A REPUBLIC
Her faith abandoned and her place despised,
Her mission lost through ridicule, hooted forth
From the forum she erected, by cat calls,
And tory sneers and schemes. Her basic law
Scoffed out of court, amended at the need
Of stomachology by the judges, or
A majority of States, as it is said—
Rather by drunks and grafters, for the time
The spokesmen of the States, coerced and scared
By Methodists with a fund to hire spies,
And unearth women scrapes, or other sins
With which to say: “Vote dry, or be exposed.”
A marsh Atlantic drifting, towed at last
By pirates into harbor, made a pasture
For alien hatreds, greeds. A shackled press,
And voices gagged, creative spirits frozen,
Obtunded by disgust or fear. War only,
Armies and navies speak the national mind,
And make it move as a man; for other things
Resistance, thought divided, ostracism,
Or jail for their protagonists. At the mast
The cross above the crossbones, in between
The starry banner. A people hatched like chickens:
Of feeble spirit for much intercrossing,
Without vision and without will, incapable
Of lusty revolution whatever right
Is spit upon or taken. A wriggling mass
Bemused and babbling, trampling private right
As a tyrant tramples it, calling it law
Because it speaks the majority of the mob.
A land that breeds the reformer, the infuriate
Will in the shallow mind, the plague of frogs
That hop into our rooms at Pharaoh’s will,
And soil our banquet dishes, hour of joy.
A giantess growing huger, duller of mind,
Her gland pituitary being lost.
THE INN
Low windows in the room
That tunnel the darkness with light!
The tick of a clock in the fog that hovers
From the cave and slide of the darkness
Into the tunnels of light.
A cannon stove, a dog at my feet;
Cheap magazines on a table,
Dead flies, an atlas;
A register for guests,
And stillness! Not a voice, a step—
Only the tick of the clock!
Mists of Fear, Mists of Memory, swirl and writhe,
Dive, curl and coil
From the mountain tops.
A stretch of ochre grass by the river;
Bent trees imploring the sun;
And by the inn a road that stretches
Along the river, full of dead dreams, patience,
Weariness long endured!
Second morning of rain.
Second morning of separation, death in loneliness!
The wind rushes to the corner of the porch
And sighs as it hides.
Second morning that I see
The walker of the road:
An opera cloak of blue blows round him,
Flaps out a lining of red.
And an Alpine hat comes down to his little ears.
He is booted, he limps a little.
But he’s a figure compacted of iron,
He’s master of the landscape;
He has cowed it, kicks it about him,
As if to say: “A village, a road,
A river, mountains, rain, an inn,
And a lonely soul in the inn.
Well, what of it? To-morrow Benares,
To-morrow Bactria—who knows?”
And I know as well as I know dead flies,
And the tick of the clock
He wants me, passes the inn to draw me.
Strides to my view, though he never looks in.
The flap of his cloak is a gesture;
His eyes fixed straight ahead allure.
He is passing again, returns and passes.
I can stand no more!
I walk from the room, and haste to his side.
A rusty hand out of the blue of his cloak
Reaches for mine; silken soft in the palm
Like an anthropoid’s, but boned
To the strength of bronze in the fingers.
Red scar on his cheek—a sabre cut!
Or was it an aiguille gashed him
When he fell headlong like a meteor,
And rolled to a valley, got up, shook out,
And dusted himself, set forth to travel
From Ctesiphon to Sarajevo?...