Читать книгу John Brown's Body - Stephen Vincent Benét - Страница 8

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Omnipotent and steadfast God, Who, in Thy mercy, hath Upheaved in me Jehovah's rod And his chastising wrath, For fifty-nine unsparing years Thy Grace hath worked apart To mould a man of iron tears With a bullet for a heart. Yet, since this body may be weak With all it has to bear, Once more, before Thy thunders speak, Almighty, hear my prayer. I saw Thee when Thou did display The black man and his lord To bid me free the one, and slay The other with the sword. I heard Thee when Thou bade me spurn Destruction from my hand And, though all Kansas bleed and burn, It was at Thy command. I hear the rolling of the wheels, The chariots of war! I hear the breaking of the seals And the opening of the door! The glorious beasts with many eyes Exult before the Crowned. The buried saints arise, arise Like incense from the ground! Before them march the martyr-kings, In bloody sunsets drest, O, Kansas, bleeding Kansas, You will not let me rest! I hear your sighing corn again, I smell your prairie-sky, And I remember five dead men By Pottawattamie. Lord God it was a work of Thine, And how might I refrain? But Kansas, bleeding Kansas, I hear her in her pain. Her corn is rustling in the ground, An arrow in my flesh. And all night long I staunch a wound That ever bleeds afresh. Get up, get up, my hardy sons, From this time forth we are No longer men, but pikes and guns In God's advancing war. And if we live, we free the slave, And if we die, we die. But God has digged His saints a grave Beyond the western sky. Oh, fairer than the bugle-call Its walls of jasper shine! And Joshua's sword is on the wall With space beside for mine. And should the Philistine defend His strength against our blows, The God who doth not spare His friend, Will not forget His foes. ------------ They reached the Maryland bridge of Harper's Ferry That Sunday night. There were twenty-two in all, Nineteen were under thirty, three not twenty-one, Kagi, the self-taught scholar, quiet and cool, Stevens, the cashiered soldier, Puritan-fathered, A singing giant, gunpowder-tempered and rash. Dauphin Thompson, the pippin-cheeked country-boy, More like a girl than a warrior; Oliver Brown, Married last year when he was barely nineteen; Dangerfield Newby, colored and born a slave, Freeman now, but married to one not free Who, with their seven children, waited him South, The youngest baby just beginning to crawl; Watson Brown, the steady lieutenant, who wrote Back to his wife, "Oh, Bell, I want to see you And the little fellow very much but must wait. There was a slave near here whose wife was sold South. They found him hanging in Kennedy's orchard next morning. I cannot come home as long as such things are done here. I sometimes think that we shall not meet again." These were some of the band. For better or worse They were all strong men. The bearded faces look strange In the old daguerreotypes: they should be the faces Of prosperous, small-town people, good sons and fathers, Good horse-shoe pitchers, good at plowing a field, Good at swapping stories and good at praying, American wheat, firm-rooted, good in the ear. There is only one whose air seems out of the common, Oliver Brown. That face has a masculine beauty Somewhat like the face of Keats. They were all strong men. They tied up the watchmen and took the rifle-works. Then John Brown sent a raiding party away To fetch in Colonel Washington from his farm. The Colonel was George Washington's great-grand-nephew, Slave-owner, gentleman-farmer, but, more than these, Possessor of a certain fabulous sword Given to Washington by Frederick the Great. They captured him and his sword and brought them along Processionally. The act has a touch of drama, Half costume-romance, half unmerited farce. On the way, they told the Washington slaves they were free, Or free to fight for their freedom. The slaves heard the news With the dazed, scared eyes of cattle before a storm. A few came back with the band and were given pikes, And, when John Brown was watching, pretended to mount A slipshod guard over the prisoners. But, when he had walked away, they put down their pikes And huddled together, talking in mourning voices. It didn't seem right to play at guarding the Colonel But they were afraid of the bearded patriarch With the Old Testament eyes. A little later It was Patrick Higgins' turn. He was the night-watchman Of the Maryland bridge, a tough little Irishman With a canny, humorous face, and a twist in his speech. He came humming his way to his job. "Halt!" ordered a voice. He stopped a minute, perplexed. As he told men later, "Now I didn't know what 'Halt!' mint, any more Than a hog knows about a holiday." There was a scuffle. He got away with a bullet-crease in his scalp And warned the incoming train. It was half-past-one. A moment later, a man named Shepherd Heyward, Free negro, baggage-master of the small station, Well-known in the town, hardworking, thrifty and fated, Came looking for Higgins. "Halt!" called the voice again, But he kept on, not hearing or understanding, Whichever it may have been. A rifle cracked. He fell by the station-platform, gripping his belly, And lay for twelve hours of torment, asking for water Until he was able to die. There is no stone, No image of bronze or marble green with the rain To Shepherd Heyward, free negro of Harper's Ferry, And even the books, the careful, ponderous histories, That turn live men into dummies with smiles of wax Thoughtfully posed against a photographer's background In the act of signing a treaty or drawing a sword, Tell little of what he was. And yet his face Grey with pain and puzzled at sudden death Stares out at us through the bookworm-dust of the years With an uncomprehending wonder, a blind surprise. "I was getting along," it says, "I was doing well. I had six thousand dollars saved in the bank. It was a good town, a nice town, I liked the folks And they liked me. I had a good job there, too. On Sundays I used to dress myself up slick enough To pass the plate in church, but I wasn't proud Not even when trashy niggers called me Mister, Though I could hear the old grannies over their snuff Mumbling along, 'Look, chile, there goes Shepherd Heyward. Ain't him fine in he Sunday clo'es--ain't him sassy and fine? You grow up decent and don't play ball in the street, And maybe you'll get like him, with a gold watch and chain.' And then, suddenly--and what was it all about? Why should anyone want to kill me? Why was it done?" So the grey lips. And so the hurt in the eyes. A hurt like a child's, at punishment unexplained That makes the whole child-universe fall to pieces. At the time of death, most men turn back toward the child. Brown did not know at first that the first man dead By the sword he thought of so often as Gideon's sword Was one of the race he had drawn that sword to free. It had been dark on the bridge. A man had come And had not halted when ordered. Then the shot And the scrape of the hurt man dragging himself away. That was all. The next man ordered to halt would halt. His mind was too full of the burning judgments of God To wonder who it had been. He was cool and at peace. He dreamt of a lamb, lying down by a rushing stream. So the night wore away, indecisive and strange. The raiders stuck by the arsenal, waiting perhaps For a great bell of jubilation to toll in the sky, And the slaves to rush from the hills with pikes in their hands, A host redeemed, black rescue-armies of God. It did not happen. Meanwhile, there was casual firing. A townsman named Boerley was killed. Meanwhile, the train Passed over the bridge to carry its wild news Of abolition-devils sprung from the ground A hundred and fifty, three hundred, a thousand strong To pillage Harper's Ferry, with fire and sword. Meanwhile the whole countryside was springing to arms. The alarm-bell in Charlestown clanged "Nat Turner has come.' Nat Turner has come again, all smoky from Hell, Setting the slave to murder and massacre!" The Jefferson Guards fell in. There were boys and men. They had no uniforms but they had weapons. Old squirrel-rifles, taken down from the wall, Shot guns loaded with spikes and scraps of iron. A boy dragged a blunderbuss as big as himself. They started for the Ferry. In a dozen A score of other sleepy, neighboring towns The same bell clanged, the same militia assembled. The Ferry itself was roused and stirring with dawn. And the firing began again. A queer, harsh sound In the ordinary streets of that clean, small town, A desultory, vapid, meaningless sound. God knows why John Brown lingered! Kagi, the scholar, Who, with two others, held the rifle-works, All morning sent him messages urging retreat. They had the inexorable weight of common sense Behind them, but John Brown neither replied Nor heeded, brooding in the patriarch-calm Of a lean, solitary pine that hangs On the cliff's edge, and sees the world below A tiny pattern of toy fields and trees, And only feels its roots gripping the rock And the almighty wind that shakes its boughs, Blowing from eagle-heaven to eagle-heaven. Of course they were cut off. The whole attempt Was fated from the first. Just about noon The Jefferson Guards took the Potomac Bridge And drove away the men Brown posted there. There were three doors of possible escape Open to Brown. With this the first slammed shut. The second followed it a little later With the recapture of the other bridge That cut Brown off from Kagi and the arsenal And penned the larger body of the raiders In the armory. Again the firing rolled, And now the first of the raiders fell and died, Dangerfield Newby, the freed Scotch-mulatto Whose wife and seven children, slaves in Virginia, Waited for him to bring them incredible freedom. They were sold South instead, after the raid. His body lay where the townspeople could reach it. They cut off his ears for trophies. If there are souls, As many think that there are or wish that there might be, Crystalline things that rise on light wings exulting Out of the spoilt and broken cocoon of the body, Knowing no sorrow or pain but only deliverance, And yet with the flame of speech, the patterns of memory, One wonders what the soul of Dangerfield Newby Said, in what terms, to the soul of Shepherd Heyward, Both born slave, both freed, both dead the same day. What do the souls that bleed from the corpse of battle Say to the tattered night? Perhaps it is better We have no power to visage what they might say. The firing now was constant, like the heavy And drumming rains of summer. Twice Brown sent Asking a truce. The second time there went Stevens and Watson Brown with a white flag. But things had gone beyond the symbol of flags. Stevens, shot from a window, fell in the gutter Horribly wounded. Watson Brown crawled back To the engine house that was the final fort Of Brown's last stand, torn through and through with slugs. A Mr. Brua, one of Brown's prisoners, Strolled out from the unguarded prison-room Into the bullets, lifted Stevens up, Carried him over to the old hotel They called the Wager House, got a doctor for him, And then strolled back to take his prisoner's place With Colonel Washington and the scared rest. I know no more than this of Mr. Brua But he seems curiously American, And I imagine him a tall, stooped man A little yellow with the Southern sun, With slow, brown eyes and a slow way of talking, Shifting the quid of tobacco in his cheek Mechanically, as he lifted up The dirty, bloody body of the man Who stood for everything he most detested And slowly carrying him through casual wasps Of death to the flyspecked but sunny room In the old hotel, wiping the blood and grime Mechanically from his Sunday coat, Settling his black string-tie with big, tanned hands, And, then, incredibly, going back to jail. He did not think much about what he'd done But sat himself as comfortably as might be On the cold bricks of that dejected guard-room And slowly started cutting another quid With a worn knife that had a brown bone-handle. He lived all through the war and died long after, This Mr. Brua I see. His last advice To numerous nephews was "Keep out of trouble, But if you're in it, chew and don't be hasty, Just do whatever's likeliest at hand." I like your way of talking, Mr. Brua, And if there still are people interested In cutting literary clothes for heroes They might do worse than mention your string-tie. There were other killings that day. On the one side, this, Leeman, a boy of eighteen and the youngest raider, Trying to flee from the death-trap of the engine-house And caught and killed on an islet in the Potomac. The body lay on a tiny shelf of rock For hours, a sack of clothes still stung by bullets. On the other side--Fontaine Beckham, mayor of the town, Went to look at Heyward's body with Patrick Higgins. The slow tears crept to his eyes. He was getting old. He had thought a lot of Heyward. He had no gun But he had been mayor of the town for a dozen years, A peaceful, orderly place full of decent people, And now they were killing people, here in his town, He had to do something to stop it, somehow or other. He wandered out on the railroad, half-distraught And peeped from behind a water-tank at the raiders. "Squire, don't go any farther," said Higgins, "It ain't safe." He hardly heard him, he had to look out again. Who were these devils with horns who were shooting his people? They didn't look like devils. One was a boy Smooth-cheeked, with a bright half-dreamy face, a little Like Sally's eldest. Suddenly, the air struck him A stiff, breath-taking blow. "Oh," he said, astonished. Took a step and fell on his face, shot through the heart. Higgins watched him for twenty minutes, wanting to lift him But not quite daring. Then he turned away And went back to the town. The bars had been open all day, Never to better business. When the news of Beckham's death spread from bar to bar, It was like putting loco-weed in the whiskey, The mob came together at once, the American mob, They mightn't be able to take Brown's last little fort But there were two prisoners penned in the Wager House. One was hurt already, Stevens, no fun killing him. But the other was William Thompson, whole and unwounded, Caught when Brown tried to send his first flag of truce. They stormed the hotel and dragged him out to the bridge, Where two men shot him, unarmed, then threw the body Over the trestle. It splashed in the shallow water, But the slayers kept on firing at the dead face. The carcass was there for days, a riven target, Barbarously misused. Meanwhile the armory yard Was taken by a new band of Beckham's avengers, The most of Brown's prisoners freed and his last escape cut off. What need to tell of the killing of Kagi the scholar, The wounding of Oliver Brown and the other deaths? Only this remains to be told. When the drunken day Reeled into night, there were left in the engine-house Five men, alive and unwounded, of all the raiders. Watson and Oliver Brown Both of them hurt to the death, were stretched on the floor Beside the corpse of Taylor, the young Canadian. There was no light, there. It was bitterly cold. A cold chain of lightless hours that slowly fell In leaden beads between two fingers of stone. Outside, the fools and the drunkards yelled in the streets, And, now and then, there were shots. The prisoners talked And tried to sleep. John Brown did not try to sleep, The live coals of his eyes severed the darkness; Now and then he heard his young son Oliver calling In the thirsty agony of his wounds, "Oh, kill me! Kill me and put me out of this suffering!" John Brown's jaw tightened. "If you must die," he said, "Die like a man." Toward morning the crying ceased. John Brown called out to the boy but he did not answer. "I guess he's dead," said John Brown. If his soul wept They were the incredible tears of the squeezed stone. He had not slept for two days, but he would not sleep. The night was a chained, black leopard that he stared down, Erect, on his feet. One wonders what sights he saw In the cloudy mirror of his most cloudy heart, Perhaps God clothed in a glory, perhaps himself The little boy who had stolen three brass pins And been well whipped for it. When he was six years old An Indian boy had given him a great wonder, A yellow marble, the first he had ever seen. He treasured it for months but lost it at last, Boylike. The hurt of the loss took years to heal. He never quite forgot. He could see it now, Smooth, hard and lovely, a yellow, glistening ball, But it kept rolling away through cracks of darkness Whenever he tried to catch it and hold it fast. If he could only touch it, he would be safe, But it trickled away and away, just out of reach, There by the wall . . . Outside the blackened East Began to tarnish with a faint, grey stain That caught on the fixed bayonets of the marines. Lee of Virginia, Light Horse Harry's son, Observed it broaden, thinking of many things, But chiefly wanting to get his business done, A curious, wry, distasteful piece of work For regular soldiers. Therefore to be finished As swiftly and summarily as possible Before this yelling mob of drunk civilians And green militia once got out of hand. His mouth set. Once already he had offered The honor of the attack to the militia, Such honor as it was. Their Colonel had Declined with a bright nervousness of haste. "Your men are paid for doing this kind of work. Mine have their wives and children." Lee smiled briefly, Remembering that. The smile had a sharp edge. Well, it was time. The whooping crowd fell silent And scattered, as a single man walked out Toward the engine-house, a letter in his hand. Lee watched him musingly. A good man, Stuart. Now he was by the door and calling out. The door opened a crack. Brown's eyes were there Over the cold muzzle of a cocked carbine. The parleying began, went on and on, While the crowd shivered and Lee watched it all With the strict commonsense of a Greek sword And with the same sure readiness. Unperceived, The dawn ran down the valleys of the wind, Coral-footed dove, tracking the sky with coral . . . Then, sudden as powder flashing in a pan, The parleying was done. The door slammed shut. The little figure of Stuart jumped aside Waving its cap. And the marines came on. Brown watched them come. One hand was on his carbine. The other felt the pulse of his dying son. "Sell your lives dear," he said. The rifle-shots Rattled within the bricked-in engine-room Like firecrackers set off in a stone jug, And there was a harsh stink of sweat and powder. There was a moment when the door held firm. Then it was cracked with sun. Brown fired and missed. A shadow with a sword leaped through the sun. "That's Ossawattomie," said the tired voice Of Colonel Washington. The shadow lunged And Brown fell to his knees. The sword bent double, A light sword, better for parades than fighting, The shadow had to take it in both hands And fairly rain his blows with it on Brown Before he sank. Now two marines were down, The rest rushed in over their comrades' bodies, Pinning one man of Brown's against the wall With bayonets, another to the floor. Lee, on his rise of ground, shut up his watch. It had been just a quarter of an hour Since Stuart gave the signal for the storm, And now it was over. All but the long dying. ------------ Cudjo, the negro, watched from the pantry The smooth glissades of the dancing gentry, His splay-feet tapping in time to the tune While his broad face beamed like a drunken moon At candles weeping in crystal sconces, Waxed floors glowing like polished bronzes, Sparkles glinting on Royal Worcester And all the stir and color and luster Where Miss Louisa and Miss Amanda, Proud dolls scissored from silver paper, With hoopskirts wide as the front veranda And the gypsy eyes of a caged frivolity, Pointed their toes in a satin caper To the nonchalant glory of the Quality. And there were the gentlemen, one and all, Friends and neighbors of Wingate Hall-- Old Judge Brooke from Little Vermilion With the rusty voice of a cracked horse-pistol And manners as stiff as a French cotillion. Huger Shepley and Wainscott Bristol, Hawky arrogant sons of anger Who rode like devils and fought like cocks And watched, with an ineffable languor Their spoilt youth tarnish a dicing-box. The Cazenove boys and the Cotter brothers, Pepperalls from Pepperall Ride. Cummings and Crowls and a dozen others, Every one with a name and a pride. Sallow young dandies in shirts with ruffles, Each could dance like a blowing feather, And each had the voice that Georgia muffles In the lazy honey of her May weather. Cudjo watched and measured and knew them, Seeing behind and around and through them With the shrewd, dispassionate, smiling eye Of the old-time servant in days gone by. He couldn't read and he couldn't write, But he knew Quality, black or white, And even his master could not find The secret place in the back of his mind Where witch-bones talked to a scarlet rag And a child's voice spoke from a conjur-bag. For he belonged to the hidden nation, The mute, enormous confederation Of the planted earth and the burden borne And the horse that is ridden and given corn. The wind from the brier-patch brought him news That never went walking in white men's shoes And the grapevine whispered its message faster Than a horse could gallop across a grave, Till, long ere the letter could tell the master, The doomsday rabbits had told the slave. He was faithful as bread or salt, A flawless servant without a fault, Major-domo of Wingate Hall, Proud of his white folks, proud of it all. They might scold him, they might let him scold them, And he might know things that he never told them, But there was a bond, and the bond would hold, On either side until both were cold. So he didn't judge, though he knew, he knew, How the yellow babies down by the Slough, Had a fourth of their blood from old Judge Brooke, And where Sue Crowl got her Wingate look, And the whole, mad business of Shepley's Wager, And why Miss Harriet married the Major. And he could trace with unerring ease A hundred devious pedigrees Of man and horse, from the Squire's Rapscallion Back to the stock of the Arab stallion, And the Bristol line through its baffling dozens Of doubly-removed half-second-cousins, And found a creed and a whole theology On the accidents of human geology. He looked for Clay in the dancing whirl, There he was, coming down the line, Hand in hand with a dark, slim girl Whose dress was the color of light in wine Sally Dupré from Appleton Where the blackshawled ladies rock in the sun And young things labor and old things rule, A proud girl, taught in a humbling school That the only daughters of misalliance Must harden their hearts against defiance Of all the uncles and all the aunts Who succour such offspring of mischance And wash them clean from each sinful intention With the kindliest sort of incomprehension. She had the Appleton mouth, it seemed, And the Appleton way of riding, But when she sorrowed and if she dreamed, Something came out from hiding. She could sew all day on an Appleton hem And look like a saint in plaster, But when the fiddles began to play And her feet beat fast but her heart beat faster An alien grace inhabited them And she looked like her father, the dancing-master, The scapegrace elegant, "French" Dupré, Come to the South on a luckless day, With bright paste buckles sewn on his pumps. A habit of holding the ace of trumps, And a manner of kissing a lady's hand Which the county failed to understand. He stole Sue Appleton's heart away With eyes that were neither black nor grey, And broke the heart of the Brookes' best mare To marry her safely with time to spare While the horsewhip uncles toiled behind-- He knew his need and she knew her mind. And the love they had was as bright and brief As the dance of the gilded maple-leaf, Till she died in Charleston of childbed fever Before her looks or his heart could leave her. It took the flavor out of his drinking And left him thoughts he didn't like thinking, So he wrapped his child in the dead girl's shawl And sent her politely to Uncle Paul With a black-edged note full of grief and scruples And half the money he owed his pupils, Saw that Sue had the finest hearse That I. O. U.'s could possibly drape her And elegized her in vile French verse While his hot tears spotted the borrowed paper. He still had manners, he tried to recover, But something went when he buried his lover. No women with eyes could ever scold him But he would make places too hot to hold him, He shrugged his shoulders and kept descending-- Life was a farce, but it needed ending. The tag-line found him too tired to dread it And he died as he lived, with an air, on credit, In his host's best shirt and a Richmond garret, Talking to shadows and drinking claret. He passed when Sally was barely four And the Appleton kindred breathed once more And, with some fervor, began to try To bury the bone of his memory And strictly expunge from his daughter's semblance All possible traces of a resemblance. Which system succeeded, to outward view, As well as most of such systems do And resulted in mixing a martyr's potions For "French" Dupré in his daughter's notions. And slander is sinful and gossip wrong, But country memories are long, The Appleton clan is a worthy clan But we remember the dancing-man. The girl is pretty, the girl seems wise, The girl was born with her father's eyes. She will play with our daughters and know our sons, We cannot offend the Appletons. Bristols and Wingates, Shepleys and Crowls, We wouldn't hurt her to save our souls. But after all--and nevertheless-- For one has to think--and one must confess-- And one should admit--but one never knows-- So it has gone, and so it goes, Through the sun and the wind and the rainy weather Whenever ladies are gathered together, Till, little by little and stitch by stitch, The girl is put in her proper niche With all the virtues that we can draw For someone else's daughter-in-law, A girl to be kind to, a girl we're lucky in, A girl to marry some nice Kentuckian, Some Alabaman, some Carolinian-- In fact, if you ask me for my opinion, There are lots of boys in the Northern sections And some of them have quite good connections-- She looks charming this evening, doesn't she? If she danced just a little less dashingly! Cudjo watched her as she went by, "She's got a light foot," thought Cudjo, "Hi! A light, swif' foot and a talkin' eye! But you'll need more'n dat, Miss Sally Dupré Before you proposals with young Marse Clay. And as soon as de fiddles finish slewin' Dey's sixteen things I ought to be doin'. The Major's sure to be wantin' his dram, We'll have to be cuttin' a second ham, And dat trashy high-yaller, Parker's Guinea, Was sayin' some Yankee name Old John Brown Has raised de Debil back in Virginny And freed de niggers all over town, He's friends with de ha'nts and steel won't touch him But the paterollers is sure to cotch him. How come he want to kick up such a dizziness! Nigger-business ain't white-folks' business." ----------- There was no real moon in all the soft, clouded night, The rats of night had eaten the silver cheese, Though here and there a forgotten crumb of old brightness Gleamed and was blotted. But there was no real moon, No bowl of nacre, dripping an old delusive Stain on the changed, strange grass, making faces strange; There was only a taste of warm rain not yet fallen, A wine-colored dress, turned black because of no moon, --It would have been spangled in moon--and a broadcloth coat, And two voices talking together, quite softly, quite calmly. The dance. Such a lovely dance. But you dance so lightly. Amanda dances so well. But you dance so lightly. Louisa looks so pretty in pink, don't you think? Are you fond of Scott? Yes, I'm very fond of Scott. Elegant extracts from gilt-edged volumes called Keepsakes And Godey's Lady's Book words. If I were a girl, A girl in a Godey's Lady's Book steel-engraving, I would have no body or legs, no aches or delusions. I would know what to do. I would marry a man called Mister. We would live in a steel-engraving, in various costumes Designed in the more respectable Paris modes, With two little boys in little plush hats like muffins, And two little girls with pantalettes to their chins. I must do that, I think. But now my light feet know That they will be tired and burning with all my dancing Before I cool them in the exquisite coolness Of water or the cool virginal sheets of virgins, And a face comes swimming toward me out of black broadcloth And my heart knocks. Who are you, why are you here? Why should you trouble my eyes? No, Mr. Wingate, I cannot agree with you on the beauties of Byron. But why should something melt in the stuff of my hand, And my voice sound thin in my ears? This face is a face Like any other face. Did my mother once Hear thin blood sing in her ears at a voice called Mister? And wish for--and not wish for--and when the strange thing Was consummate, then, and she lay in a coil of darkness, Did she feel so much changed? What is it to be A woman? No, I must live in a steel-engraving. His voice said. But there was other than his voice. Something that heard warm rain on unopened flowers And spoke or tried to speak across swimming blackness To the slight profile and the wine-colored dress. Her hair was black. Her eyes might be black or grey. He could not remember, it irked him not to remember. But she was just Sally Dupré from Appleton Only she was not. Only she was a shadow And a white face--a terrible, white shut face That looked through windows of inflexible glass Disdainfully upon the beauties of Byron And every puppy that ever howled for the moon To brush warm raindrops across the unopened flower And so quiet the heart with--what? But you speak to her aunts. You are Wingate of Wingate Hall. You are not caught Like a bee drunk with the smell of honey, the smell of sleep, In a slight flower of glass whose every petal Shows eyes one cannot remember as black or grey. You converse easily on elegant subjects Suitable for young ladies. You do not feel The inexorable stairs of the flesh ascended By an armed enemy with a naked torch. This has been felt before, this has been quenched With fitting casualness in flesh that has A secret stain of the sun. It is not a subject Suitable for the converse of young ladies. "My God, My God, why will she not answer the aching? My God, My God, to lie at her side through the darkness!" And yet--is it real--do I really-- The wine-colored dress Rose. Broadcloth rose and took her back to the dance. ------------ The nickeled lamp threw a wide yellow disk On the red tablecloth with the tasseled fringes. Jack Ellyat put his book down with a slight Impatient gesture. There was mother, knitting The same grey end of scarf while Father read The same unaltered paper through the same Old-fashioned spectacles with the worn bows. Jane with one apple-cheek and one enshadowed, Soundlessly conjugated Latin verbs, "Amo, amas, amat," through sober lips, "Amamus, amatis, amant," and still no sound. He glanced at the clock. On top of it was Phaëton Driving bronze, snarling horses down the sharp, Quicksilver, void, careening gulfs of air Until they smashed upon a black-marble sea. The round spiked trophy of the brazen sun Weighed down his chariot with its heavy load Of ponderous fire. To be like Phaëton And drive the trophy-sun! But he and his horses Were frozen in their attitude of snarling, Frozen forever to the tick of a clock. Not all the broomstick witches of New England Could break that congealed motion and cast down The huge sun thundering on the black marble Of the mantelpiece, streaked with white veins of foam. If once such things could happen, all could happen, The snug, safe world crack up like broken candy And the young rivers, roaring, rush to the sea; White bulls that caught the morning on their horns And shook the secure earth until they found Some better recompense for life than life, The untamed ghost, the undiminished star. But it would not happen. Nothing would ever happen. He had been here, like this, ten thousand times, He would be here, like this, ten thousand more, Until at last the little ticks of the clock Had cooled what had been hot, and changed the thin, Blue, forking veins across the back of his hand Into the big, soft veins on Father's hand. And the world would be snug. And he would sit Reading the same newspaper, after dinner, Through spectacles whose bows were getting worn While a wife knitted on an endless scarf And a child slowly formed with quiet lips "Amo, amas, amat," and still no sound. And it would be over. Over without having been. His father turned a creaking page of paper And cleared his throat, "The Tribune calls," he said, "Brown's raid the work of a madman. Well, they're right, But--" Mrs. Ellyat put her knitting down. "Are they going to hang him, Will?" "It looks that way." "But, Father, when--" "They have the right, my son, He broke the law." "But, Will! You don't believe--" A little spark lit Mr. Ellyat's eyes. "I didn't say I thought that he was wrong. I said they had the right to hang the man, But they'll hang slavery with him." A quick pulse Beat in Jack Ellyat's wrist. Behind his eyes A bearded puppet creaked upon a rope And the sky darkened because he was there. Now it was Mother talking in a strange Iron-bound voice he'd never heard before. "I prayed for him in church last Sunday, Will. I pray for him at home here every night. I don't know--I don't care--what laws he broke. I know that he was right. I pray to God To show the world somehow that he was right And break these Southern people into knowing! And I know this--in every house and church, All through the North--women are praying for him, Praying for him. And God will hear those prayers." "He will, my dear," said Mr. Ellyat gently, "But what will be His answer?" He took her hand, Smoothing it for a moment. Then she sighed And turned back to the interminable scarf. Jack Ellyat's pulse beat faster. Women praying, Praying at night, in every house in the North, Praying for old John Brown until their knees Ached with stiff cold. Innumerable prayers Inexorably rising, till the dark Vault of the midnight was so thronged and packed The wild geese could not arrow through the storm Of terrible, ascendant, women's prayers. . . . The clock struck nine, and Phaëton still stood Frozenly urging on his frozen horses, But, for a moment, to Jack Ellyat's eyes, The congealed hoofs had seemed to paw the air And the bronze car roll forward. ------------ On Saturday, in Southern market towns, When I was a boy with twenty cents to spend, The carts began to drift in with the morning, And, by the afternoon, the slipshod Square And all Broad Center Street were lined with them; Moth-eaten mules that whickered at each other Between the mended shafts of rattletrap wagons, Mud-spattered buggies, mouldy phaëtons, And, here and there, an ox-cart from the hills Whose solemn team had shoulders of rough, white rock, Innocent noses, black and wet as snailshells, And that inordinate patience in their eyes. There always was a Courthouse in the Square, A cupolaed Courthouse, drowsing Time away Behind the grey-white pillars of its porch Like an old sleepy judge in a spotted gown; And, down the Square, always a languid jail Of worn, uneven brick with moss in the cracks Or stone weathered the grey of weathered pine. The plump jail-master wore a linen duster In summer, and you used to see him sit Tilted against the wall in a pine-chair, Spitting reflectively in the warm dust While endless afternoons slowly dissolved Into the longer shadow, the dust-blue twilight. Higgledy-piggledy days--days that are gone-- The trotters are dead, all the yellow-painted sulkies Broken for firewood--the old Courthouse grin Through new false-teeth of Alabama limestone-- The haircloth lap-robe weeps on a Ford radiator-- But I have seen the old Courthouse. I have seen The flyspecked windows and the faded flag Over the judge's chair, touched the scuffed walls, Spat in the monumental brass spittoons And smelt the smell that never could be aired, Although one opened windows for a year, The unforgettable, intangible Mixture of cheap cigars, worm-eaten books, Sweat, poverty, negro hair-oil, grief and law. I have seen the long room packed with quiet men, Fit to turn mob, if need were, in a flash-- Cocked-pistol men, so lazily attentive Their easy languor knocked against your ribs As, hour by hour, the lawyers droned along, And minute on creeping minute, your cold necknape Waited the bursting of the firecracker, The flare of fury. And yet, that composed fury Burnt itself out, unflaring--was held down By a dry, droning voice, a faded flag. The kettle never boiled, the pistol stayed At cock but the snake-head hammer never fell. . . . The little boys climbed down beyond the windows. . . . So, in the cupolaed Courthouse there in Charlestown, When the jail-guards had carried in the cot Where Brown lay like a hawk with a broken back, I hear the rustle of the moving crowd, The buzz outside, taste the dull, heavy air, Smell the stale smell and see the country carts Hitched in the streets. For a long, dragging week Of market-Saturdays the trial went on. The droning voices rise and fall and rise. Stevens lies quiet on his mattress, breathing The harsh and difficult breath of a dying man, Although not dying then. Beyond the Square The trees are dry, but all the dry leaves not fallen-- Yellow leaves falling through a grey-blue dusk, The first winds of November whirl and scatter them. . . . Read as you will in any of the books, The details of the thing, the questions and answers, How sometimes Brown would walk, sometimes was carried, At first would hardly plead, half-refused counsel, Accepted later, made up witness-lists, Grew fitfully absorbed in his defense, Only to flare in temper at his first lawyers And drive them from the case. Questions and answers, Wheels creaking in a void. Sometimes he lay Quiet upon his cot, the hawk-eyes staring. Sometimes his fingers moved mechanically As if at their old task of sorting wool, Fingertips that could tell him in the dark Whether the wool they touched was from Ohio Or from Vermont. They had the shepherd's gift. It was his one sure talent. Questions creaking Uselessly back and forth. No one can say That the trial was not fair. The trial was fair, Painfully fair by every rule of law, And that it was made not the slightest difference. The law's our yardstick, and it measures well Or well enough when there are yards to measure. Measure a wave with it, measure a fire, Cut sorrow up in inches, weigh content. You can weigh John Brown's body well enough, But how and in what balance weigh John Brown? He had the shepherd's gift, but that was all. He had no other single gift for life. Some men are pasture Death turns back to pasture, Some are fire-opals on that iron wrist, Some the deep roots of wisdoms not yet born. John Brown was none of these, He was a stone, A stone eroded to a cutting edge By obstinacy, failure and cold prayers. Discredited farmer, dubiously involved In lawsuit after lawsuit, Shubel Morgan Fantastic bandit of the Kansas border, Red-handed murderer at Pottawattomie, Cloudy apostle, whooped along to death By those who do no violence themselves But only buy the guns to have it done, Sincere of course, as all fanatics are, And with a certain minor-prophet air, That fooled the world to thinking him half-great When all he did consistently was fail. So far one advocate. But there is this. Sometimes there comes a crack in Time itself. Sometimes the earth is torn by something blind. Sometimes an image that has stood so long It seems implanted as the polar star Is moved against an unfathomed force That suddenly will not have it any more. Call it the mores, call it God or Fate, Call it Mansoul or economic law, That force exists and moves. And when it moves It will employ a hard and actual stone To batter into bits an actual wall And change the actual scheme of things. John Brown Was such a stone--unreasoning as the stone, Destructive as the stone, and, if you like, Heroic and devoted as such a stone. He had no gift for life, no gift to bring Life but his body and a cutting edge, But he knew how to die. And yardstick law Gave him six weeks to burn that hoarded knowledge In one swift fire whose sparks fell like live coals On every State in the Union. Listen now, Listen, the bearded lips are speaking now, There are no more guerilla-raids to plan, There are no more hard questions to be solved Of right and wrong, no need to beg for peace, Here is the peace unbegged, here is the end, Here is the insolence of the sun cast off, Here is the voice already fixed with night.