THEY'D NEVER KNOW ME NOW

Let's sit here very quiet, self-controlled, Talk quietly, under this glorious tree, The internes are too far away to hear. They will stand there if we are calm.

You look Much better than you did. And as for me, Since I tried leaping from my window, I Seem on the mend, sleep better, do not feel

So much like running, flying from the fears As I did three weeks since. Here is my tale: My first step in this world was as a soldier, Turned seventeen and off to free the Cubans.

I landed at Matanzas, served my time. Oh Liberty! Oh! struggles to make free All peoples, everywhere! And when I saw The American republic move to strike

The chains of tyranny, I said: I die For such a cause, or live to see it won — How glorious! My youthful mind was full Of Byron, Shelley, Paine, and many more —

And when I saw my republic go to war, Just as a good Samaritan, I said, This is my hour, I'm on the pinnacle, Life is divine at last.

But on a sudden A north wind froze my waters, caught my stars To points of vision which before had been Mixed in the fluent time. We up and stole

The Philippines, spit on our sacred charter, Turned all the thing to guts, until I heard Their growl alone which I thought spirit voices When we had warred for Cuba!‘ Twas enough;

What was my country? Just a mass of slickers Talking philanthropy and five per cent, A pious, blundering booby lodged at last In a great caecum mouthing Destiny.

God, with a leader just an actor-man, Clean shaven, shifty, shallow, whored upon By mercantilists and their butcher creed. I mean McKinley, Hanna. Write it down:

They barbarized our Grecian temple, placed Cheap colored windows in its marble walls — May history be their hell. But as for me,

They talked of God so much, I said at last I'll learn all they can teach concerning God. This restless soldier spirit led me on, And just because I sensed the faithless age,

Loveless and purposeless except for gold, The adventurer in me began to crop. Oh yes, the Cuban business started me. And so I went to college to prepare

For the ministry, as they thought, go through the course Called theological, saying for the first: “They'd never know me now.” I see at last

I am not one but many minds at once, And many personalities. As a boy I took the color of the leaves or wall Where I was resting, climbing. If in truth

I lived three months with an uncle, then they said You look just like your uncle. When I worked Under a lawyer's tutelage, they said: How much your face resembles his. I knew

My face and voice and gestures simulated Those I admired or lived with. But besides I took a certain pleasure, impish, maybe, In egging on, agreeing with, the souls

Whom I sought out; I used to tell my uncle, A man of firmest piety, what I heard Of blasphemy about the village, just To hear him deprecate it, look with dark

And flashing eyes upon such sin, while I, With serious face and earnest sympathy With what he felt, was laughing in my sleeve. Here is the germ then of my after life:

The faculty that harmonized my hue Of spirit with the place, the person, while Something in me, perhaps supremest self, Stood quite aloof and smiled.

But, as I said, When our Republic left its hill of vision, Descended to the place of herding hogs, This self of me, the adventurer, rose up

And led me forth to play with life, and first To try theology, as I have said... I was a wonder bred among the crew Of quiet, gate-toothed, crook-nosed psychopaths,

The foul-breathed, thick-lipped onanists who filled The seminary, stared at me to see How I learned Sanscrit, could defend and rout The atheistic speculations. Well,

What I enjoyed most was to get a crowd Of celibates and talk of chastity, And get them in a glow, and say to them: The mind is fortified by abstinence,

The spirit clarified and lifted up — I got a thrill somehow. But all the time I knew a girl named Ella. Oftentimes Lying beside her I would shriek with laughter

And she would ask, what is the matter, John? And I would say: I'm thinking of a song I heard one time: “They'd never know me now.” And Ella said: If Dr. Simpson knew

That you were here with me, you'd take a fall Out of the Seminary's second floor.... But I went through and did n't fall. And thought This is a way to live, I'll preach awhile,

And see what comes. I took a church and preached, Was known as Smith the eloquent, the earnest. But all the time I heard a voice that said: “They'd never know me now.” When I came in

The Sunday School and little children flocked About my knees and patient teachers looked With white, pure faces at me, then that voice “They'd never know me now” was in my ear....

Well, to go on, a widow in my church Young, beautiful and rich began to beat Her wings around my flame, and on the Sunday I preached about the rich young man, she came,

Invited me to dinner. We commenced, Were married in six months. And to conserve Her properties I studied law, at last Was spending days with brokers, business men,

Began to tell her that my health was failing, Saw doctors frequently to play the part. And then she said: You must resign your charge, Your health is breaking, dear. And I resigned

To spend the time in checking mortgages, Collecting rents:— “They'd never know me now”... We went the round of summer places, travel, Saw Europe, China, India and the Isles.

Near Florence had a villa for a time, Met people of all kinds, when I was forty I had a thousand selves, but if I had A self in truth it was submerged or scrawled

Like a palimpsest all over and so lost. I did n't know myself, was anything To every one, and everything to all. I felt the walking age come on me now:

A polar bear in a terrible rhythm swings His body back and forth behind the bars, And I would walk in restlessness or think Of other skies and places, teased and stung

By memories of my other selves, by wonder About what may be happening here or there; What are they doing now? What is she doing? There were a dozen shes to wonder about,

And if you think of one you wish to see, And dream she knows delight apart from you, You simply thrill, the wings you lost revolve, Like thumbs, vestigial stubs — but there you sit.

Thank God the aeroplane came on to help, And wipe out distance, for you find at last Distance is tragedy, terrifies the soul With space which must be mastered by the soul.

And so I bought a hydroplane. Perhaps Would be upon my lawn at sun-down holding These children on my knees, a lovely picture! Then as a fish darts out of darkened water

Into a water sun-lit, there would come A thought — we'll say of Alice — in two hours I'd be upon her little sleeping porch Two hundred miles away, beneath the stars

Of middle summer, having killed that space, And found the hour I wanted — hearing too “They'd never know me now” sung in my ears. And I remember when we were in Florence

My tribe had gone to Milan for some weeks, And I was quite alone, too bored to live. One listless afternoon who should come in? My wife's friend Constance — but to tell the truth

More friend of mine than hers, for all my life I seemed to have these secret understandings, And was two persons to a twain who thought They were the bond, whereas the bond existed

Between myself and one, and to the other Was not so much as dreamed. And Constance brought A certain Countess with her. In a glance

We two, the Countess and myself, beheld A flame that joined our hands. And in a week The Countess took me on her yacht to Capri, And round the Mediterranean. No one knew,

Not Constance, nor my wife, for I returned Before she came from Milan. Oh that week! That breeze that sung the port-holes, waters blue

And stars at night and music; and the Countess Whose voice was like a lute of gold, who lived, Knew life, was unafraid. She heard me say “They'd never know me now.” And softly murmured

Smiling the while: il lupo cangia Il pelo ma non il vizio Adding, Qual matto! Something yet remains That makes you charming! Oh the feasts and wine,

The songs and poems, till at last too soon We anchored in the bay of Naples. When I saw Vesuvius, then I felt again That sinking of the heart that I had known,

That sickness, strange, nostalgia, from a boy, Of which a word again. But now it was Precursive of the end, the finished idyll. The Countess took my hand, with misty eyes —

They let me off and rowed me to the dock, I caught the train to Florence, magically Before I had forgotten, seemed to be Upon the yacht still, was in truth alone

Amid the silence of my dining room, Supping alone — “They'd never know me now!” Later I had the fever, was delirious And saw myself receding as if backing

Into a funnel toward the little end, And growing smaller as the funnel narrowed Until I was so small I held myself Within the palm's hand of my other self,

Laughed like a devil, scared the nurse to death, Saying “They'd never know me now — just look!” My wife too had the fever. I awoke Out of this illness, found that she was gone,

Had died a week before and for a week Had been entombed while I was raving — then If any real self of me ever was it came Back to me then. I bowed my head and wept

And scanned my life back: What was that in me Which made me homesick from a boy right through This life of mine, not for my home, for something,

Some place, some hand, some scene, which made me dread All partings, overwhelmed me with a grief For ended raptures, kept my brain too full Of memories, never lost, that grew until

I lost myself, and seemed a thousand selves Wandering through a thousand years, how restless! Then mutterings shook our skies! Another war, France, Germany and England, so it seemed

Best to return here to America. I gathered up the children — all but one, The boy eighteen escaped me, ran away And joined the English army. Now I saw

One self of me repeated, that which went To free the Cubans! Curse these freedom wars! They shipped him off to India, soon he had His fill of liberty. But I came back

And here I am. “They'd never know me now!” For what is left of me, what ever was To be peeled off to realest core? The soldier Gone out of me entirely; long ago,

The dreamer of a better world; the self That said I'm on the pinnacle, took arms To free the Cubans; self of me that hungered For pyramids and mountains, ancient streams,

Nile and the Ganges; self of me that turned To be a father holding on his knees A romping bevy; self of me that dreamed One heart, one hand enough, oh even the self

That dreamed there is a hand a heart for me, Who found in truth no solace in the wife But only a teasing, torturing recollection That I had missed the one, or missed the many.

So I was in America again, Had fled the war and plunged into the war:— The waves roared yonder, but the shores were here Where wreckage, putrid monsters were thrown up,

Corpses of ancient liberties and bones Of treasured beauty; and I saw the Land Don every despot weapon, as it did When I fought for the Cubans, even worse.

They shipped my boy to Africa; in spite Of censorship I pieced the picture out, Knew what he suffered, how they took his faith And dimmed its flame with ordure. Then came forth

That father self of me. I brooded on His blue eyes, gentle ways, sat terrified And tried to trace the days through and the years When he had slipped from just a little boy

Into a stripling, soldier finally — While I — what was I doing? Oh, my God, Living these other selves, oblivious That this boy was. I'd jump from soundest sleep

Thinking of him in Africa, and seized With dreams that I must fly to him. O years Wherein I lost that boy. How could I live So many lives and not lose out of some,

Some precious thing? Well, then I broke at last, They brought me here: “They'd never know me now.”