Spoon River Anthology
Page 18
Electrons in a granite stone,
Now I think.
ANOTHER FIGURE:
Oh, how alone!
ANOTHER FIGURE:
My lips to thine. Through thee I find
Something alone by love divined!
BEELZEBUB:
Begone! No, wait. I have bethought me, friends;
Let’s give a play.
(He waves his trumpet.)
To yonder green rooms go.
(The figures disappear.)
YOGARINDRA:
Oh, yes, a play! That’s very well, I think,
But who will be the audience? I must throw
Illusion over all.
LOKI:
And I must shift
The scenery, and tangle up the plot.
BEELZEBUB:
Well, so you shall! Our audience shall come
From yonder graves.
(He blows his trumpet slightly louder than before. The scene changes. A stage arises among the graves. The curtain is down, concealing the creatures just created, illuminated halfway up by spectral lights. BEELZEBUB stands before the curtain.)
BEELZEBUB:
(A terrific blast of the trumpet.)
Who-o-o-o-o-o!
(Immediately there is a rustling as of the shells of grasshoppers stirred by a wind; and hundreds of the dead, including those who have appeared in the Anthology, hurry to the sound of the trumpet.)
A VOICE:
Gabriel! Gabriel!
MANY VOICES:
The Judgment day!
BEELZEBUB:
Be quiet, if you please
At least until the stars fall and the moon.
MANY VOICES:
Save us! Save us!
(Beelzebub extends his hands over the audience with a benedictory motion and restores order.)
BEELZEBUB:
Ladies and gentlemen, your kind attention
To my interpretation of the scene.
I rise to give your fancy comprehension,
And analyze the parts of the machine.
My mood is such that I would not deceive you,
Though still a liar and the father of it,
From judgment’s frailty I would retrieve you,
Though falsehood is my art and though I love it.
Down in the habitations whence I rise,
The roots of human sorrow boundless spread.
Long have I watched them draw the strength that lies
In clay made richer by the rotting dead.
Here is a blossom, here a twisted stalk,
Here fruit that sourly withers ere its prime;
And here a growth that sprawls across the walk,
Food for the green worm, which it turns to slime.
The ruddy apple with a core of cork
Springs from a root which in a hollow dangles,
Not skillful husbandry nor laborious work
Can save the tree which lightning breaks and tangles.
Why does the bright nasturtium scarcely flower
But that those insects multiply and grow,
Which make it food, and in the very hour
In which the veined leaves and blossoms blow?
Why does a goodly tree, while fast maturing,
Turn crooked branches covered o’er with scale?
Why does the tree whose youth was not assuring
Prosper and bear while all its fellows fail?
I under earth see much. I know the soil.
I know where mold is heavy and where thin.
I see the stones that thwart the plowman’s toil,
The crooked roots of what the priests call sin.
I know all secrets, even to the core,
What seedlings will be upas, pine or laurel;
It cannot change howe’er the field’s worked o’er.
Man’s what he is and that’s the devil’s moral.
So with the souls of the ensuing drama
They sprang from certain seed in certain earth.
Behold them in the devil’s cyclorama,
Shown in their proper light for all they’re worth.
Now to my task: I’ll give an exhibition
Of mixing the ingredients of spirit.
(He waves his wand.)
Come, crucible, perform your magic mission,
Come, recreative fire, and hover near it!
I’ll make a soul, or show how one is made.
(He waves his wand again. Parti-colored flames appear.)
This is the woman you shall see anon!
(A red flame appears.)
This hectic flame makes all the world afraid:
It was a soldier’s scourge which ate the bone.
His daughter bore the lady of the action,
And died at thirty-nine of scrofula.
She was a creature of a sweet attraction,
Whose sex-obsession no one ever saw.
(A purple flame appears.)
Lo! this denotes aristocratic strains
Back in the centuries of France’s glory.
(A blue flame appears.)
And this the will that pulls against the chains
Her father strove until his hair was hoary.
Sorrow and failure made his nature cold,
He never loved the child whose woe is shown,
And hence her passion for the things which gold
Brings in this world of pride, and brings alone.
The human heart that’s famished from its birth
Turns to the grosser treasures, that is plain.
Thus aspiration fallen fills the earth
With jungle growths of bitterness and pain.
Of Celtic, Gallic fire our heroine!
Courageous, cruel, passionate and proud.
False, vengeful, cunning, without fear o’ sin.
A head that oft is bloody, but not bowed.
Now if she meet a man—suppose our hero,
With whom her chemistry shall war yet mix,
As if she were her Borgia to his Nero,
’Twill look like one of Satan’s little tricks!
However, it must be. The world’s great garden
Is not all mine. I only sow the tares.
Wheat should be made immune, or else the Warden
Should stop their coming in the world’s affairs.
But to our hero! Long ere he was born
I knew what would repel him and attract.
Such spirit mathematics, fig or thorn,
I can prognosticate before the fact.
(A yellow flame appears.)
This is a grandsire’s treason in an orchard
Against a maid whose nature with his mated.
(Lurid flames appear.)
And this his memory distrait and tortured,
Which marked the child with hate because she hated.
Our heroine’s grand dame was that maid’s own cousin—
But never this our man and woman knew.
The child, in time, of lovers had a dozen,
Then wed a gentleman upright and true.
And thus our hero had a double nature:
One half of him was bad, the other good.
The devil must exhaust his nomenclature
To make this puzzle rightly understood.
But when our hero and our heroine met
They were at once attracted, the repulsion
Was hidden under Passion, with her net
Which must enmesh you ere you feel revulsion.
The virus coursing in the soldier’s blood,
The orchard’s ghost, the unknown kinship ’twixt them,
Our hero’s mother’s lovers round them stood,
Shadows that smiled to see how Fate had fixed them.
This twain pledge vows and marry, that’s the play.
And then the tragic features rise and deepen.
He is a tender husband. When away
The serpents from the orchard slyly creep in.
/> Our heroine, born of spirit none too loyal,
Picks fruit of knowledge—leaves the tree of life.
Her fancy turns to France corrupt and royal,
Soon she forgets her duty as a wife.
You know the rest, so far as that’s concerned,
She met exposure and her husband slew her.
He lost his reason, for the love she spurned.
He prized her as his own—how slight he knew her.
(He waves a wand, showing a man in a prison cell.)
Now here he sits condemned to mount the gallows—
He could not tell his story—he is dumb.
Love, says your poets, is a grace that hallows,
I call it suffering and martyrdom.
The judge with pointed finger says, “You killed her.”
Well, so he did—but here’s the explanation;
He could not give it. I, the drama-builder,
Show you the various truths and their relation.
(He waves his wand.)
Now, to begin. The curtain is ascending,
They meet at tea upon a flowery lawn.
Fair, is it not? How sweet their souls are blending—
The author calls the play “Laocoon.”
A VOICE: Only an earth dream. ANOTHER VOICE: With which we are done. A flash of a comet Upon the earth stream. ANOTHER VOICE: A dream twice removed, A spectral confusion Of earth’s dread illusion. A FAR VOICE: These are the ghosts From the desolate coasts. Would you go to them? Only pursue them. Whatever enshrined is Within you is you. In a place where no wind is, Out of the damps, Be ye as lamps. Flame-like aspire, To me alone true, The Life and the Fire.
(BEELZEBUB, LOKI and YOGARINDRA vanish. The phantasmagoria fades out. Where the dead seemed to have assembled, only heaps of leaves appear. There is the light as of dawn. Voices of Spring.)
FIRST VOICE:
The springtime is come, the winter departed,
She wakens from slumber and dances light-hearted.
The sun is returning, We are done with alarms, Earth lifts her face burning, Held close in his arms. The sun is an eagle Who broods o’er his young, The earth is his nursling In whom he has flung The life-flame in seed, In blossom desire, Till fire become life, And life become fire.
SECOND VOICE: I slip and I vanish, I baffle your eye; I dive and I climb, I change and I fly. You have me, you lose me, Who have me too well, Now find me and use me— I am here in a cell.
THIRD VOICE: You are there in a cell? Oh, now for a rod With which to divine you— SECOND VOICE: Nay, child, I am God.
FOURTH VOICE:
When the waking waters rise from their beds of snow, under
the hill,
In little rooms of stone where they sleep when icicles reign,
The April breezes scurry through woodlands, saying “Fulfill!
Awaken roots under cover of soil—it is Spring again.”
Then the sun exults, the moon is at peace, and voices
Call to the silver shadows to lift the flowers from their dreams.
And a longing, longing enters my heart of sorrow, my heart that
rejoices
In the fleeting glimpse of a shining face, and her hair that gleams.
I arise and follow alone for hours the winding way by the river,
Hunting a vanishing light, and a solace for joy too deep.
Where do you lead me, wild one, on and on forever?
Over the hill, over the hill, and down to the meadows of sleep.
THE SUN:
Over the soundless depths of space for a hundred million miles
Speeds the soul of me, silent thunder, struck from a harp of fire.
Before my eyes the planets wheel and a universe defiles,
I but a luminant speck of dust upborne in a vast desire.
What is my universe that obeys me—myself compelled to obey
A power that holds me and whirls me over a path that has no end?
And there are my children who call me great, the giver of life
and day,
Myself a child who cry for life and know not whither I tend.
A million million suns above me, as if the curtain of night
Were hung before creation’s flame, that shone through the
weave of the cloth,
Each with its worlds and worlds and worlds crying upward
for light,
For each is drawn in its course to what?—as the candle draws
the moth.
THE MILKY WAY: Orbits unending, Life never ending, Power without end.
A VOICE: Wouldst thou be lord, Not peace but a sword. Not heart’s desire— Ever aspire. Worship thy power, Conquer thy hour, Sleep not but strive, So shalt thou live.
INFINITE DEPTHS: Infinite Law, Infinite Life.
Explanatory Notes
13 The Hill Oak Hill Cemetery in Lewistown, Illinois.
15 Hod Putt “Hard put” or put upon; an example of Masters’s endeavor to convey the vernacular of the residents of Petersburg and Lewistown.
20 Serepta Mason “Serepta the Scold” in Reedy’s Mirror of May 29, 1914.
25 Blackstone and Coke Reference to classic treatise on the laws of England.
26 Cambronne’s dying words “The guard dies but never surrenders,” attributed perhaps erroneously to Count Pierre-Jacques-Etienne Cambronne (1770-1842).
32 the "Q” railroad Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, which came through Lewistown.
34 “Butch” Weldy “ ‘Butch’ Weedy” in Reddy’s Mirror of June 19, 1914.
37 Mrs. Meyers “Mrs. Doctor Meyers” in Reedy’s Mirror of August 7, 1914.
39 battle of Missionary Ridge Civil War battle fought on November 25, 1863.
39 “Pro Patria” “For his country.”
46 Nirvana Buddhist idea of freedom from earthly suffering and union with God.
47 an Italian artist “some Italian artist” in Reedy’s Mirror of June 19, 1914.
48 Ralph Barrett Lawrence Barrett (1838-1891), an American actor.
48 Duse Eleonora Duse (1859-1924), an Italian actor.
49 “And Jesus said . . . paradise” Luke 23:43.
53 Theodore the Poet Theodore Dreiser; see the Introduction.
61 free-silver Monetary policy championed by William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) that allowed silver to be minted in unrestricted amounts to create inflation and thus provide more money or credit to farmers and other debtors.
61 the single-tax of Henry George Henry George (1839-1897), author of Progress and Poverty (1880), a socialist argument for a “single tax” on unused land owned by the rich.
61 Peerless Leader Bryan, who ran for president on the “free silver” platform in 1896. Masters campaigned for him in Chicago.
63 “Ace” Shaw “ ‘Ace’ Breeden” in Reedy’s Mirror of July 3, 1914.
67 the life Prostitution.
68 Beatrice Dante’s Beatrice in La vita nuova, or the ideal lover.
70 “Spiritus frumenti” Latin phrase for spirits or alcoholic beverage.
71 Robespierre Notorious leader of the French Revolution and Reign of Terror.
80 if the chattel slave / Had crowned the dominant dollar The Northern song of victory in the Civil War would not have been heard and the war would not have been waged if slavery had been economically viable outside the South. Here Masters expresses his neo-Confederate belief that Lincoln ruined the Jeffersonian spirit of the country, selling out its individuality to corporate and trust interests.
83 Campo Santo Famous cemetery in Italy.
83 “Contessa Navigato / Implora eterna quiete” “Countess Navigato asks for eternal peace.”
86 Nemesis Goddess of divine retribution in classical mythology.
87 blind man Homer.
87 Troy The Iliad and the “fall of Troy.”
88 “Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!” From Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-18).
95 the "Q” Se
e note for p. 32.
97 satyriasis Excessive preoccupation with sexual gratification.
97 leucaemia Leukemia.
102 “Act well . . . lies” From Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man (1734).
111 Pekin Variant of “Peking” or “Beijing.”
115 Fourierist gardens Nineteenth-century communes based on the principles of French socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837).
117 Thomas Rhodes Town banker and chief villain in Spoon River Anthology.
119 except Antiquated legal term for “object.”
120 Dom Pedro A breeding horse; see last ten lines of poem.
120 “Turkey in the straw” or “There is a fountain filled with blood” Two nineteenth-century songs, one a minstrel tune and the other a religious hymn, representing what Masters identified in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of March 29, 1918, as “the eternal struggle between those who want to live and those who want to save—those who want to enjoy this world and those who want to make it a hallway to another one.”
120 Pinafore Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore (1878).
126 Amos Sibley “Rev. George Sibley” in Reedy’s Mirror of September 11, 1914.
128 Charles T. Yerkes’ street-car franchise Ruthless street-car monopolist who was the basis for Theodore Dreiser’s Frank Cowperwood in The Titan. Masters assisted the author in its research.
128 Armour, Altgeld Philip Danforth Armour (1832-1901), Chicago industrialist, and John Peter Altgeld (1847-1902), governor of Illinois, the bases for minor characters in The Titan, a tale of Chicago corruption.
131 manner “Manor” in Reedy’s Mirror of January 1, 1915.
136 Jonathan Swift Somers Author of The Spooniad; see page 264 [Masters’s note].
138 the Anarchists Convicted anarchists in the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886.
138 a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes The blind goddess Justice.
142 Ingersoll Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), renowned orator and agnostic.
142 Brand Reference to the self-destructive protagonist in Henrik Ibsen’s play Brand (1866). Italics were removed after the 1916 edition.
143 He ran it with Transposed version of “He ran with it,” which was corrected in editions subsequent to the Macmillan in 1916, the copy-text for this edition.
144 demireps / . . . Theft According to the annotated edition of Spoon River Anthology (see Suggestions for Further Reading), “Demireps” refers to loose women; “Theft” refers to one’s fate as retribution for unscrupulous behavior.