XXXVIII. BLOOM FOR EVER, O REPUBLIC!
We crossed the line again and returned to the United States. And then we went to the city of St. Paul, and we saw the falls where Minnehaha and Hiawatha met. We stood on the high bank of the Mississippi and considered meditatively the mounds of the mound-builders there. What more impressive symbol for a world-traveller than these pre-historic mounds—there before the Indians came—emblems of the infinite forgotten past of man! Then we went to Chicago. We saw the beautiful Wrigley building which has risen to look from drab Chicago over Michigan Lake—a building raised by the profits of gum! Vachel introduced me to the first sponsor of his verse, Harriet Monroe, of “Poetry,” and he described to me how he and W. B. Yeats once divided the annual poetry prize of Chicago, and how he was to have read aloud the prize poem—“General William Booth Enters Heaven,” but to the surprise of the company assembled gave his new, hitherto unheard-of work “The Congo,” a poem which at that time must have been dumfounding in its novelty. Then Yeats, who seemed to have snubbed every one including the poet himself, made a very generous speech in favour of Lindsay’s genius. And we met Chicago’s poet, Carl Sandburg, a rugged Scandinavian with brown hair who claimed me as a “Nordic” also. And he carried a large and old guitar on which he thrummed when reciting his poems. He has heard Negro Blues in the South, and loves the coloured folk, and has a whole repertoire of blues which he will sing you if you will. I had a glass of beer with Sandburg in Milwaukee, the only glass of anything of the kind offered me this time in these dry United States. I met Ridgely Torrance, gentle and whimsical, with one long lock of hair on his head like a Russian khokhol. Curiously enough, he also had been enchanted by the Negroes and knew more about them than us all, and he read poetry to us. There I met beautiful Zona Gale of Portage whom, it is said, nearly every literary man who ever met her has at some time or other loved. And meeting Zona I met Lulu Bett. We met delectable Isidora, once queen of Springfield, now queen of another city. And we stayed with Mrs. William Vaughan Moody, widow of that dramatist and poet who wrote “The Great Divide” and “The Fire-Bringer.” We were a rough-looking couple to be a lady’s guests, but Harriet Moody loves the whole writing world for her husband’s sake and took us in, and I found in her what so many know—a vivid personality, endlessly kind. And couldn’t she cook! We loved her for her poetry and we loved her for her pies.
We went to Springfield, Illinois, and there we had a general clean-up and our mosquito netting came back from the laundry marked “Lace; two pieces.” I visited all Vachel’s cronies and friends and acquaintances and enemies, and there were articles about us in the Register and Journal every day for a fortnight, and I spoke to the Radical Kaffee Klatsch for the celebrated Isidor Levine, and to the Conservative Luncheon Club for the ubiquitous Elmer Neale, and I spoke to the Via Christi class for Mrs. Lindsay, and to the High School for Vachel’s old teacher, and to the readers in the Public Library for Martha Wilson. I had all the books on Russia put on a table, and I discoursed upon them. The most-read book was The Brothers Karamazof, which looked as if it had been in every bed in Springfield. We went to the Negro churches together; we talked to Charlie Gibbs the famous coloured attorney. We were entertained by Mrs. Warren—Drinkwater’s Springfield hostess. We could not visit the Governor—he was under arrest. But we visited the unsuccessful candidate for the governship at the last election. Vachel discoursed on small-town politics while Mrs. Sherman made us meringues. The poet introduced me to his sweethearts, who were of all ages, from twelve to eighty. I made friends with beautiful little Mary Jane Allen, who danced and glided into and out of our presence, and smiled at us and lifted her child’s heart to us. And we called on “Judith the Dancer,” who taught little Mary Jane. Always along the Springfield streets the sight of the children exhilarated my companion—“Stephen, I just love them to death,” said he.
I got to be very well known. I had a sort of royal progress in the street, questioned and smiled at on all hands. “’Scuse me,” they would say, “those boots, did you tramp in them?” or, “How d’ye do? My little girl heard you give your talk in the school yesterday. She’s full of it; it was mighty good of you.”
I came to love the people of this little city, and to see the place with Vachel’s creative eyes. Surely no one ever encountered such kindness, such real warmth of heart, as I did there. It was very moving for one who had come right out of the bitterness and quarrels of Europe and out of the loneliness of London. They know something about living which we are forgetting. They taught me much, and the poet has taught me much also—the bounty of good humour and of unfailing kindness and warmth. I love those who’ve got the strength of heart to lift their hands to take yours, who open their mouths actually to speak to you.
So I cannot tell the poet what I owe him, and he says he cannot tell me what he owes me. We made one final quest together, and that was to Salem where Abraham Lincoln lived a poor man’s life, and learned mathematics from Dominie Graham and fell in love with the daughter of his landlord—unforgettable Anne Rutledge. And we paused before the massive block of granite which marks Anne’s grave, strewn otherwise with flowers, and refulgent with thoughts. And we read Masters’s beautiful lines inscribed over the grave:
I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,
Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
Wedded to him, not through union
But through separation.
Bloom for ever, O Republic
From the dust of my bosom!
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.