To the archangels and the fiery seed
Of mad Prometheus, fighting gods for men,
And heaven for earth, this greeting:
I led you once, I taught you, am the sire
Of hosts of you, but fellow to you all.
And when I fell, was chained upon this bed
By adamantine sickness, then I lay
And had you in my thought hour after hour,
Day after day, and saw you in dreams by night
Still fighting, bleeding, caring for the fallen,
Or objurgating heaven for the curse
It sheds on men, or arming for the fray
With steel of resisting thought; and so the sense
Of my responsibility has weighed
Upon me as my night has deftly dawned
To something clearer than the soul you knew,
Who led you once, with breath of iron horns,
Called to you: Charge! there is the trench of greed!
Avenge the poor! bring justice! purge the state
Of fraud! And so I lay and thought of you
Still guarding the old lines, fighting the old fights,
While I was changed, was not your leader now,
Cared no more for your battles, save as strife
That leads up higher, for upon my wall
I woke to see these words: He only wins
His freedom and existence who each day
Conquers them newly. How can I tell you
What has come over me?

You walk through galleries,
Devour the pictures in the different rooms,
Then gaze about you where you stand at last
Amid supernal canvases of light.
Try to recall the pictures you have studied,
What you have seen has helped you to perceive
The final beauties, but is blurred in mind,
It has been lived, has lost its vital power,
Is not the sovereign moment.

Climb a mountain
The whole day through, and at the time of stars
Stand on a peak and search infinity!
You have forgot the valleys, save perhaps
The torment of the flies of which you’re freed
In these cool heights.

So age cannot recall
The thrill and intimate complexities
That made the thought of youth. A sickness comes:
One has been metamorphosed, cannot live
The old emotions, habits, old delights.
And as for that we change each day and all
Our yesterdays are chrysalises whence
We crawled to what we are. In short, archangels,
I have become another soul. Now listen:

I have seen things I cannot tell you of.
I have gained understandings past my power
To give you clearly; yet upon me rests
The teasing call to tell you, here I lie
Revolving this new task of leadership.
How shall I make you see I have not failed you?
Not really played a treasonous soul to you?
Not scorned the cause I gave you, kept you in?
Or damned you for, or made you suffer for?
I railed at heaven, I instructed you
To rail as well. How can you understand
I now accept the fate? Will you despise me
For saying this? Or will you say disease
Has weakened me, cooled off the fire of soul
And damped my courage? Then go on your way
To find a worthier leader?

So to doubt
I taught you once, but now my mind believes.
And to deny the order of the world
I gave you words, now I affirm the plan.
To fight against the gods in man’s behalf,
I made my leadership. Now I perceive
The cause of gods and men made one. You see
It is not individual gain that counts
In these external benefits of freedom
And satisfaction of material wants,
That counts so much, I say, as inner chains
Struck from the wrists, and inner scales peeled off
From inner eyes. I grant the human cause,
And say this,—Can I make you understand?
To give you proof my heart is with you yet
Let me reveal my sacrifice.

Suppose
You’ve found a truth that others knew before you,
Seen, let us say, the cat, as single taxers
Are wont to say? You hunt up some adherent
Who’s labored with you, tell him, “I’m convinced,
I see the cat at last.” You want to share
Your joy with some one, want his dragging hope
To hear you have arrived. And so with me
I hungered to communicate my vision
To some one who had seen it, and who knew
Its meaning, what it meant to me.

But then
You archangels and hot Promethean seed
Each time I thought of making the confession
To some delighted spirit, ranged yourselves
In thought around my sick bed, with contempt,
Or pained compassion written on your brows,
And words like these: He has deserted us,
He has surrendered, cringed before the gods.
And so my sacrifice is this: You’ll be
The first to know my second birth, you can
In such case never charge it up to fear,
Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spirit
That lost the human touch through the effects
Of some delirium. What mind so clear,
Or will so strong to die with this denial
For your sakes? For it may be best for you
To live the rebel out of you. And if
You thought—at least I fear it—if you thought
I had gone over to the hosts you hate,
As you are now, through weakness, made my peace
With heaven, as you’d call it, just to save
My wretched self, you’d have a mad regret,
A fine disgust to work through, added labor
To all you must achieve. That’s why I die,
And seal this message. Break it on the day
They make me ashes!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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