  ’Twixt certain parallels of latitude; Say thirty-seven and forty-two and more; And certain meridians, say ninety-one And eighty-seven plus. The top line drawn to leave the lower lake Shaped like a drinking cup to meet your needs; To bind you to the east and west, Save you from tributary servitude Through Mississippi’s River to the south. No sheds of hills to guard you on the north Against the arctic winds loosed at the pole, Or Medicine Hat parturient as the bag Of Mad Æolus. The valley and the river just a hall-way Making a draft for tropic heat in summer— Well, here you are in physiography. Upon a time black soil was poured Over your surface as the cook Pours chocolate on a cake. So you are fertile, never a land so rich. A little river flowing in the lake Vanishing in marshes up a mile or so Makes for a portage to another stream Into the Mississippi. A spot between the lake and river lies Upon the highway binding east and west, And from the south and north where traders meet. This is the very place to build a fort— The fort becomes a town within a year, A great metropolis in half a cycle. Within a lifetime you have gained Some seven million souls. The land of Luther sends a swarming host; And Milton’s land adventurous sons; And Scandinavia’s realm, And Michael Angelo’s mountains, All Europe pours her wealth Of brawn and spirit on you, Until you are an empire Of restless vital men, and teeming towns. Before you were grown rich, And populous You brightened history; Great men came from you. But now that you have cities and great treasure Where are your great ones? What is your genius? What star enwraps your eyes? What heights allure you? Hermaphroditic giant, sad and drunk Not gay, but foolish, stuffed with new baked bread, Who took away your gland pituitary, Abandoned you to such exaggerate growth Without increase of soul? You blasphemous, yet afraid, Licentious, yet ashamed, Swaggering, yet blubbering And boasting of your rights. Materialist who woos the spiritual, Who holds aloft the cross from which you’ve sold The nails to junk-men. And makes a hackle from the crown of thorns Wherewith to hackle hemp to make a rope For your own hanging in the Philippines! Who with one hand grabs off the widow’s mite, And with the other tosses golden coins Into the beggar’s cup. The black-snake whip in one hand, in the other A plentiful supply of surgeon’s tape. Oh you! A hard oppressor, charitably inclined, And keen to see and take the outward image— Devoid of categories to reduce Its truth and meaning. No seed of old world thistles should be sown here, Or let to fly upon this soil. Men rise thereby who sow the seed again; Accessory spirits keep the ground well stirred. It’s gold and then it’s power, but gold at last. And for the rest what are your dominant breeds? Smug cultures where the aggregate mind is leather Gorged with the oil respectability Impervious to thought. These pick the eunuch type as being safe, American, it’s called: Sleek, quiet, smiling, ready servitors Who for the salary, and that alone, (Require no bribes) Effect the business will. You are a hollow thing of steel, a cauldron, No monument of freedom. You’re lettered, it is true, With many luminous truths that came to be Through deeds of men who died for liberty. But inside you there is a seething compost Of public schools, the ballot, journalism, Laws, jurisprudence, dogma, gold the chief Ingredient all stirred into a brew Wherewith to feed yourself and keep yourself The thing you are! Not wholly slave, not really free, Desiring vaguely to be master moral, The ballot, fear, plebian spirit, lack of mind, To reach patrician levels— Hermaphroditic giant, misty-eyed, Half blinded by ideals, half by greed! Can nothing but a war, The prospect of a slaughter or the prize Of foreign lands, shake off your lethargy, And make you seem as big in spirit as You are in body? Would you not love the general weal improved? Would you not love your towns made beautiful? Your halls and courts Reclaimed from dicers’ oaths? Your laws made just and tuned to god-like laws? Your weights and measures made invariable? Is there no tonic in such hopes as these To rouse you, giant? I think you are Delilah Tricked out as Liberty for a fancy ball, Spiritless, provincal, shabby, dull, Where no ways gentle, no natural mirth prevails. You’ve put your Samson’s eye out; he would see. You’ve chained him to the grinder, he would play, Be wise and human, free, courageous, fair, Of cle |
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