The Great Valley

by Edgar Lee Masters

So age cannot recall
The thrill and intimate complexities
That made the thought of youth. A sickness comes:
One has been metamorphosed, cannot live
The old emotions, habits, old delights.
And as for that we change each day and all
Our yesterdays are chrysalises whence
We crawled to what we are. In short, archangels,
I have become another soul. Now listen:

I have seen things I cannot tell you of.
I have gained understandings past my power
To give you clearly; yet upon me rests
The teasing call to tell you, here I lie
Revolving this new task of leadership.
How shall I make you see I have not failed you?
Not really played a treasonous soul to you?
Not scorned the cause I gave you, kept you in?
Or damned you for, or made you suffer for?
I railed at heaven, I instructed you
To rail as well. How can you understand
I now accept the fate? Will you despise me
For saying this? Or will you say disease
Has weakened me, cooled off the fire of soul
And damped my courage? Then go on your way
To find a worthier leader?

So to doubt
I taught you once, but now my mind believes.
And to deny the order of the world
I gave you words, now I affirm the plan.
To fight against the gods in man’s behalf,
I made my leadership. Now I perceive
The cause of gods and men made one. You see
It is not individual gain that counts
In these external benefits of freedom
And satisfaction of material wants,
That counts so much, I say, as inner chains
Struck from the wrists, and inner scales peeled off
From inner eyes. I grant the human cause,
And say this,—Can I make you understand?
To give you proof my heart is with you yet
Let me reveal my sacrifice.

Suppose
You’ve found a truth that others knew before you,
Seen, let us say, the cat, as single taxers
Are wont to say? You hunt up some adherent
Who’s labored with you, tell him, “I’m convinced,
I see the cat at last.” You want to share
Your joy with some one, want his dragging hope
To hear you have arrived. And so with me
I hungered to communicate my vision
To some one who had seen it, and who knew
Its meaning, what it meant to me.

But then
You archangels and hot Promethean seed
Each time I thought of making the confession
To some delighted spirit, ranged yourselves
In thought around my sick bed, with contempt,
Or pained compassion written on your brows,
And words like these: He has deserted us,
He has surrendered, cringed before the gods.
And so my sacrifice is this: You’ll be
The first to know my second birth, you can
In such case never charge it up to fear,
Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spirit
That lost the human touch through the effects
Of some delirium. What mind so clear,
Or will so strong to die with this denial
For your sakes? For it may be best for you
To live the rebel out of you. And if
You thought—at least I fear it—if you thought
I had gone over to the hosts you hate,
As you are now, through weakness, made my peace
With heaven, as you’d call it, just to save
My wretched self, you’d have a mad regret,
A fine disgust to work through, added labor
To all you must achieve. That’s why I die,
And seal this message. Break it on the day
They make me ashes!

BOMBYX

Sealed in a cocoon-cradle of white silk,
Locked fast in sleep;
Or bound for years as a chrysalid, while the neap
Creative tides rise to the spring and slough
The torn strands and the golden pupa stuff,
You tear wings free for the connubial flight—
Break suddenly the embryo trance, drift off,
Whole troops of you in a looped and colorful clutter
Wobbling like leaves in a fresh wind’s delight.
And over clover meadows in a flutter,
Or through sweet scented hollows,
You seek the expectant mate,
And the mad moment where life turns to death,
And both become one essence and one breath,
One undivided fate.

Together you fly
Drunken with life, yet mad to die,
Since soul achievement is death after all,
All rivals for the wedding festival.
Yet only one of you can win the prize;
The rest shall sink exhausted in defeat,
While the triumphant bridegroom dies
In his own rapture and creative fire—
All perish in the flame of their desire.

For none of you is given strength to live
Beyond the quest, or the hymeneal kiss;
The disappointed perish
One wins his joy, but may not keep or cherish
The moment which contains it, sudden doom
Falls on the winner of his bliss
And on the wings that quiver their frustration.

Bombyx! to have more life than is enough
To win the mate, achieve the one success,
And on that life to mount and half survey
The universe—
Build cities with it, letter precious scrolls,
Plan for the race to be and have the vision
To labor for of ages half elysian,
Is that a benediction or a curse?
Is it a good or evil to have strength
To soar beyond the sun, or planets even
If none of us at length
Reach heaven?
If none of our infatuate souls
Sip the bright fire of God?
If it be all a flying in a dream,
A lying down at last in deeper night,
To enrich the prodigal sod,
To breed new wings
For the same flight?