are gazing As if in doubt of me? Was I not saying That I should come to Rome? I did say that; And I said furthermore that I should go On westward, where the gateway of the world Lets in the central sea. I did say that, But I say only, now, that I am Paul — A prisoner of the Law, and of the Lord A voice made free. If there be time enough To live, I may have more to tell you then Of western matters. I go now to Rome, Where Caesar waits for me, and I shall wait, And Caesar knows how long. In Caesarea There was a legend of Agrippa saying In a light way to Festus, having heard My deposition, that I might be free, Had I stayed free of Caesar; but the word Of God would have it as you see it is — And here I am. The cup that I shall drink Is mine to drink — the moment or the place Not mine to say. If it be now in Rome, Be it now in Rome; and if your faith exceed The shadow cast of hope, say not of me Too surely or too soon that years and shipwreck, And all the many deserts I have crossed That are not named or regioned, have undone Beyond the brevities of our mortal healing The part of me that is the least of me. You see an older man than he who fell Prone to the earth when he was nigh Damascus, Where the great light came down; yet I am he That fell, and he that saw, and he that heard. And I am here, at last; and if at last I give myself to make another crumb For this pernicious feast of time and men — Well, I have seen too much of time and men To fear the ravening or the wrath of either. Yes, it is Paul you see — the Saul of Tarsus That was a fiery Jew, and had men slain For saying Something was beyond the Law, And in ourselves. I fed my suffering soul Upon the Law till I went famishing, Not knowing that I starved. How should I know, More then than any, that the food I had — What else it may have been — was not for me? My fathers and their fathers and their fathers Had found it good, and said there was no other, And I was of the line. When Stephen fell, Among the stones that crushed his life away, There was no place alive that I could see For such a man. Why should a man be given To live beyond the Law? So I said then, As men say now to me. How then do I Persist in living? Is that what you ask? If so, let my appearance be for you No living answer; for Time writes of death On men before they die, and what you see Is not the man. The man that you see not — The man within the man — is most alive; Though hatred would have ended, long ago, The bane of his activities. I have lived, Because the faith within me that is life Endures to live, and shall, till soon or late, Death, like a friend unseen, shall say to me My toil is over and my work begun. How often, and how many a time again, Have I said I should be with you in Rome! He who is always coming never comes, Or comes too late, you may have told yourselves; And I may tell you now that after me, Whether I stay for little or for long, The wolves are coming. Have an eye for them, And a more careful ear for their confusion Than you need have much longer for the sound Of what I tell you — should I live to say More than I say to Caesar. What I know Is down for you to read in what is written; And if I cloud a little with my own Mortality the gleam that is immortal, I do it only because I am I — Being on earth and of it, in so far As time flays yet the remnant. This you know; And if I sting men, as I do sometimes, With a sharp word that hurts, it is because Man's habit is to feel before he sees; And I am of a race that feels. Moreover, The world is here for what is not yet here For more than are a few; and even in Rome, Where men are so enamored of the Cross That fame has echoed, and increasingly, The music of your love and of your faith To foreign ears that are as far away As Antioch and Haran, yet I wonder How much of love you know, and if your faith Be the shut fruit of words. If so, remember Words are but shells unfilled. Jews have at least A Law to make them sorry they were born If they go long without it; and these Gentiles, For the first time in shrieking history, Have love and law together, if so they will, For their defense and their immunity In these last days. Rome, if I know the name, Will have anon a crown of thorns and fire Made ready for the wreathing of new masters, Of whom we are appointed, you and I, — And you are still to be when I am gone, Should I go presently. Let the word fall, Meanwhile, upon the dragon-ridden field Of circumstance, either to live or die; Concerning which there is a parable, Made easy for the comfort and attention Of those who preach, fearing they preach in vain. You are to plant, and then to plant again Where you have gathered, gathering as you go; For you are in the fields that are eternal, And you have not the burden of the Lord Upon your mortal shoulders. What you have Is a light yoke, made lighter by the wearing, Till it shall have the wonder and the weight Of a clear jewel, shining with a light Wherein the sun and all the fiery stars May soon be fading. When Gamaliel said That if they be of men these things are nothing, But if they be of God they are for none To overthrow, he spoke as a good Jew, And one who stayed a Jew; and he said all. And you know, by the temper of your faith, How far the fire is in you that I felt Before I knew Damascus. A word here, Or there, or not there, or not anywhere, Is not the Word that lives and is the life; And you, therefore, need weary not yourselves With jealous aches of others. If the world Were not a world of aches and innovations, Attainment would have no more joy of it. There will be creeds and schisms, creeds in creeds, And schisms in schisms; myriads will be done To death because a farthing has two sides, And is at last a farthing. Telling you this, I, who bid men to live, appeal to Caesar. Once I had said the ways of God were dark, Meaning by that the dark ways of the Law. Such is the glory of our tribulations; For the Law kills the flesh that kills the Law, And we are then alive. We have eyes then; And we have then the Cross between two worlds — To guide us, or to blind us for a time, Till we have eyes indeed. The fire that smites A few on highways, changing all at once, Is not for all. The power that holds the world Away from God that holds himself away — Farther away than all your works and words Are like to fly without the wings of faith — Was not, nor ever shall be, a small hazard Enlivening the ways of easy leisure Or the cold road of knowledge. When our eyes Have wisdom, we see more than we remember; And the old world of our captivities May then become a smitten glimpse of ruin, Like one where vanished hewers have had their day Of wrath on Lebanon. Before we see, Meanwhile, we suffer; and I come to you, At last, through many storms and through much night. Yet whatsoever I have undergone, My keepers in this instance are not hard. But for the chance of an ingratitude, I might indeed be curious of their mercy, And fearful of their leisure while I wait, A few leagues out of Rome. Men go to Rome, Not always to return — but not that now. Meanwhile, I seem to think you look at me With eyes that are at last more credulous Of my identity. You remark in me No sort of leaping giant, though some words Of mine to you from Corinth may have leapt A little through your eyes into your soul. I trust they were alive, and are alive Today; for there be none that shall indite So much of nothing as the man of words Who writes in the Lord's name for his name's sake And has not in his blood the fire of time To warm eternity. Let such a man — If once the light is in him and endures — Content himself to be the general man, Set free to sift the decencies and thereby To learn, except he be one set aside For sorrow, more of pleasure than of pain; Though if his light be not the light indeed, But a brief shine that never really was, And fails, leaving him worse than where he was, Then shall he be of all men destitute. And here were not an issue for much ink, Or much offending faction among scribes. The Kingdom is within us, we are told; And when I say to you that we possess it In such a measure as faith makes it ours, I say it with a sinner's privilege Of having seen and heard, and seen again, After a darkness; and if I affirm To the last hour that faith affords alone The Kingdom entrance and an entertainment, I do not see myself as one who says To man that he shall sit with folded hands Against the Coming. If I be anything, I move a driven agent among my kind, Establishing by the faith of Abraham, And by the grace of their necessities, The clamoring word that is the word of life Nearer than heretofore to the solution Of their tomb-serving doubts. If I have loosed A shaft of language that has flown sometimes A little higher than the hearts and heads Of nature's minions, it will yet be heard, Like a new song that waits for distant ears. I cannot be the man that I am not; And while I own that earth is my affliction, I am a man of earth, who says not all To all alike. That were impossible, Even as it were so that He should plant A larger garden first. But you today Are for the larger sowing; and your seed, A little mixed, will have, as He foresaw, The foreign harvest of a wider growth, And one without an end. Many there are, And are to be, that shall partake of it, Though none may share it with an understanding That is not his alone. We are all alone; And yet we are all parcelled of one order — Jew, Gentile, or barbarian in the dark Of wildernesses that are not so much As names yet in a book. And there are many, Finding at last that words are not the Word, And finding only that, will flourish aloft, Like heads of captured Pharisees on pikes, Our contradictions and discrepancies; And there are many more will hang themselves Upon the letter, seeing not in the Word The friend of all who fail, and in their faith A sword of excellence to cut them down. As long as there are glasses that are dark — And there are many — we see darkly through them; All which have I conceded and set down In words that have no shadow. What is dark Is dark, and we may not say otherwise; Yet what may be as dark as a lost fire For one of us, may still be for another A coming gleam across the gulf of ages, And a way home from shipwreck to the shore; And so, through pangs and ills and desperations, There may be light for all. There shall be light. As much as that, you know. You cannot say This woman or that man will be the next On whom it falls; you are not here for that. Your ministration is to be for others The firing of a rush that may for them Be soon the fire itself. The few at first Are fighting for the multitude at last; Therefore remember what Gamaliel said Before you, when the sick were lying down In streets all night for Peter's passing shadow. Fight, and say what you feel; say more than words. Give men to know that even their days of earth To come are more than ages that are gone. Say what you feel, while you have time to say it. Eternity will answer for itself, Without your intercession; yet the way For many is a long one, and as dark, Meanwhile, as dreams of hell. See not your toil Too much, and if I be away from you, Think of me as a brother to yourselves, Of many blemishes. Beware of stoics, And give your left hand to grammarians; And when you seem, as many a time you may, To have no other friend than hope, remember That you are not the first, or yet the last. The best of life, until we see beyond The shadows of ourselves (and they are less Than even the blindest of indignant eyes Would have them) is in what we do not know. Make, then, for all your fears a place to sleep With all your faded sins; nor think yourselves Egregious and alone for your defects Of youth and yesterday. I was young once; And there's a question if you played the fool With a more fervid and inherent zeal Than I have in my story to remember, Or gave your necks to folly's conquering foot, Or flung yourselves with an unstudied aim, Less frequently than I. Never mind that. Man's little house of days will hold enough, Sometimes, to make him wish it were not his, But it will not hold all. Things that are dead Are best without it, and they own their death By virtue of their dying. Let them go, — But think you not the world is ashes yet, And you have all the fire. The world is here Today, and it may not be gone tomorrow; For there are millions, and there may be more, To make in turn a various estimation Of its old ills and ashes, and the traps Of its apparent wrath. Many with ears That hear not yet, shall have ears given to them, And then they shall hear strangely. Many with eyes That are incredulous of the Mystery Shall yet be driven to feel, and then to read Where language has an end and is a veil, Not woven of our words. Many that hate Their kind are soon to know that without love Their faith is but the perjured name of nothing. I that have done some hating in my time See now no time for hate; I that have left, Fading behind me like familiar lights That are to shine no more for my returning, Home, friends, and honors, — I that have lost all else For wisdom, and the wealth of it, say now To you that out of wisdom has come love, That measures and is of itself the measure Of works and hope and faith. Your longest hours Are not so long that you may torture them And harass not yourselves; and the last days Are on the way that you prepare for them, And was prepared for you, here in a world Where you have sinned and suffered, striven and seen. If you be not so hot for counting them Before they come that you consume yourselves, Peace may attend you all in these last days — And me, as well as you. Yes, even in Rome. Well, I have talked and rested, though I fear My rest has not been yours; in which event, Forgive one who is only seven leagues From Caesar. When I told you I should come, I did not see myself the criminal You contemplate, for seeing beyond the Law That which the Law saw not. But this, indeed, Was good of you, and I shall not forget; No, I shall not forget you came so far To meet a man so dangerous. Well, farewell. They come to tell me I am going now — With them. I hope that we shall meet again, But none may say what he shall find in Rome. Demos I All you that are enamored of my name And least intent on what most I require, Beware; for my design and your desire, Deplorably, are not as yet the same. Beware, I say, the failure and the shame Of losing that for which you now aspire So blindly, and of hazarding entire The gift that I was bringing when I came. Give as I will, I cannot give you sight Whereby to see that with you there are some To lead you, and be led. But they are dumb Before the wrangling and the shrill delight Of your deliverance that has not come, And shall not, if I fail you — as I might. Demos II So little have you seen of what awaits Your fevered glimpse of a democracy Confused and foiled with an equality Not equal to the envy it creates, That you see not how near you are the gates Of an old king who listens fearfully To you that are outside and are to be The noisy lords of imminent estates. Rather be then your prayer that you shall have Your kingdom undishonored. Having all, See not the great among you for the small, But hear their silence; for the few shall save The many, or the many are to fall — Still to be wrangling in a noisy grave. The Flying Dutchman Unyielding in the pride of his defiance, Afloat with none to serve or to command, Lord of himself at last, and all by Science, He seeks the Vanished Land. Alone, by the one light of his one thought, He steers to find the shore from which we came, — Fearless of in what coil he may be caught On seas that have no name. Into the night he sails; and after night There is a dawning, though there be no sun; Wherefore, with nothing but himself in sight, Unsighted, he sails on. At last there is a lifting of the cloud Between the flood before him and the sky; And then — though he may curse the Power aloud That has no power to die — He steers himself away from what is haunted By the old ghost of what has been before, — Abandoning, as always, and undaunted, One fog-walled island more. Tact Observant of the way she told So much of what was true, No vanity could long withhold Regard that was her due: She spared him the familiar guile, So easily achieved, That only made a man to smile And left him undeceived. Aware that all imagining Of more than what she meant Would urge an end of everything, He stayed; and when he went, They parted with a merry word That was to him as light As any that was ever heard Upon a starry night. She smiled a little, knowing well That he would not remark The ruins of a day that fell Around her in the dark: He saw no ruins anywhere, Nor fancied there were scars On anyone who lingered there, Alone below the stars. On the Way (Philadelphia, 1794) Note. — The following imaginary dialogue between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which is not based upon any specific incident in American history, may be supposed to have occurred a few months previous to Hamilton's retirement from Washington's Cabinet in 1795 and a few years before the political ingenuities of Burr — who has been characterized, without much exaggeration, as the inventor of American politics — began to be conspicuously formidable to the Federalists. These activities on the part of Burr resulted, as the reader will remember, in the Burr-Jefferson tie for the Presidency in 1800, and finally in the Burr-Hamilton duel at Weehawken in 1804. BURR Hamilton, if he rides you down, remember That I was here to speak, and so to save Your fabric from catastrophe. That's good; For I perceive that you observe him also. A President, a-riding of his horse, May dust a General and be forgiven; But why be dusted — when we're all alike, All equal, and all happy. Here he comes — And there he goes. And we, by your new patent, Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside, With our two hats off to his Excellency. Why not his Majesty, and done with it? Forgive me if I shook your meditation, But you that weld our credit should have eyes To see what's coming. Bury me first if -I- do. HAMILTON There's always in some pocket of your brain A care for me; wherefore my gratitude For your attention is commensurate With your concern. Yes, Burr, we are two kings; We are as royal as two ditch-diggers; But owe me not your sceptre. These are the days When first a few seem all; but if we live, We may again be seen to be the few That we have always been. These are the days When men forget the stars, and are forgotten. BURR But why forget them? They're the same that winked Upon the world when Alcibiades Cut off his dog's tail to induce distinction. There are dogs yet, and Alcibiades Is not forgotten. HAMILTON Yes, there are dogs enough, God knows; and I can hear them in my dreams. BURR Never a doubt. But what you hear the most Is your new music, something out of tune With your intention. How in the name of Cain, I seem to hear you ask, are men to dance, When all men are musicians. Tell me that, I hear you saying, and I'll tell you the name Of Samson's mother. But why shroud yourself Before the coffin comes? For all you know, The tree that is to fall for your last house Is now a sapling. You may have to wait So long as to be sorry; though I doubt it, For you are not at home in your new Eden Where chilly whispers of a likely frost Accumulate already in the air. I think a touch of ermine, Hamilton, Would be for you in your autumnal mood A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders. HAMILTON If so it is you think, you may as well Give over thinking. We are done with ermine. What I fear most is not the multitude, But those who are to loop it with a string That has one end in France and one end here. I'm not so fortified with observation That I could swear that more than half a score Among us who see lightning see that ruin Is not the work of thunder. Since the world Was ordered, there was never a long pause For caution between doing and undoing. BURR Go on, sir; my attention is a trap Set for the catching of all compliments To Monticello, and all else abroad That has a name or an identity. HAMILTON I leave to you the names — there are too many; Yet one there is to sift and hold apart, As now I see. There comes at last a glimmer That is not always clouded, or too late. But I was near and young, and had the reins To play with while he manned a team so raw That only God knows where the end had been Of all that riding without Washington. There was a nation in the man who passed us, If there was not a world. I may have driven Since then some restive horses, and alone, And through a splashing of abundant mud; But he who made the dust that sets you on To coughing, made the road. Now it seems dry, And in a measure safe. BURR Here's a new tune From Hamilton. Has your caution all at once, And over night, grown till it wrecks the cradle? I have forgotten what my father said When I was born, but there's a rustling of it Among my memories, and it makes a noise About as loud as all that I have held And fondled heretofore of your same caution. But that's affairs, not feelings. If our friends Guessed half we say of them, our enemies Would itch in our friends' jackets. Howsoever, The world is of a sudden on its head, And all are spilled — unless you cling alone With Washington. Ask Adams about that. HAMILTON We'll not ask Adams about anything. We fish for lizards when we choose to ask For what we know already is not coming, And we must eat the answer. Where's the use Of asking when this man says everything, With all his tongues of silence? BURR I dare say. I dare say, but I won't. One of those tongues I'll borrow for the nonce. He'll never miss it. We mean his Western Majesty, King George. HAMILTON I mean the man who rode by on his horse. I'll beg of you the meed of your indulgence If I should say this planet may have done A deal of weary whirling when at last, If ever, Time shall aggregate again A majesty like his that has no name. BURR Then you concede his Majesty? That's good, And what of yours? Here are two majesties. Favor the Left a little, Hamilton, Or you'll be floundering in the ditch that waits For riders who forget where they are riding. If we and France, as you anticipate, Must eat each other, what Caesar, if not yourself, Do you see for the master of the feast? There may be a place waiting on your head For laurel thick as Nero's. You don't know. I have not crossed your glory, though I might If I saw thrones at auction. HAMILTON Yes, you might. If war is on the way, I shall be — here; And I've no vision of your distant heels. BURR I see that I shall take an inference To bed with me to-night to keep me warm. I thank you, Hamilton, and I approve Your fealty to the aggregated greatness Of him you lean on while he leans on you. HAMILTON This easy phrasing is a game of yours That you may win to lose. I beg your pardon, But you that have the sight will not employ The will to see with it. If you did so, There might be fewer ditches dug for others In your perspective; and there might be fewer Contemporary motes of prejudice Between you and the man who made the dust. Call him a genius or a gentleman, A prophet or a builder, or what not, But hold your disposition off the balance, And weigh him in the light. Once (I believe I tell you nothing new to your surmise, Or to the tongues of towns and villages) I nourished with an adolescent fancy — Surely forgivable to you, my friend — An innocent and amiable conviction That I was, by the grace of honest fortune, A savior at his elbow through the war, Where I might have observed, more than I did, Patience and wholesome passion. I was there, And for such honor I gave nothing worse Than some advice at which he may have smiled. I must have given a modicum besides, Or the rough interval between those days And these would never have made for me my friends, Or enemies. I should be something somewhere — I say not what — but I should not be here If he had not been there. Possibly, too, You might not — or that Quaker with his cane. BURR Possibly, too, I should. When the Almighty Rides a white horse, I fancy we shall know it. HAMILTON It was a man, Burr, that was in my mind; No god, or ghost, or demon — only a man: A man whose occupation is the need Of those who would not feel it if it bit them; And one who shapes an age while he endures The pin pricks of inferiorities; A cautious man, because he is but one; A lonely man, because he is a thousand. No marvel you are slow to find in him The genius that is one spark or is nothing: His genius is a flame that he must hold So far above the common heads of men That they may view him only through the mist Of their defect, and wonder what he is. It seems to me the mystery that is in him That makes him only more to me a man Than any other I have ever known. BURR I grant you that his worship is a man. I'm not so much at home with mysteries, May be, as you — so leave him with his fire: God knows that I shall never put it out. He has not made a cripple of himself In his pursuit of me, though I have heard His condescension honors me with parts. Parts make a whole, if we've enough of them; And once I figured a sufficiency To be at least an atom in the annals Of your republic. But I must have erred. HAMILTON You smile as if your spirit lived at ease With error. I should not have named it so, Failing assent from you; nor, if I did, Should I be so complacent in my skill To comb the tangled language of the people As to be sure of anything in these days. Put that much in account with modesty. BURR What in the name of Ahab, Hamilton, Have you, in the last region of your dreaming, To do with "people"? You may be the devil In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals Are waiting on the progress of our ship Unless you steer it, but you'll find it irksome Alone there in the stern; and some warm day There'll be an inland music in the rigging, And afterwards on deck. I'm not affined Or favored overmuch at Monticello, But there's a mighty swarming of new bees About the premises, and all have wings. If you hear something buzzing before long, Be thoughtful how you strike, remembering also There was a fellow Naboth had a vineyard, And Ahab cut his hair off and went softly. HAMILTON I don't remember that he cut his hair off. BURR Somehow I rather fancy that he did. If so, it's in the Book; and if not so, He did the rest, and did it handsomely. HAMILTON Commend yourself to Ahab and his ways If they inveigle you to emulation; But where, if I may ask it, are you tending With your invidious wielding of the Scriptures? You call to mind an eminent archangel Who fell to make him famous. Would you fall So far as he, to be so far remembered? BURR Before I fall or rise, or am an angel, I shall acquaint myself a little further With our new land's new language, which is not — Peace to your dreams — an idiom to your liking. I'm wondering if a man may always know How old a man may be at thirty-seven; I wonder likewise if a prettier time Could be decreed for a good man to vanish Than about now for you, before you fade, And even your friends are seeing that you have had Your cup too full for longer mortal triumph. Well, you have had enough, and had it young; And the old wine is nearer to the lees Than you are to the work that you are doing. HAMILTON When does this philological excursion Into new lands and languages begin? BURR Anon — that is, already. Only Fortune Gave me this afternoon the benefaction Of your blue back, which I for love pursued, And in pursuing may have saved your life — Also the world a pounding piece of news: Hamilton bites the dust of Washington, Or rather of his horse. For you alone, Or for your fame, I'd wish it might have been so. HAMILTON Not every man among us has a friend So jealous for the other's fame. How long Are you to diagnose the doubtful case Of Demos — and what for? Have you a sword For some new Damocles? If it's for me, I have lost all official appetite, And shall have faded, after January, Into the law. I'm going to New York. BURR No matter where you are, one of these days I shall come back to you and tell you something. This Demos, I have heard, has in his wrist A pulse that no two doctors have as yet Counted and found the same, and in his mouth A tongue that has the like alacrity For saying or not for saying what most it is That pullulates in his ignoble mind. One of these days I shall appear again, To tell you more of him and his opinions; I shall not be so long out of your sight, Or take myself so far, that I may not, Like Alcibiades, come back again. He went away to Phrygia, and fared ill. HAMILTON There's an example in Themistocles: He went away to Persia, and fared well. BURR So? Must I go so far? And if so, why so? I had not planned it so. Is this the road I take? If so, farewell. HAMILTON Quite so. Farewell. John Brown Though for your sake I would not have you now So near to me tonight as now you are, God knows how much a stranger to my heart Was any cold word that I may have written; And you, poor woman that I made my wife, You have had more of loneliness, I fear, Than I — though I have been the most alone, Even when the most attended. So it was God set the mark of his inscrutable Necessity on one that was to grope, And serve, and suffer, and withal be glad For what was his, and is, and is to be, When his old bones, that are a burden now, Are saying what the man who carried them Had not the power to say. Bones in a grave, Cover them as they will with choking earth, May shout the truth to men who put them there, More than all orators. And so, my dear, Since you have cheated wisdom for the sake Of sorrow, let your sorrow be for you, This last of nights before the last of days, The lying ghost of what there is of me That is the most alive. There is no death For me in what they do. Their death it is They should heed most when the sun comes again To make them solemn. There are some I know Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation, For tears in them — and all for one old man; For some of them will pity this old man, Who took upon himself the work of God Because he pitied millions. That will be For them, I fancy, their compassionate Best way of saying what is best in them To say; for they can say no more than that, And they can do no more than what the dawn Of one more day shall give them light enough To do. But there are many days to be, And there are many men to give their blood, As I gave mine for them. May they come soon! May they come soon, I say. And when they come, May all that I have said unheard be heard, Proving at last, or maybe not — no matter — What sort of madness was the part of me That made me strike, whether I found the mark Or missed it. Meanwhile, I've a strange content, A patience, and a vast indifference To what men say of me and what men fear To say. There was a work to be begun, And when the Voice, that I have heard so long, Announced as in a thousand silences An end of preparation, I began The coming work of death which is to be, That life may be. There is no other way Than the old way of war for a new land That will not know itself and is tonight A stranger to itself, and to the world A more prodigious upstart among states Than I was among men, and so shall be Till they are told and told, and told again; For men are children, waiting to be told, And most of them are children all their lives. The good God in his wisdom had them so, That now and then a madman or a seer May shake them out of their complacency And shame them into deeds. The major file See only what their fathers may have seen, Or may have said they saw when they saw nothing. I do not say it matters what they saw. Now and again to some lone soul or other God speaks, and there is hanging to be done, — As once there was a burning of our bodies Alive, albeit our souls were sorry fuel. But now the fires are few, and we are poised Accordingly, for the state's benefit, A few still minutes between heaven and earth. The purpose is, when they have seen enough Of what it is that they are not to see, To pluck me as an unripe fruit of treason, And then to fling me back to the same earth Of which they are, as I suppose, the flower — Not given to know the riper fruit that waits For a more comprehensive harvesting. Yes, may they come, and soon. Again I say, May they come soon! — before too many of them Shall be the bloody cost of our defection. When hell waits on the dawn of a new state, Better it were that hell should not wait long, — Or so it is I see it who should see As far or farther into time tonight Than they who talk and tremble for me now, Or wish me to those everlasting fires That are for me no fear. Too many fires Have sought me out and seared me to the bone — Thereby, for all I know, to temper me For what was mine to do. If I did ill What I did well, let men say I was mad; Or let my name for ever be a question That will not sleep in history. What men say I was will cool no cannon, dull no sword, Invalidate no truth. Meanwhile, I was; And the long train is lighted that shall burn, Though floods of wrath may drench it, and hot feet May stamp it for a slight time into smoke That shall blaze up again with growing speed, Until at last a fiery crash will come To cleanse and shake a wounded hemisphere, And heal it of a long malignity That angry time discredits and disowns. Tonight there are men saying many things; And some who see life in the last of me Will answer first the coming call to death; For death is what is coming, and then life. I do not say again for the dull sake Of speech what you have heard me say before, But rather for the sake of all I am, And all God made of me. A man to die As I do must have done some other work Than man's alone. I was not after glory, But there was glory with me, like a friend, Throughout those crippling years when friends were few, And fearful to be known by their own names When mine was vilified for their approval. Yet friends they are, and they did what was given Their will to do; they could have done no more. I was the one man mad enough, it seems, To do my work; and now my work is over. And you, my dear, are not to mourn for me, Or for your sons, more than a soul should mourn In Paradise, done with evil and with earth. There is not much of earth in what remains For you; and what there may be left of it For your endurance you shall have at last In peace, without the twinge of any fear For my condition; for I shall be done With plans and actions that have heretofore Made your days long and your nights ominous With darkness and the many distances That were between us. When the silence comes, I shall in faith be nearer to you then Than I am now in fact. What you see now Is only the outside of an old man, Older than years have made him. Let him die, And let him be a thing for little grief. There was a time for service, and he served; And there is no more time for anything But a short gratefulness to those who gave Their scared allegiance to an enterprise That has the name of treason — which will serve As well as any other for the present. There are some deeds of men that have no names, And mine may like as not be one of them. I am not looking far for names tonight. The King of Glory was without a name Until men gave him one; yet there He was, Before we found Him and affronted Him With numerous ingenuities of evil, Of which one, with His aid, is to be swept And washed out of the world with fire and blood. Once I believed it might have come to pass With a small cost of blood; but I was dreaming — Dreaming that I believed. The Voice I heard When I left you behind me in the north, — To wait there and to wonder and grow old Of loneliness, — told only what was best, And with a saving vagueness, I should know Till I knew more. And had I known even then — After grim years of search and suffering, So many of them to end as they began — After my sickening doubts and estimations Of plans abandoned and of new plans vain — After a weary delving everywhere For men with every virtue but the Vision — Could I have known, I say, before I left you That summer morning, all there was to know — Even unto the last consuming word That would have blasted every mortal answer As lightning would annihilate a leaf, I might have trembled on that summer morning; I might have wavered; and I might have failed. And there are many among men today To say of me that I had best have wavered. So has it been, so shall it always be, For those of us who give ourselves to die Before we are so parcelled and approved As to be slaughtered by authority. We do not make so much of what they say As they of what our folly says of us; They give us hardly time enough for that, And thereby we gain much by losing little. Few are alive to-day with less to lose Than I who tell you this, or more to gain; And whether I speak as one to be destroyed For no good end outside his own destruction, Time shall have more to say than men shall hear Between now and the coming of that harvest Which is to come. Before it comes, I go — By the short road that mystery makes long For man's endurance of accomplishment. I shall have more to say when I am dead. The False Gods "We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit, From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet. You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes, — Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet. "You may swear that we are solid, you may say that we are strong, But we know that we are neither and we say that you are wrong; You may find an easy worship in acclaiming our indulgence, But your large admiration of us now is not for long. "If your doom is to adore us with a doubt that's never still, And you pray to see our faces — pray in earnest, and you will. You may gaze at us and live, and live assured of our confusion: For the False Gods are mortal, and are made for you to kill. "And you may as well observe, while apprehensively at ease With an Art that's inorganic and is anything you please, That anon your newest ruin may lie crumbling unregarded, Like an old shrine forgotten in a forest of new trees. "Howsoever like no other be the mode you may employ, There's an order in the ages for the ages to enjoy; Though the temples you are shaping and the passions you are singing Are a long way from Athens and a longer way from Troy. "When we promise more than ever of what never shall arrive, And you seem a little more than ordinarily alive, Make a note that you are sure you understand our obligations — For there's grief always auditing where two and two are five. "There was this for us to say and there was this for you to know, Though it humbles and it hurts us when we have to tell you so. If you doubt the only truth in all our perjured composition, May the True Gods attend you and forget us when we go." Archibald's Example Old Archibald, in his eternal chair, Where trespassers, whatever their degree, Were soon frowned out again, was looking off Across the clover when he said to me: "My green hill yonder, where the sun goes down Without a scratch, was once inhabited By trees that injured him — an evil trash That made a cage, and held him while he bled. "Gone fifty years, I see them as they were Before they fell. They were a crooked lot To spoil my sunset, and I saw no time In fifty years for crooked things to rot. "Trees, yes; but not a service or a joy To God or man, for they were thieves of light. So down they came. Nature and I looked on, And we were glad when they were out of sight. "Trees are like men, sometimes; and that being so, So much for that." He twinkled in his chair, And looked across the clover to the place That he remembered when the trees were there. London Bridge "Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing — and what of it? Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that? If I were not their father and if you were not their mother, We might believe they made a noise. . . . What are you — driving at!" "Well, be glad that you can hear them, and be glad they are so near us, — For I have heard the stars of heaven, and they were nearer still. All within an hour it is that I have heard them calling, And though I pray for them to cease, I know they never will; For their music on my heart, though you may freeze it, will fall always, Like summer snow that never melts upon a mountain-top. Do you hear them? Do you hear them overhead — the children — singing? Do you hear the children singing? . . . God, will you make them stop!" "And what now in his holy name have you to do with mountains? We're back to town again, my dear, and we've a dance tonight. Frozen hearts and falling music? Snow and stars, and — what the devil! Say it over to me slowly, and be sure you have it right." "God knows if I be right or wrong in saying what I tell you, Or if I know the meaning any more of what I say. All I know is, it will kill me if I try to keep it hidden — Well, I met him. . . . Yes, I met him, and I talked with him — today." "You met him? Did you meet the ghost of someone you had poisoned, Long ago, before I knew you for the woman that you are? Take a chair; and don't begin your stories always in the middle. Was he man, or was he demon? Anyhow, you've gone too far To go back, and I'm your servant. I'm the lord, but you're the master. Now go on with what you know, for I'm excited." "Do you mean — Do you mean to make me try to think that you know less than I do?" "I know that you foreshadow the beginning of a scene. Pray be careful, and as accurate as if the doors of heaven Were to swing or to stay bolted from now on for evermore." "Do you conceive, with all your smooth contempt of every feeling, Of hiding what you know and what you must have known before? Is it worth a woman's torture to stand here and have you smiling, With only your poor fetish of possession on your side? No thing but one is wholly sure, and that's not one to scare me; When I meet it I may say to God at last that I have tried. And yet, for all I know, or all I dare believe, my trials Henceforward will be more for you to bear than are your own; And you must give me keys of yours to rooms I have not entered. Do you see me on your threshold all my life, and there alone? Will you tell me where you see me in your fancy — when it leads you Far enough beyond the moment for a glance at the abyss?" "Will you tell me what intrinsic and amazing sort of nonsense You are crowding on the patience of the man who gives you — this? Look around you and be sorry you're not living in an attic, With a civet and a fish-net, and with you to pay the rent. I say words that you can spell without the use of all your letters; And I grant, if you insist, that I've a guess at what you meant." "Have I told you, then, for nothing, that I met him? Are you trying To be merry while you try to make me hate you?" "Think again, My dear, before you tell me, in a language unbecoming To a lady, what you plan to tell me next. If I complain, If I seem an atom peevish at the preference you mention — Or imply, to be precise — you may believe, or you may not, That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are. But I shouldn't throw that at you. Make believe that I forgot. Make believe that he's a genius, if you like, — but in the meantime Don't go back to rocking-horses. There, there, there, now." "Make believe! When you see me standing helpless on a plank above a whirlpool, Do I drown, or do I hear you when you say it? Make believe? How much more am I to say or do for you before I tell you That I met him! What's to follow now may be for you to choose. Do you hear me? Won't you listen? It's an easy thing to listen. . . ." "And it's easy to be crazy when there's everything to lose." "If at last you have a notion that I mean what I am saying, Do I seem to tell you nothing when I tell you I shall try? If you save me, and I lose him — I don't know — it won't much matter. I dare say that I've lied enough, but now I do not lie."