The Great Valley

by Edgar Lee Masters

If I had only loved
Elizabeth, who wrote me years ago
Such pleading letters—every man can win
Some woman’s love completely, had she won
My love as well! O what a monstrous world
Where such envenomed fire is, held by Chance
And shot in blindness. So she felt the flame
And looked on me, I felt the flame and looked
Upon this cockatrice.

So as I said
I had been teacher, actor, writer, poet,
Had seen my face on lithographs, felt warm
In every capillary for that face
Which seemed star-guided, noble, to be loved,
Revered, and thus through self-esteem I bore
My failures hoping, buoyed by some success
As the swift years went by.

But on a day
When I was forty-five, looked thirty-five,
No gray hairs then, they called me thirty-five,
My name went round the city, in the press
They hailed me as a genius, I had played
Othello to their liking, was yet young
And promised much, they said. That afternoon
A woman came to see me in my suite,
Wonder and admiration in her eyes.
Her manner halted, as she thumbed a book
Upon the table, while she told her tale:
She had won favor as an amateur,
Could I, the greatest talked of man to-day,
Show her the way to greatness, might it be
A modest part could be assigned to her
When I played mad Othello?

I have found
That when a woman has no business with you
Her calling speaks the oldest one of all.
So true to this I acted. We commenced
And for three months I struggled for the prize.
Her first play was to make me pity her.
She told me of her suffering, her youth,
(She was then thirty-five), her poverty,
Her labor to learn French. And like a man
I pitied her and opened up my purse.
She said, “No! No! this hat and dress will do,
It brushes well.” She would not take a cent.
I saw her daily for a month before
I won her. Though she gave me hands and lips—
There was a fury in her lips, my heart
Seemed like to stop—I could not win the prize.
One day she broke in tears: “You seemed so noble,
So great of mind, are you then like the rest
Who want a woman’s body, nothing else?”
“I want your love,” I said, “your love for mine,
I love you, dearest!” faugh, must I repeat
The gagging words? So I declared the love
I felt too deeply, and to prove my love
I added: “I’ll renounce the gift of love,
My Lady Wonderful, worship you afar.
You would not have me tortured by your eyes,
Nor have me see you often, in this case!”
So I had given love as I had given
All wealth that I could pour of soul, achievement,
Name in the world, all pride, all thought of self
Present or future to this woman, now
For love’s sake I renounced the gift of love.
And so I left her. Well, she called me back.
And though I was a fool, and blinded too,
I saw her thought and won her in an hour.
So then commenced my madness, for she said
It could not be again. The blood I tasted
Could not be drunk. “You love me,” she would say,
“Then bring me not to shame, it will be known
If we go on. I cannot lose my bread.
Librarians cannot have their names in doubt
Who serve the public, as I do.” So it was
The madness braced my will, and unrelenting
I sought her, won her. In a little while
We were adjusted to habitual love.
And I was happy save when I was mad.
For she knew younger men who came to call;
Or take her to the theatre, with one
She corresponded. “Let it be,” she said,
“I must not be in public with you, dear,
Whose name and greatness in the world would point
To our relationship, how could it be
You would be with a woman without station,
Celebrity or wealth, except for this?
These others are a blind.”

I could not solve
Out of the whirling clouds of passion truth—
My days were tortured, in the dreams of sleep
I saw this dragon head I told you of.
And so through heavy venery, and dread,
And anger, doubt, faith, love and much of hate,
I took to drink.

So drinking with her once,
For she could drink me blind, I turned and said:
“You say I am the first, I think you lie.”
She wailed a flood of tears. A hundred eyes
Turned on us in the café where we sat.

We left and walked the park. I goaded her,
Pried out the secret. Why, at twenty-three
She had become the mistress of a man.
It ended just six months before she came
To see me in my suite.

Now here I was:
To hold on to myself I had to hold
This woman, win her wholly, crush her soul,
Destroy her so she would no longer be
My heart’s desire. For I had given all.
And I could see she valued it the less
As time went on. My name, what was it now?
My art, what was it now? She even hinted
I could not act Othello. There was nothing
I could do more to keep her, hold her love,
Her admiration. O how good esteem
Seems to a man who forfeits it to her
Whose body he can have, who cannot have
That sympathy whereby a man is nerved
To daily work and living. What is Art?
No picture would be painted, poem sung
Save for the thought that woman close at hand,
Or somewhere in the world yet to be found
By reason of the picture or the poem,
Will see and love you for it.

Let me say
In passing, and dismiss it, I began
With little sums until I gave her much.
There’s matter of more moment.

I confess,
In spite of my licentious life, the creed
One sees among the artists, where I’ve lived,
To strong belief in woman’s virtue, yes,
In spite of lip avowal of the faith
Of love called free, I have not quite believed it.
But it was in her soul. She sucked that milk,
A child upon her mother’s breast, she said—
It all came out at last from many talks,
And then, just then, I thought I saw foreshadowed
A social change upon the things of sex:
We read together Ann Veronica,
And Bernard Shaw, and laughed and said, at last
We see each other clearly. We have found
A footing for our life. I slept at last.
The dragon vanished from my dreams. I waked
A song upon my lips, left drink alone,
Could face my image in the looking-glass,
And find restored a noble quality,
A strength and genius.