Demos
I
ALL you that are enamored of my name
And least intent on what most I require,
Beware; for my design and your desire,
Deplorably, are not as yet the same.
Beware, I say, the failure and the shame 5
Of losing that for which you now aspire
So blindly, and of hazarding entire
The gift that I was bringing when I came.
Give as I will, I cannot give you sight
Whereby to see that with you there are some 10
To lead you, and be led. But they are dumb
Before the wrangling and the shrill delight
Of your deliverance that has not come,
And shall not, if I fail you — as I might.
II
SO little have you seen of what awaits 15
Your fevered glimpse of a democracy
Confused and foiled with an equality
Not equal to the envy it creates,
That you see not how near you are the gates
Of an old king who listens fearfully 20
To you that are outside and are to be
The noisy lords of imminent estates.
Rather be then your prayer that you shall have
Your kingdom undishonored. Having all,
See not the great among you for the small, 25
But hear their silence; for the few shall save
The many, or the many are to fall —
Still to be wrangling in a noisy grave.
The Flying Dutchman
UNYIELDING in the pride of his defiance,
Afloat with none to serve or to command,
Lord of himself at last, and all by Science,
He seeks the Vanished Land.
Alone, by the one light of his one thought, 5
He steers to find the shore from which we came,
Fearless of in what coil he may be caught
On seas that have no name.
Into the night he sails; and after night
There is a dawning, though there be no sun; 10
Wherefore, with nothing but himself in sight,
Unsighted, he sails on.
At last there is a lifting of the cloud
Between the flood before him and the sky;
And then — though he may curse the Power aloud 15
That has no power to die —
He steers himself away from what is haunted
By the old ghost of what has been before, —
Abandoning, as always, and undaunted,
One fog-walled island more. 20
Tact
OBSERVANT of the way she told
So much of what was true,
No vanity could long withhold
Regard that was her due:
She spared him the familiar guile, 5
So easily achieved,
That only made a man to smile
And left him undeceived.
Aware that all imagining
Of more than what she meant 10
Would urge an end of everything,
He stayed; and when he went,
They parted with a merry word
That was to him as light
As any that was ever heard 15
Upon a starry night.
She smiled a little, knowing well
That he would not remark
That ruins of a day that fell
Around her in the dark: 20
He saw no ruins anywhere,
Nor fancied there were scars
On anyone who lingered there,
Alone below the stars.
On the Way
(PHILADELPHIA, 1794)
NOTE. — The following imaginary dialogue between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which is not based upon any specific incident in American history, may be supposed to have occurred a few months previous to Hamilton’s retirement from Washington’s Cabinet in 1795 and a few years before the political ingenuities of Burr — who has been characterized, without much exaggeration, as the inventor of American politics — began to be conspicuously formidable to the Federalists. These activities on the part of Burr resulted, as the reader will remember, in the Burr-Jefferson tie for the Presidency in 1800, and finally in the Burr-Hamilton duel at Weehawken in 1804.
BURR
HAMILTON, if he rides you down, remember
That I was here to speak, and so to save
Your fabric from catastrophe. That’s good;
For I perceive that you observe him also.
A President, a-riding of his horse, 5
May dust a General and be forgiven;
But why be dusted — when we’re all alike,
All equal, and all happy? Here he comes —
And there he goes. And we, by your new patent,
Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside, 10
With our two hats off to his Excellency.
Why not his Majesty, and done with it?
Forgive me if I shook your meditation,
But you that weld our credit should have eyes
To see what’s coming. Bury me first if I do. 15
HAMILTON
There’s always in some pocket of your brain
A care for me; wherefore my gratitude
For your attention is commensurate
With your concern. Yes, Burr, we are two kings;
We are as royal as two ditch-diggers; 20
But owe me not your sceptre. These are the days
When first a few seem all; but if we live
We may again be seen to be the few
That we have always been. These are the days
When men forget the stars, and are forgotten. 25
BURR
But why forget them? They’re the same that winked
Upon the world when Alcibiades
Cut off his dog’s tail to induce distinction.
There are dogs yet, and Alcibiades
Is not forgotten. 30
HAMILTON
Yes, there are dogs enough,
God knows; and I can hear them in my dreams.
BURR
Never a doubt. But what you hear the most
Is your new music, something out of tune
With your intention. How in the name of Cain, 35
I seem to hear you ask, are men to dance,
When all men are musicians. Tell me that,
I hear you saying, and I’ll tell you the name
Of Samson’s mother. But why shroud yourself
Before the coffin comes? For all you know, 40
The tree that is to fall for your last house
Is now a sapling. You may have to wait
So long as to be sorry; though I doubt it,
For you are not at home in your new Eden
Where chilly whispers of a likely frost 45
Accumulate already in the air.
I think a touch of ermine, Hamilton,
Would be for you in your autumnal mood
A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders.
HAMILTON
If so it is you think, you may as well 50
Give over thinking. We are done with ermine.
What I fear most is not the multitude,
But those who are to loop it with a string
That has one end in France and one end here.
I’m not so fortified with observation 55
That I could swear that more than half a score
Among us who see lightning see that ruin
Is not the work of thunder. Since the world
Was ordered, there was never a long pause
For caution between doing and undoing. 60
BURR
Go on, sir; my attention is a trap
Set for the catching of all compliments
To Monticello, and all else abroad
That has a name or an identity.
HAMILTON
I leave to you th
e names — there are too many; 65
Yet one there is to sift and hold apart,
As now I see. There comes at last a glimmer
That is not always clouded, or too late.
But I was near and young, and had the reins
To play with while he manned a team so raw 70
That only God knows where the end had been
Of all that riding without Washington.
There was a nation in the man who passed us,
If there was not a world. I may have driven
Since then some restive horses, and alone, 75
And through a splashing of abundant mud;
But he who made the dust that sets you on
To coughing, made the road. Now it seems dry,
And in a measure safe.
BURR
Here’s a new tune 80
From Hamilton. Has your caution all at once,
And over night, grown till it wrecks the cradle?
I have forgotten what my father said
When I was born, but there’s a rustling of it
Among my memories, and it makes a noise 85
About as loud as all that I have held
And fondled heretofore of your same caution.
But that’s affairs, not feelings. If our friends
Guessed half we say of them, our enemies
Would itch in our friends’ jackets. Howsoever, 90
The world is of a sudden on its head,
And all are spilled — unless you cling alone
With Washington. Ask Adams about that.
HAMILTON
We’ll not ask Adams about anything.
We fish for lizards when we choose to ask 95
For what we know already is not coming,
And we must eat the answer. Where’s the use
Of asking when this man says everything,
With all his tongues of silence?
BURR
I dare say. 100
I dare say, but I won’t. One of those tongues
I’ll borrow for the nonce. He’ll never miss it.
We mean his Western Majesty, King George.
HAMILTON
I mean the man who rode by on his horse.
I’ll beg of you the meed of your indulgence 105
If I should say this planet may have done
A deal of weary whirling when at last,
If ever, Time shall aggregate again
A majesty like his that has no name.
BURR
Then you concede his Majesty? That’s good, 110
And what of yours? Here are two majesties.
Favor the Left a little, Hamilton,
Or you’ll be floundering in the ditch that waits
For riders who forget where they are riding.
If we and France, as you anticipate, 115
Must eat each other, what Cæsar, if not yourself,
Do you see for the master of the feast?
There may be a place waiting on your head
For laurel thick as Nero’s. You don’t know.
I have not crossed your glory, though I might 120
If I saw thrones at auction.
HAMILTON
Yes, you might.
If war is on the way, I shall be — here;
And I’ve no vision of your distant heels.
BURR
I see that I shall take an inference 125
To bed with me to-night to keep me warm.
I thank you, Hamilton, and I approve
Your fealty to the aggregated greatness
Of him you lean on while he leans on you.
HAMILTON
This easy phrasing is a game of yours 130
That you may win to lose. I beg your pardon,
But you that have the sight will not employ
The will to see with it. If you did so,
There might be fewer ditches dug for others
In your perspective; and there might be fewer 135
Contemporary motes of prejudice
Between you and the man who made the dust.
Call him a genius or a gentleman,
A prophet or a builder, or what not,
But hold your disposition off the balance, 140
And weigh him in the light. Once (I believe
I tell you nothing new to your surmise,
Or to the tongues of towns and villages)
I nourished with an adolescent fancy —
Surely forgivable to you, my friend — 145
An innocent and amiable conviction
That I was, by the grace of honest fortune,
A savior at his elbow through the war,
Where I might have observed, more than I did,
Patience and wholesome passion. I was there, 150
And for such honor I gave nothing worse
Than some advice at which he may have smiled.
I must have given a modicum besides,
Or the rough interval between those days
And these would never have made for me my friends, 155
Or enemies. I should be something somewhere —
I say not what — but I should not be here
If he had not been there. Possibly, too,
You might not — or that Quaker with his cane.
BURR
Possibly, too, I should. When the Almighty 160
Rides a white horse, I fancy we shall know it.
HAMILTON
It was a man, Burr, that was in my mind;
No god, or ghost, or demon — only a man:
A man whose occupation is the need
Of those who would not feel it if it bit them; 165
And one who shapes an age while he endures
The pin pricks of inferiorities;
A cautious man, because he is but one;
A lonely man, because he is a thousand.
No marvel you are slow to find in him 170
The genius that is one spark or is nothing:
His genius is a flame that he must hold
So far above the common heads of men
That they may view him only through the mist
Of their defect, and wonder what he is. 175
It seems to me the mystery that is in him
That makes him only more to me a man
Than any other I have ever known.
BURR
I grant you that his worship is a man.
I’m not so much at home with mysteries, 180
May be, as you — so leave him with his fire:
God knows that I shall never put it out.
He has not made a cripple of himself
In his pursuit of me, though I have heard
His condescension honors me with parts. 185
Parts make a whole, if we’ve enough of them;
And once I figured a sufficiency
To be at least an atom in the annals
Of your republic. But I must have erred.
HAMILTON
You smile as if your spirit lived at ease 190
With error. I should not have named it so,
Failing assent from you; nor, if I did,
Should I be so complacent in my skill
To comb the tangled language of the people
As to be sure of anything in these days. 195
Put that much in account with modesty.
BURR
What in the name of Ahab, Hamilton,
Have you, in the last region of your dreaming,
To do with “people”? You may be the devil
In your dead-reckoning of what reefs and shoals 200
Are waiting on the progress of our ship
Unless you steer it, but you’ll find it irksome
Alone there in the stern; and some warm day
There’ll be an inland music in the rigging,
And afterwards on deck. I’m not affined 205
Or favored overmuch at Monticello,
But there’s a might
y swarming of new bees
About the premises, and all have wings.
If you hear something buzzing before long,
Be thoughtful how you strike, remembering also 210
There was a fellow Naboth had a vineyard,
And Ahab cut his hair off and went softly.
HAMILTON
I don’t remember that he cut his hair off.
BURR
Somehow I rather fancy that he did.
If so, it’s in the Book; and if not so, 215
He did the rest, and did it handsomely.
HAMILTON
Commend yourself to Ahab and his ways
If they inveigle you to emulation;
But where, if I may ask it, are you tending
With your invidious wielding of the Scriptures? 220
You call to mind an eminent archangel
Who fell to make him famous. Would you fall
So far as he, to be so far remembered?
BURR
Before I fall or rise, or am an angel,
I shall acquaint myself a little further 225
With our new land’s new language, which is not —
Peace to your dreams — an idiom to your liking.
I’m wondering if a man may always know
How old a man may be at thirty-seven;
I wonder likewise if a prettier time 230
Could be decreed for a good man to vanish
Than about now for you, before you fade,
And even your friends are seeing that you have had
Your cup too full for longer mortal triumph.
Well, you have had enough, and had it young; 235
And the old wine is nearer to the lees
Than you are to the work that you are doing.
HAMILTON
When does this philological excursion
Into new lands and languages begin?
BURR
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 43