Classic Poem

I

Slumped under the impressive genitals
Of the bronze charger, protected by bronze,
By darkness from patrols, by sleep from what
Assailed him earlier and left him here,
The man lies. Clothing and organs. These were once
Shoes. Faint in the orange light
Flooding the portico above: the whole
Front of the State House. On a February night.

II

Dramatic bivouac for the casual man!
Beyond the exedra the Common falls,
Famous and dark, away; a lashing wind;
Immortal heroes in a marble frame
Who broke their bodies on Fort Wagner's walls,
Robert Gould Shaw astride, and his
Negroes without name, who followed, who fell
Screaming or calm, wet cold, sick or oblivious.

III

Who now cares how? here they are in their prime, —
Paradigm, pitching imagination where
The crucible night all singularity,
Idiosyncrasy and creed, burnt out
And brought them, here, a common character.
Imperishable march below
The mounted man below the Angel, and
Under, the casual man, the possible hero.

IV

Hero for whom under a sky of bronze,
Saint-Gaudens' sky? Passive he seems to lie,
The last straw of contemporary thought,
In shapeless failure; but may be this man
Before he came here, or he comes to die,
Blazing with force or fortitude
Superb of civil soul may stand or may
After young Shaw within that crucible have stood.

V

For past her assignation when night fell
And the men forward, — poise and shock of dusk
As daylight rocking passes the horizon, —
The Angel spread her wings still. War is the
Congress of adolescents, love in a mask,
Bestial and easy, issueless,
Or gets a man of bronze. No beating heart
Until the casual man can see the Angel's face.

VI

Where shall they meet? what ceremony find,
Loose in the brothel of another war
This winter night? Can citizen enact
His timid will and expectation where,
Exact a wedding or her face O where
Tanks and guns, tanks and guns,
Move and must move to their conclusions, where
The will is mounted and gregarious and bronze?

VII

For ceremony, in the West, in the East,
The pierced sky, iced air, and the rent of cloud
As, moving to his task at dawn, who'd been
Hobbledehoy of the cafeteria life
Swung like a hobby in the blue and rode
The shining body of his choice
To the eye and time of his bombardier; —
Stiffened in the racket, and relaxed beyond noise.

VIII

" Who now cares how? " — the quick, the index! Question
Your official heroes in a magazine,
Wry voices past the river. Dereliction,
Lust and bloodlust, error and goodwill, this one
Died howling, craven, this one was a swine
From childhood. Man and animal
Sit for their photographs to Fame, and dream
Barbershop hours . . . vain, compassionate parable.

IX

" Accidents of history, memorials " —
A considering and quiet voice. " I see
Photograph and bronze upon another shore
Do not arrive; the light is where it is,
Indifferent to honour. Let honour be
Consolation to those who give,
None to the Hero, and no sign of him:
All unrecorded, flame-like, perish and live. "

X

Diminishing beyond the elms. Rise now
The chivalry and defenders of our time,
From Spain and China, the tortured continents,
Leningrad, Syria, Corregidor, —
Upon a primitive theme high variations
Like soaring Beethoven's. — Lost, lost
Whose eyes flung faultless to one horizon
Their fan look. Fiery night consumes a summoned ghost.

XI

Images of the Possible, the top,
Their time they taxed, — after the tanks came through,
When orderless and by their burning homes'
Indelible light, with knee and nail they struck
(The improvised the real) man's common foe,
Misled blood-red statistical men.
Images of conduct in a crucible,
Their eyes, and nameless eyes, which will not come again.

XII

We hope will not again . Therefore those eyes
Fix me again upon the terrible shape,
Defeated and marvellous of the man I know,
Jack under the stallion. We have passed him by,
Wandering, prone, and he is our whole hope,
Our fork's one tine and our despair,
The heart of the Future beating. How far far
We sent our subtle messengers! when he is here.

XIII

Who chides our clamour and who would forget
The death of heroes: never know the shore
Where, hair to the West, Starkatterus was burnt;
And undergo no more that spectacle —
Perpetually verdant the last pyre,
Fir, cypress, yew, the phoenix bay
And voluntary music — which to him
Threw never meat or truth. He looks another way.

XIV

Watching who labour O that all may see
And savour the blooming world, flower and sound,
Tending and tending to peace, — be what their blood,
Prayer, occupation may, — so tend for all:
A common garden in a private ground.
Who labour in the private dark
And silent dark for birthday music and light,
Fishermen, gardeners, about their violent work.

XV

Lincoln, the lanky lonely and sad man
Who suffered in Washington his own, his soul;
Mao Tse-tung, Teng Fa, fabulous men,
Laughing and serious men; or Tracy Doll
Tracing the future on the wall of a cell —
There, there, on the wall of a cell
The face towards which we hope all history,
Institutions, tears move, there the Individual.

XVI

Ah, it may not be so. Still the crucial night
Fastens you all upon this frame of hope:
Each in his limited sick world with them,
The figures of his reverence, his awe,
His shivering devotion, — that they shape
Shelter, action, salvation.
. . . Legends and lies. Kneel if you will, but rise
Homeless, alone, and be the kicking working one.

XVII

None anywhere alone! The turning world
Brings unaware us to our enemies,
Artist to assassin, Saint-Gaudens' bronze
To a free shelter, images to end.
The cold and hard wind has tears in my eyes,
Long since, long since, I heard the last
Traffic unmeshing upon Boylston Street,
I halted here in the orange light of the Past,

XVIII

Helpless under the great crotch lay this man
Huddled against woe, I had heard defeat
All day, I saw upon the sands assault,
I heard the voice of William James, the wind,
And poured in darkness or in my heartbeat
Across my hearing and my sight
Worship and love irreconcilable
Here to be reconciled. On a February night.