Compelled me to remove Dom Pedro—”
Quick
Before Jim Brown could finish, Jefferson Howard
Obtained the floor and spake: “Ill suits the time
For clownish words, and trivial is our cause
If naught’s at stake but John Cabanis’ wrath,
He who was erstwhile of the other side
And came to us for vengeance. More’s at stake
Than triumph for New England or Virginia.
And whether rum be sold, or for two years
As in the past two years, this town be dry
Matters but little—Oh yes, revenue
For sidewalks, sewers; that is well enough!
I wish to God this fight were now inspired
By other passion than to salve the pride
Of John Cabanis or his daughter. Why
Can never contests of great moment spring
From worthy things, not little? Still, if men
Must always act so, and if rum must be
The symbol and the medium to release
From life’s denial and from slavery,
Then give me rum!”
Exultant cries arose.
Then, as George Trimble had o’ercome his fear
And vacillation and begun to speak,
The door creaked and the idiot, Willie Metcalf,
Breathless and hatless, whiter than a sheet,
Entered and cried: “The marshal’s on his way
To arrest you all. And if you only knew
Who’s coming here to-morrow; I was listening
Beneath the window where the other side
Are making plans.”
So to a smaller room
To hear the idiot’s secret some withdrew
Selected by the Chair; the Chair himself
And Jefferson Howard, Benjamin Pantier,
And Wendell Bloyd, George Trimble, Adam Weirauch,
Imanuel Ehrenhardt, Seth Compton, Godwin James
And Enoch Dunlap, Hiram Scates, Roy Butler,
Carl Hamblin, Roger Heston, Ernest Hyde
And Penniwit, the artist, Kinsey Keene,
And E. C. Culbertson and Franklin Jones,
Benjamin Fraser, son of Benjamin Pantier
By Daisy Fraser, some of lesser note,
And secretly conferred.
But in the hall
Disorder reigned and when the marshal came
And found it so, he marched the hoodlums out
And locked them up.
Meanwhile within a room
Back in the basement of the church, with Blood
Counseled the wisest heads. Judge Somers first,
Deep learned in life, and next him, Elliott Hawkins
And Lambert Hutchins; next him Thomas Rhodes
And Editor Whedon; next him Garrison Standard,
A traitor to the liberals, who with lip
Upcurled in scorn and with a bitter sneer:
“Such strife about an insult to a woman—
A girl of eighteen”—Christian Dallmann too,
And others unrecorded. Some there were
Who frowned not on the cup but loathed the rule
Democracy achieved thereby, the freedom
And lust of life it symbolized.
Now morn with snowy fingers up the sky
Flung like an orange at a festival
The ruddy sun, when from their hasty beds
Poured forth the hostile forces, and the streets
Resounded to the rattle of the wheels,
That drove this way and that to gather in
The tardy voters, and the cries of chieftains
Who manned the battle. But at ten o’clock
The liberals bellowed fraud, and at the polls
The rival candidates growled and came to blows.
Then proved the idiot’s tale of yester-eve
A word of warning. Suddenly on the streets
Walked hog-eyed Allen, terror of the hills
That looked on Bernadotte ten miles removed.
No man of this degenerate day could lift
The boulders which he threw, and when he spoke
The windows rattled, and beneath his brows,
Thatched like a shed with bristling hair of black,
His small eyes glistened like a maddened boar.
And as he walked the boards creaked, as he walked
A song of menace rumbled. Thus he came,
The champion of A. D. Blood, commissioned
To terrify the liberals. Many fled
As when a hawk soars o’er the chicken yard.
He passed the polls and with a playful hand
Touched Brown, the giant, and he fell against,
As though he were a child, the wall; so strong
Was hog-eyed Allen. But the liberals smiled.
For soon as hog-eyed Allen reached the walk,
Close on his steps paced Bengal Mike, brought in
By Kinsey Keene, the subtle-witted one,
To match the hog-eyed Allen. He was scarce
Three-fourths the other’s bulk, but steel his arms,
And with a tiger’s heart. Two men he killed
And many wounded in the days before,
And no one feared.
But when the hog-eyed one
Saw Bengal Mike his countenance grew dark,
The bristles o’er his red eyes twitched with rage,
The song he rumbled lowered. Round and round
The court-house paced he, followed stealthily
By Bengal Mike, who jeered him every step:
“Come, elephant, and fight! Come, hog-eyed coward!
Come, face about and fight me, lumbering sneak!
Come, beefy bully, hit me, if you can!
Take out your gun, you duffer, give me reason
To draw and kill you. Take your billy out;
I’ll crack your boar’s head with a piece of brick!”
But never a word the hog-eyed one returned,
But trod about the court-house, followed both
By troops of boys and watched by all the men.
All day, they walked the square. But when Apollo
Stood with reluctant look above the hills
As fain to see the end, and all the votes
Were cast, and closed the polls, before the door
Of Trainor’s drug store Bengal Mike, in tones
That echoed through the village, bawled the taunt:
“Who was your mother, hog-eyed?” In a trice,
As when a wild boar turns upon the hound
That through the brakes upon an August day
Has gashed him with its teeth, the hog-eyed one
Rushed with his giant arms on Bengal Mike
And grabbed him by the throat. Then rose to heaven
The frightened cries of boys, and yells of men
Forth rushing to the street. And Bengal Mike
Moved this way and now that, drew in his head
As if his neck to shorten, and bent down
To break the death grip of the hog-eyed one;
’Twixt guttural wrath and fast-expiring strength
Striking his fists against the invulnerable chest
Of hog-eyed Allen. Then, when some came in
To part them, others stayed them, and the fight
Spread among dozens; many valiant souls
Went down from clubs and bricks.
But tell me, Muse,
What god or goddess rescued Bengal Mike?
With one last, mighty struggle did he grasp
The murderous hands and turning kick his foe.
Then, as if struck by lightning, vanished all
The strength from hog-eyed Allen, at his side
Sank limp those giant arms and o’er his face
Dread pallor and the sweat of anguish spread.
And those great knees, invincible but late,
Shook to his weight. And quickl
y as the lion
Leaps on its wounded prey, did Bengal Mike
Smite with a rock the temple of his foe,
And down he sank and darkness o’er his eyes
Passed like a cloud.
As when the woodman fells
Some giant oak upon a summer’s day
And all the songsters of the forest shrill,
And one great hawk that has his nestling young
Amid the topmost branches croaks, as crash
The leafy branches through the tangled boughs
Of brother oaks, so fell the hog-eyed one
Amid the lamentations of the friends
Of A. D. Blood.
Just then, four lusty men
Bore the town marshal, on whose iron face
The purple pall of death already lay,
To Trainor’s drug store, shot by Jack McGuire.
And cries went up of “Lynch him!” and the sound
Of running feet from every side was heard
Bent on the
EPILOGUE
(The graveyard of Spoon River. Two voices are heard behind a screen decorated with diabolical and angelic figures in various allegorical relations. A faint light shows dimly through the screen as if it were woven of leaves, branches and shadows.)
FIRST VOICE:
A game of checkers?
SECOND VOICE:
Well, I don’t mind.
FIRST VOICE:
I move the Will.
SECOND VOICE:
You’re playing it blind.
FIRST VOICE:
Then here’s the Soul.
SECOND VOICE:
Checked by the Will.
FIRST VOICE:
Eternal Good!
SECOND VOICE:
And Eternal Ill.
FIRST VOICE:
I haste for the King row.
SECOND VOICE:
Save your breath.
FIRST VOICE:
I was moving Life.
SECOND VOICE:
You’re checked by Death.
FIRST VOICE:
Very good, here’s Moses.
SECOND VOICE:
And here’s the Jew.
FIRST VOICE:
My next move is Jesus.
SECOND VOICE:
St. Paul for you!
FIRST VOICE:
Yes, but St. Peter—
SECOND VOICE:
You might have foreseen—
FIRST VOICE:
You’re in the King row—
SECOND VOICE:
With Constantine!
FIRST VOICE:
I’ll go back to Athens.
SECOND VOICE:
Well, here’s the Persian.
FIRST VOICE:
All right, the Bible.
SECOND VOICE:
Pray now, what version?
FIRST VOICE:
I take up Buddha.
SECOND VOICE:
It never will work.
FIRST VOICE:
From the corner Mahomet.
SECOND VOICE:
I move the Turk.
FIRST VOICE:
The game is tangled; where are we now?
SECOND VOICE:
You’re dreaming worlds. I’m in the King row.
Move as you will, if I can’t wreck you
I’ll thwart you, harry you, rout you, check you.
FIRST VOICE:
I’m tired. I’ll send for my Son to play.
I think he can beat you finally—
SECOND VOICE:
Eh?
FIRST VOICE:
I must preside at the stars’ convention.
SECOND VOICE:
Very well, my lord, but I beg to mention
I’ll give this game my direct attention.
FIRST VOICE:
A game indeed! But Truth is my quest.
SECOND VOICE:
Beaten, you walk away with a jest.
I strike the table, I scatter the checkers.
(A rattle of a falling table and checkers flying over a floor.)
Aha! You armies and iron deckers,
Races and states in a cataclysm—
Now for a day of atheism!
(The screen vanishes and BEELZEBUB* steps forward carrying a trumpet, which he blows faintly. Immediately LOKI* and YOGARINDRA* start up from the shadows of night.)
BEELZEBUB:
Good evening, Loki!
LOKI:
The same to you!
BEELZEBUB:
And Yogarindra!
YOGARINDRA:
My greetings, too.
LOKI:
Whence came you, comrade?
BEELZEBUB:
From yonder screen.
YOGARINDRA:
And what were you doing?
BEELZEBUB:
Stirring His spleen.
LOKI:
How did you do it?
BEELZEBUB:
I made it rough
In a game of checkers.
LOKI:
Good enough!
YOGARINDRA:
I thought I heard the sounds of a battle.
BEELZEBUB:
No doubt! I made the checkers rattle,
Turning the table over and strewing
The bits of wood like an army pursuing.
YOGARINDRA:
I have a game! Let us make a man.
LOKI:
My net is waiting him, if you can.
YOGARINDRA:
And here’s my mirror to fool him with—
BEELZEBUB:
Mystery, falsehood, creed and myth.
LOKI:
But no one can mold him, friend, but you.
BEELZEBUB:
Then to the sport without more ado.
YOGARINDRA:
Hurry the work ere it grow to day.
BEELZEBUB:
I set me to it. Where is the clay?
(He scrapes the earth with his hands and begins to model.)
Out of the dust,
Out of the slime,
A little rust,
And a little lime.
Muscle and gristle,
Mucin, stone
Brayed with a pestle,
Fat and bone.
Out of the marshes,
Out of the vaults,
Matter crushes
Gas and salts.
What is this you call a mind,
Flitting, drifting, pale and blind,
Soul of the swamp that rides the wind?
Jack-o’-lantern, here you are!
Dream of heaven, pine for a star,
Chase your brothers to and fro,
Back to the swamp at last you’ll go.
Hilloo! Hilloo!
THE VALLEY:
Hilloo! Hilloo!
(Beelzebub in scraping up the earth turns out a skull.)
BEELZEBUB:
Old one, old one.
Now ere I break you
Crush you and make you
Clay for my use,
Let me observe you:
You were a bold one
Flat at the dome of you,
Heavy the base of you,
False to the home of you,
Strong was the face of you,
Strange to all fears.
Yet did the hair of you
Hide what you were.
Now to re-nerve you—
(He crushes the skull between his hands and mixes it with the clay.)
Now you are dust,
Limestone and rust.
I mold and I stir
And make you again.
THE VALLEY:
Again? Again?
(In the same manner BEELZEBUB has fashioned several figures, standing them against the trees.)
LOKI:
Now for the breath of life. As I remember
You have done right to mold your creatures first,
And stand them up.
BEELZEBUB:
/> From gravitation
I make the will.
YOGARINDRA:
Out of sensation
Comes his ill.
Out of my mirror
Springs his error.
Who was so cruel
To make him the slave
Of me the sorceress, you the knave,
And you the plotter to catch his thought,
Whatever he did, whatever he sought?
With a nature dual
Of will and mind,
A thing that sees, and a thing that’s blind.
Come! to our dance! Something hated him
Made us over him, therefore fated him.
(They join hands and dance.)
LOKI:
Passion, reason, custom, ruels,
Creeds of the churches, lore of the schools,
Taint in the blood and strength of soul.
Flesh too weak for the will’s control;
Poverty, riches, pride of birth,
Wailing, laughter, over the earth,
Here I have you caught again,
Enter my web, ye sons of men.
YOGARINDRA:
Look in my mirror! Isn’t it real?
What do you think now, what do you feel?
Here is treasure of gold heaped up;
Here is wine in the festal cup.
Tendrils blossoming, turned to whips,
Love with her breasts and scarlet lips.
Breathe in their nostrils.
BEELZEBUB:
Falsehood’s breath,
Out of nothingness into death.
Out of the mold, out of the rocks,
Wonder, mockery, paradox!
Soaring spirit, groveling flesh,
Bait the trap, and spread the mesh.
Give him hunger, lure him with truth,
Give him the iris hopes of Youth.
Starve him, shame him, fling him down,
Whirled in the vortex of the town.
Break him, age him, till he curse
The idiot face of the universe.
Over and over we mix the clay,—
What was dust is alive to-day.
THE THREE:
Thus is the hell-born tangle wound
Swiftly, swiftly round and round.
BEELZEBUB:
(Waving his trumpet.)
You live! Away!
ONE OF THE FIGURES:
How strange and new!
I am I, and another, too.
ANOTHER FIGURE:
I was a sun-dew’s leaf, but now
What is this longing?—
ANOTHER FIGURE:
Earth below
I was a seedling magnet-tipped
Drawn down earth—
ANOTHER FIGURE:
And I was gripped
Spoon River Anthology Page 17