The Great Valley

by Edgar Lee Masters

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 DESPLAINES FOREST

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.

THE GARDEN

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.