505 History and politics poems

I.  Open Ward at the Elisabeth Hospital, Berlin, 1920 My tongue is a spoon. Does that explain it?    Door opens    door closes. White coats stammer the threshold. They draw the sheets      again     and again I give them nothing.     My mouth is a splinter        not telling. They ask if I fell from the bridge or did I jump.         They ask my name.

June 5, 1892 Dear Daughter, Can you be fifty-three this month? I still look for you to peek around my door as if you’d discovered a toy you thought gone for good, ready at my smile to run up and press your fist into my broken palm. But your own girls have outgrown such games, and I cannot pilfer back time I spent pursuing Freedom. Fair to you, to your brothers, your mother? Hardly. But what other choice did I have? What sham, what shabby love could I offer you, so long as Thomas Auld held the law over my head? And when the personal threat was ended, whose eyes could mine enter without shame, if turning toward my wife and children meant turning my back? Your mother’s eyes stare out at me through yours, of late. You think I didn’t love her, that my quick remarriage makes a Gertrude of me, a corseted Hamlet of you. You’re as wrong as you are lucky. Had Anna Murray had your education as a girl, my love for her would have been as passionate as it was grateful. But she died illiterate, when I had risked my life to master language. The pleasures of book and pen retain the thrill of danger even now, and you may understand why Ottilie Assing, come into our house to translate me into German, could command so many hours, years, of my time—or, as you would likely say, of your mother’s time. Forgive me, Rosetta, for broaching such indelicate subjects, but as my eldest child and only living daughter, I want you to feel certain that Helen became the new Mrs. Douglass because of what we shared in sheaves of my papers: let no one persuade you I coveted her skin. I am not proud of how I husbanded your mother all those years, but marriage, too, is a peculiar institution. I could not have stayed so unequally yoked so long, without a kind of Freedom in it. Anna accepted this, and I don’t have to tell you that her lot was better and she, happier, than if she’d squatted with some other man in a mutual ignorance. Perhaps I will post, rather than burn, this letter, this time. I’ve written it so often, right down to these closing lines, in which I beg you to be kinder, much kinder, to your step-mother. You two are of an age to be sisters, and of like temperament—under other circumstances, you might have found Friendship in each other. With regards to your husband—I am, as ever, your loving father— Frederick Douglass

WHEREAS a string-bean blue-eyed man leans back into a swig of beer work-weary lips at the dark bottle keeping cool in short sleeves and khakis he enters the discussion; Whereas his wrist loose at the bottleneck to come across as candid “Well at least there was an Apology that’s all I can say” he offers to the circle each of them scholarly; Whereas under starlight the fireflies wink across East Coast grass and me I sit there painful in my silence glued to a bench in the midst of the American casual; Whereas a subtle electricity in that low purple light I felt their eyes on my face gauging a reaction and someone’s discomfort leaks out in a well-stated “Hmmm”; Whereas like a bird darting from an oncoming semi my mind races to the Apology’s assertion “While the establishment of permanent European settlements in North America did stir conflict with nearby Indian tribes, peaceful and mutually beneficial interactions also took place”; Whereas I cross my arms and raise a curled hand to my mouth as if thinking as if  taking it in I allow a static quiet then choose to stand up excusing myself  I leave them to unease; Whereas I drive down the road replaying the get-together how the man and his beer bottle stated their piece and I reel at what I could have said or done better; Whereas I could’ve but didn’t broach the subject of “genocide” the absence of this term from the Apology and its rephrasing as “conflict” for example; Whereas since the moment had passed I accept what’s done and the knife of my conscience pierces with bone-clean self-honesty; Whereas in a stirred conflict between settlers and an Indian that night in a circle; Whereas I struggle to confess that I didn’t want to explain anything; Whereas truthfully I wished most to kick the legs of that man’s chair out from under him; Whereas to watch him fall backward legs flailing beer stench across his chest; Whereas I pictured it happening in cinematic slow-motion delightful; Whereas the curled hand I raised to my mouth was a sign of indecision; Whereas I could’ve done it but I didn’t; Whereas I can admit this also took place, yes,at least; WHEREAS we ride to the airport in a van they swivel their necks and shoulders around to speak to me sugar and lilt in their voices something like nurses their nursely kindness through my hair then engage me as comrades in a fight together. Well what we want to know one lady asks is why they don’t have schools there? Her outrage empathy her furrowed brow. There are schools there I reply. Grade schools high schools colleges. But why aren’t there any stores there? There are stores there. Grocery stores convenience stores trading posts whatever what-have-you I explain but it’s here I recognize the break. It’s here we roll along the pavement into hills of conversation we share a ride we share a country but live in alternate nations and here I must tell them what they don’t know or, should I?Should I is the moment to seize and before I know it I say Well you know Native people as in tribes as in “people” living over there are people with their own nations each with its own government and flag they rise to their own national songs and sing in their own languages, even. And by there I mean here all around us I remind them. Drifting in side-glances to whirring trees through the van windows then back to me they dig in they unearth the golden question My God how come we were never taught this in our schools? The concern and furrow. But God the slowing wheels and we lurch forward in the van’s downshift and brake. Together we reach a full-stop. Trapped in a helix of traffic we’re late for check-in security flights our shoulders flex forward into panicked outward gazes nerves and fingers cradle our wristwatches so to answer their question now would be untimely because to really speak to it ever is, untimely. But there Comrades there there Nurses. I will remember the swing of your gold earrings.There your perfume around me as a fresh blanket.There you checked my pulse kindly.There the boundary of bedside manners; WHEREAS a woman I know says she watched a news program a reporter detailed the fire a house in which five children burned perhaps their father too she doesn’t recall exactly but remembers the camera on the mother’s face the mother’s blubbering her hiccuping and wail she leans to me she says she never knew then in those times that year this country the northern state she grew up in she was so young you see she’d never seen it before nobody talked about them she means Indians she tells me and so on and so on but that moment in front of the TV she says was like opening a box left at her door opening to see the thing inside whereas to say she learned through that mother’s face can you believe it and I let her finish wanting someone to say it but she hated saying it or so she said admitting how she never knew until then they could feel; WHEREAS the word whereas means it being the case that, or considering that, or while on the contrary; is a qualifying or introductory statement, a conjunction, a connector. Whereas sets the table. The cloth. The saltshakers and plates. Whereas calls me to the table because Whereas precedes and invites. I have come now. I’m seated across from a Whereas smile. Under pressure of formalities, I fidget I shake my legs. I’m not one for these smiles, Whereas I have spent my life in unholding.What do you mean by unholding? Whereas asks and since Whereas rarely asks, I am moved to respond, Whereas, I have learned to exist and exist without your formality, saltshakers, plates, cloth. Without the slightest conjunctions to connect me. Without an exchange of questions, without the courtesy of answers. This has become mine, this unholding. Whereas, with or without the setup, I can see the dish being served. Whereas let us bow our heads in prayer now, just enough to eat;

I Cook was a captain of the Admiralty When sea-captains had the evil eye, Or should have, what with beating krakens off And casting nativities of ships; Cook was a captain of the powder-days When captains, you might have said, if you had been Fixed by their glittering stare, half-down the side, Or gaping at them up companionways, Were more like warlocks than a humble man— And men were humble then who gazed at them, Poor horn-eyed sailors, bullied by devils’ fists Of wind or water, or the want of both, Childlike and trusting, filled with eager trust— Cook was a captain of the sailing days When sea-captains were kings like this, Not cold executives of company-rules Cracking their boilers for a dividend Or bidding their engineers go wink At bells and telegraphs, so plates would hold Another pound. Those captains drove their ships By their own blood, no laws of schoolbook steam, Till yards were sprung, and masts went overboard— Daemons in periwigs, doling magic out, Who read fair alphabets in stars Where humbler men found but a mess of sparks, Who steered their crews by mysteries And strange, half-dreadful sortilege with books, Used medicines that only gods could know The sense of, but sailors drank In simple faith. That was the captain Cook was when he came to the Coral Sea And chose a passage into the dark. How many mariners had made that choice Paused on the brink of mystery! ‘Choose now!’ The winds roared, blowing home, blowing home, Over the Coral Sea. ‘Choose now!’ the trades Cried once to Tasman, throwing him for choice Their teeth or shoulders, and the Dutchman chose The wind’s way, turning north. ‘Choose, Bougainville!’ The wind cried once, and Bougainville had heard The voice of God, calling him prudently Out of the dead lee shore, and chose the north, The wind’s way. So, too, Cook made choice, Over the brink, into the devil’s mouth, With four months’ food, and sailors wild with dreams Of English beer, the smoking barns of home. So Cook made choice, so Cook sailed westabout, So men write poems in Australia. II Flowers turned to stone! Not all the botany Of Joseph Banks, hung pensive in a porthole, Could find the Latin for this loveliness, Could put the Barrier Reef in a glass box Tagged by the horrid Gorgon squint Of horticulture. Stone turned to flowers It seemed—you’d snap a crystal twig, One petal even of the water-garden, And have it dying like a cherry-bough. They’d sailed all day outside a coral hedge, And half the night. Cook sailed at night, Let there be reefs a fathom from the keel And empty charts. The sailors didn’t ask, Nor Joseph Banks. Who cared? It was the spell Of Cook that lulled them, bade them turn below, Kick off their sea-boots, puff themselves to sleep, Though there were more shoals outside Than teeth in a shark’s head. Cook snored loudest himself. One day, a morning of light airs and calms, They slid towards a reef that would have knifed Their boards to mash, and murdered every man. So close it sucked them, one wave shook their keel, The next blew past the coral. Three officers, In gilt and buttons, languidly on deck Pointed their sextants at the sun. One yawned, One held a pencil, one put eye to lens: Three very peaceful English mariners Taking their sights for longitude. I’ve never heard Of sailors aching for the longitude Of shipwrecks before or since. It was the spell Of Cook did this, the phylacteries of Cook. Men who ride broomsticks with a mesmerist Mock the typhoon. So, too, it was with Cook. III Two chronometers the captain had, One by Arnold that ran like mad, One by Kendal in a walnut case, Poor devoted creature with a hangdog face. Arnold always hurried with a crazed click-click Dancing over Greenwich like a lunatic, Kendal panted faithfully his watch-dog beat, Climbing out of Yesterday with sticky little feet. Arnold choked with appetite to wolf up time, Madly round the numerals his hands would climb, His cogs rushed over and his wheels ran miles, Dragging Captain Cook to the Sandwich Isles. But Kendal dawdled in the tombstoned past, With a sentimental prejudice to going fast, And he thought very often of a haberdasher’s door And a yellow-haired boy who would knock no more. All through the night-time, clock talked to clock, In the captain’s cabin, tock-tock-tock, One ticked fast and one ticked slow, And Time went over them a hundred years ago. IV Sometimes the god would fold his wings And, stone of Caesars turned to flesh, Talk of the most important things That serious-minded midshipmen could wish, Of plantains, and the lack of rum Or spearing sea-cows—things like this That hungry schoolboys, five days dumb, In jolly-boats are wonted to discuss. What midshipman would pause to mourn The sun that beat about his ears, Or curse the tide, if he could horn His fists by tugging on those lumbering oars? Let rum-tanned mariners prefer To hug the weather-side of yards, ‘Cats to catch mice’ before they purr, Those were the captain’s enigmatic words. Here, in this jolly-boat they graced, Were food and freedom, wind and storm, While, fowling-piece across his waist, Cook mapped the coast, with one eye cocked for game. V After the candles had gone out, and those Who listened had gone out, and a last wave Of chimney-haloes caked their smoky rings Like fish-scales on the ceiling, a Yellow Sea Of swimming circles, the old man, Old Captain-in-the-Corner, drank his rum With friendly gestures to four chairs. They stood Empty, still warm from haunches, with rubbed nails And leather glazed, like aged serving-men Feeding a king’s delight, the sticky, drugged Sweet agony of habitual anecdotes. But these, his chairs, could bear an old man’s tongue, Sleep when he slept, be flattering when he woke, And wink to hear the same eternal name From lips new-dipped in rum. ‘Then Captain Cook, I heard him, told them they could go If so they chose, but he would get them back, Dead or alive, he’d have them,’ The old man screeched, half-thinking to hear ‘Cook! Cook again! Cook! It’s other cooks he’ll need, Cooks who can bake a dinner out of pence, That’s what he lives on, talks on, half-a-crown A day, and sits there full of Cook. Who’d do your cooking now, I’d like to ask, If someone didn’t grind her bones away? But that’s the truth, six children and half-a-crown A day, and a man gone daft with Cook.’ That was his wife, Elizabeth, a noble wife but brisk, Who lived in a present full of kitchen-fumes And had no past. He had not seen her For seven years, being blind, and that of course Was why he’d had to strike a deal with chairs, Not knowing when those who chafed them had gone to sleep Or stolen away. Darkness and empty chairs, This was the port that Alexander Home Had come to with his useless cutlass-wounds And tales of Cook, and half-a-crown a day— This was the creek he’d run his timbers to, Where grateful countrymen repaid his wounds At half-a-crown a day. Too good, too good, This eloquent offering of birdcages To gulls, and Greenwich Hospital to Cook, Britannia’s mission to the sea-fowl. It was not blindness picked his flesh away, Nor want of sight made penny-blank the eyes Of Captain Home, but that he lived like this In one place, and gazed elsewhere. His body moved In Scotland, but his eyes were dazzle-full Of skies and water farther round the world— Air soaked with blue, so thick it dripped like snow On spice-tree boughs, and water diamond-green, Beaches wind-glittering with crumbs of gilt, And birds more scarlet than a duchy’s seal That had come whistling long ago, and far Away. His body had gone back, Here it sat drinking rum in Berwickshire, But not his eyes—they were left floating there Half-round the earth, blinking at beaches milked By suck-mouth tides, foaming with ropes of bubbles And huge half-moons of surf. Thus it had been When Cook was carried on a sailor’s back, Vengeance in a cocked hat, to claim his price, A prince in barter for a longboat. And then the trumpery springs of fate—a stone, A musket-shot, a round of gunpowder, And puzzled animals, killing they knew not what Or why, but killing . . . the surge of goatish flanks Armoured in feathers, like cruel birds: Wild, childish faces, killing; a moment seen, Marines with crimson coats and puffs of smoke Toppling face-down; and a knife of English iron, Forged aboard ship, that had been changed for pigs, Given back to Cook between the shoulder-blades. There he had dropped, and the old floundering sea, The old, fumbling, witless lover-enemy, Had taken his breath, last office of salt water. Cook died. The body of Alexander Home Flowed round the world and back again, with eyes Marooned already, and came to English coasts, The vague ancestral darknesses of home, Seeing them faintly through a glass of gold, Dim fog-shapes, ghosted like the ribs of trees Against his blazing waters and blue air. But soon they faded, and there was nothing left, Only the sugar-cane and the wild granaries Of sand, and.palm-trees and the flying blood Of cardinal-birds; and putting out one hand Tremulously in the direction of the beach, He felt a chair in Scotland. And sat down.

He wore a little spiraled hat and wrote a song that everyone sang. He lived on the mountainside above a lake with a mythical beast he’d subdued. A train circled the village each hour, over and over, as he leaned down over the clock of   his world where people were days becoming months and years. In a park, from the hides of  ten cows, he’d constructed a  giant ball that everyone touched until it became a torn rag. He had no family, and because he worried so much about them:What if, what if, what if, like another beast pawing away, he’d invented a vitamin for everyone old that allowed you to continue slowly to grow until you forgot everything you once knew.

New England. Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best, With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest, What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms, And sit i’ the dust to sigh these sad alarms? What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm The glories of thy ever famous Realm? What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise? Ah, tell thy Daughter; she may sympathize. Old England. Art ignorant indeed of these my woes, Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose, And must my self dissect my tatter’d state, Which Amazed Christendom stands wondering at? And thou a child, a Limb, and dost not feel My weak’ned fainting body now to reel? This physic-purging-potion I have taken Will bring Consumption or an Ague quaking, Unless some Cordial thou fetch from high, Which present help may ease my malady. If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive? Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive? Then weigh our case, if ‘t be not justly sad. Let me lament alone, while thou art glad. New England. And thus, alas, your state you much deplore In general terms, but will not say wherefore. What Medicine shall I seek to cure this woe, If th’ wound’s so dangerous, I may not know? But you, perhaps, would have me guess it out. What, hath some Hengist like that Saxon stout By fraud and force usurp’d thy flow’ring crown, Or by tempestuous Wars thy fields trod down? Or hath Canutus, that brave valiant Dane, The regal peaceful Sceptre from thee ta’en? Or is 't a Norman whose victorious hand With English blood bedews thy conquered Land? Or is ‘t intestine Wars that thus offend? Do Maud and Stephen for the Crown contend? Do Barons rise and side against their King, And call in Foreign aid to help the thing? Must Edward be depos’d? Or is ‘t the hour That second Richard must be clapp’d i’ th’ Tower? Or is it the fatal jar, again begun, That from the red, white pricking Roses sprung? Must Richmond’s aid the Nobles now implore To come and break the tushes of the Boar? If none of these, dear Mother, what’s your woe? Pray, do not fear Spain’s bragging Armado. Doth your Ally, fair France, conspire your wrack, Or doth the Scots play false behind your back? Doth Holland quit you ill for all your love? Whence is this storm, from Earth or Heaven above? Is ‘t drought, is ‘t Famine, or is ‘t Pestilence? Dost feel the smart, or fear the consequence? Your humble Child entreats you shew your grief. Though Arms nor Purse she hath for your relief— Such is her poverty,—yet shall be found A suppliant for your help, as she is bound. Old England. I must confess some of those Sores you name My beauteous Body at this present maim, But foreign Foe nor feigned friend I fear, For they have work enough, thou knowest, elsewhere. Nor is it Alcie’s son and Henry’s Daughter Whose proud contention cause this slaughter; Nor Nobles siding to make John no King, French Louis unjustly to the Crown to bring; No Edward,Richard, to lose rule and life, Nor no Lancastrians to renew old strife; No Crook-backt Tyrant now usurps the Seat, Whose tearing tusks did wound, and kill, and threat. No Duke of York nor Earl of March to soil Their hands in Kindred’s blood whom they did foil; No need of Tudor Roses to unite: None knows which is the Red or which the White. Spain’s braving Fleet a second time is sunk. France knows how of my fury she hath drunk By Edward third and Henry fifth of fame; Her Lilies in my Arms avouch the same. My Sister Scotland hurts me now no more, Though she hath been injurious heretofore. What Holland is, I am in some suspense, But trust not much unto his Excellence. For wants, sure some I feel, but more I fear; And for the Pestilence, who knows how near? Famine and Plague, two sisters of the Sword, Destruction to a Land doth soon afford. They’re for my punishments ordain'd on high, Unless thy tears prevent it speedily. But yet I answer not what you demand To shew the grievance of my troubled Land. Before I tell the effect I’ll shew the cause, Which are my sins—the breach of sacred Laws: Idolatry, supplanter of a Nation, With foolish superstitious adoration, Are lik’d and countenanc’d by men of might, The Gospel is trod down and hath no right. Church Offices are sold and bought for gain That Pope had hope to find Rome here again. For Oaths and Blasphemies did ever ear From Beelzebub himself such language hear? What scorning of the Saints of the most high! What injuries did daily on them lie! What false reports, what nick-names did they take, Not for their own, but for their Master’s sake! And thou, poor soul, wast jeer’d among the rest; Thy flying for the Truth I made a jest. For Sabbath-breaking and for Drunkenness Did ever Land profaneness more express? From crying bloods yet cleansed am not I, Martyrs and others dying causelessly. How many Princely heads on blocks laid down For nought but title to a fading Crown! ‘Mongst all the cruelties which I have done, Oh,Edward’s Babes, and Clarence’s hapless Son, O Jane, why didst thou die in flow’ring prime?— Because of Royal Stem, that was thy crime. For Bribery, Adultery, for Thefts, and Lies Where is the Nation I can’t paralyze? With Usury, Extortion, and Oppression, These be the Hydras of my stout transgression; These be the bitter fountains, heads, and roots Whence flow’d the source, the sprigs, the boughs, and fruits. Of more than thou canst hear or I relate, That with high hand I still did perpetrate, For these were threat’ned the woeful day I mocked the Preachers, put it fair away. The Sermons yet upon record do stand That cried destruction to my wicked Land. These Prophets’ mouths (all the while) was stopt, Unworthily, some backs whipt, and ears crept; Their reverent cheeks bear the glorious marks Of stinking, stigmatizing Romish Clerks; Some lost their livings, some in prison pent, Some grossly fined, from friends to exile went: Their silent tongues to heaven did vengeance cry, Who heard their cause, and wrongs judg’d righteously, And will repay it sevenfold in my lap. This is fore-runner of my after-clap. Nor took I warning by my neighbors’ falls. I saw sad Germany’s dismantled walls, I saw her people famish’d, Nobles slain, Her fruitful land a barren heath remain. I saw (unmov’d) her Armies foil’d and fled, Wives forc’d, babes toss’d, her houses calcined. I saw strong Rochelle yield’d to her foe, Thousands of starved Christians there also. I saw poor Ireland bleeding out her last, Such cruelty as all reports have past. Mine heart obdurate stood not yet aghast. Now sip I of that cup, and just ‘t may be The bottom dregs reserved are for me. New England. To all you’ve said, sad mother, I assent. Your fearful sins great cause there ‘s to lament. My guilty hands (in part) hold up with you, A sharer in your punishment’s my due. But all you say amounts to this effect, Not what you feel, but what you do expect. Pray, in plain terms, what is your present grief? Then let’s join heads and hands for your relief. Old England. Well, to the matter, then. There’s grown of late ‘Twixt King and Peers a question of state: Which is the chief, the law, or else the King? One saith, it’s he; the other, no such thing. My better part in Court of Parliament To ease my groaning land shew their intent To crush the proud, and right to each man deal, To help the Church, and stay the Common-Weal. So many obstacles comes in their way As puts me to a stand what I should say. Old customs, new Prerogatives stood on. Had they not held law fast, all had been gone, Which by their prudence stood them in such stead They took high Strafford lower by the head, And to their Laud be ‘t spoke they held ‘n th’ Tower All England’s metropolitan that hour. This done, an Act they would have passed fain No prelate should his Bishopric retain. Here tugg’d they hard indeed, for all men saw This must be done by Gospel, not by law. Next the Militia they urged sore. This was denied, I need not say wherefore. The King, displeased, at York himself absents. They humbly beg return, shew their intents. The writing, printing, posting to and fro, Shews all was done; I’ll therefore let it go. But now I come to speak of my disaster. Contention’s grown ‘twixt Subjects and their Master, They worded it so long they fell to blows, That thousands lay on heaps. Here bleeds my woes. I that no wars so many years have known Am now destroy’d and slaughter’d by mine own. But could the field alone this strife decide, One battle, two, or three I might abide, But these may be beginnings of more woe— Who knows, the worst, the best may overthrow! Religion, Gospel, here lies at the stake, Pray now, dear child, for sacred Zion’s sake, Oh, pity me in this sad perturbation, My plundered Towns, my houses’ devastation, My ravisht virgins, and my young men slain, My wealthy trading fallen, my dearth of grain. The seedtime’s come, but Ploughman hath no hope Because he knows not who shall inn his crop. The poor they want their pay, their children bread, Their woful mothers’ tears unpitied. If any pity in thy heart remain, Or any child-like love thou dost retain, For my relief now use thy utmost skill, And recompense me good for all my ill. New England. Dear mother, cease complaints, and wipe your eyes, Shake off your dust, cheer up, and now arise. You are my mother, nurse, I once your flesh, Your sunken bowels gladly would refresh. Your griefs I pity much but should do wrong, To weep for that we both have pray’d for long, To see these latter days of hop’d-for good, That Right may have its right, though ‘t be with blood. After dark Popery the day did clear; But now the Sun in’s brightness shall appear. Blest be the Nobles of thy Noble Land With (ventur’d lives) for truth’s defence that stand. Blest be thy Commons, who for Common good And thy infringed Laws have boldly stood. Blest be thy Counties, who do aid thee still With hearts and states to testify their will. Blest be thy Preachers, who do cheer thee on. Oh, cry: the sword of God and Gideon! And shall I not on them wish Mero’s curse That help thee not with prayers, arms, and purse? And for my self, let miseries abound If mindless of thy state I e’er be found. These are the days the Church’s foes to crush, To root out Prelates, head, tail, branch, and rush. Let’s bring Baal’s vestments out, to make a fire, Their Mitres, Surplices, and all their tire, Copes, Rochets, Croziers, and such trash, And let their names consume, but let the flash Light Christendom, and all the world to see We hate Rome’s Whore, with all her trumpery. Go on, brave Essex, shew whose son thou art, Not false to King, nor Country in thy heart, But those that hurt his people and his Crown, By force expel, destroy, and tread them down. Let Gaols be fill’d with th’ remnant of that pack, And sturdy Tyburn loaded till it crack. And ye brave Nobles, chase away all fear, And to this blessed Cause closely adhere. O mother, can you weep and have such Peers? When they are gone, then drown your self in tears, If now you weep so much, that then no more The briny Ocean will o’erflow your shore. These, these are they (I trust) with Charles our king, Out of all mists such glorious days will bring That dazzled eyes, beholding, much shall wonder At that thy settled Peace, thy wealth, and splendour, Thy Church and Weal establish’d in such manner That all shall joy that thou display’dst thy banner, And discipline erected so, I trust, That nursing Kings shall come and lick thy dust. Then Justice shall in all thy Courts take place Without respect of persons or of case. Then bribes shall cease, and suits shall not stick long, Patience and purse of Clients for to wrong. Then High Commissions shall fall to decay, And Pursuivants and Catchpoles want their pay. So shall thy happy Nation ever flourish, When truth and righteousness they thus shall nourish. When thus in Peace, thine Armies brave send out To sack proud Rome, and all her vassals rout. There let thy name, thy fame, and valour shine, As did thine Ancestors’ in Palestine, And let her spoils full pay with int’rest be Of what unjustly once she poll’d from thee. Of all the woes thou canst let her be sped, Execute to th’ full the vengeance threatened. Bring forth the beast that rul’d the world with’s beck, And tear his flesh, and set your feet on’s neck, And make his filthy den so desolate To th’ ‘stonishment of all that knew his state. This done, with brandish’d swords to Turkey go,— (For then what is it but English blades dare do?) And lay her waste, for so’s the sacred doom, And do to Gog as thou hast done to Rome. Oh Abraham’s seed, lift up your heads on high, For sure the day of your redemption’s nigh. The scales shall fall from your long blinded eyes, And him you shall adore who now despise. Then fullness of the Nations in shall flow, And Jew and Gentile to one worship go. Then follows days of happiness and rest. Whose lot doth fall to live therein is blest. No Canaanite shall then be found ‘n th’ land, And holiness on horses’ bells shall stand. If this make way thereto, then sigh no more, But if at all thou didst not see ‘t before. Farewell, dear mother; Parliament, prevail, And in a while you’ll tell another tale.

His handkerchief, a pin or coin he’d touched, a button from his shirt, a feather caught on his coattail — such tokens would fetch a price ... Men came to shake his hand, or rub their warts upon his famous skin; young mothers held babies for him to bless with luck or wisdom — could he ward off the pox? — while others pressed bribes for the questions they would have him ask. One woman, facing down a blush, gave him a scrap of cloth, and asked that he get blood on it: she would return next day to pay him if he would care to nominate a fee ... ? Blood of a witch! Can you believe such a thing? I think you may be worldly after all. Boy that I was, I can only guess at what he must have made of me; and he, tricked out in a high-crowned hat, Geneva cape, staff, spurs, and bucket-top boots — he might have been a landed squire or country magistrate ... You think us credulous? Of course you do. So young, so quick to judge! Friend, these were days of comets in the air, various auguries, marvellous tempests, sights on the sea — that we might have a witch nesting among us was not the strangest news we heard. Proceedings would begin at dawn, he said. Next day we found ourselves at the chapel house uncertain who had summoned whom. It fell to me (though why is more than I can say: I had not then addressed a congregation) to tell how, ever since her husband’s death, Old Bess had shunned society; how week on week her vacant place in church would be remarked; how she had made a stranger of herself so long that when she turned to her next neighbour, begging a bowl of curds, she was denied; how she cursed him for this; and how his child sickened and died soon afterwards. I took my seat light-headed among murmurs of approval, part of the crowd once more, strange to myself for all my eloquence, and some three-and-ninety witnesses rose to give their evidence ... But then: “Ask not what mercy justice can afford until, as civil law requires, you hear the witch condemned out of her own mouth.” So: officers must be sent to search her home — he called it ten to one that they would find trinkets such as beads or crucifixes or other trumpery; meantime she must be stripped and should the devil’s marks be found about her (sure enough, two bitch’s teats hung down between her secrets and the fundament) then she must be kept from sleep and meat and watched most constantly. Old Bess confessed at first light on the third day. He seized on me to write her testimony: On First of May, Year of Our Lord Sixteen Forty-Five, Elizabeth Bell confessed she kept Familiars including, but not restricted to, a Greyhound called Vinegar Tom, a Ferret by the name of Littleman, a Shrew called Peck-in-the-Crown, and also a most verminous Mouse called News; and having summoned up and suckled them she sent her Imps to spread the Dropsy, and to kill Richard Tayler’s Horse and Michael Edwards’s Swine. And freely she confessed to having met all hugger-mugger with divers adjacent Witches in other Towns (we took their names)

I saw the hand of Rasputin cast in bronze and used as an oversized paperweight on someone’s desk. The authentic hand. Smooth as Italian leather. It was molded from plaster before he was killed. Bought at an auction in Europe. She was a collector. She knew the value of everything. I wouldn’t like Rasputin’s hand on my desk, even though it wore the skin over its fine bones like a soft glove and healed the tsarevitch. I wouldn’t like her Samurai sword. I’m glad I don’t know what I’m worth. There are days when the whole world feels like somebody else’s collection. Even your hands. We walk in another country and the mist slowly rises above the lake like the heaviness we left, dissolving. Only it’s not our heaviness. * Sometimes, waking, I forget where I am. The things around me go on with their old existence like props in a play, as if the curtain has just risen on a room in an Italian villa. It’s not my play. In the old life there was a photo of Valentino on my desk. Agnes Ayers was swooning in his arms, the Sheik in a rapture of lips without any words. Benevolent uncles spoke in a language. I didn’t know, their fleshy hands, their anxious eyes smiling as they patted me gently on the head. Like watching a silent movie, when they opened their mouths like fish under water I turned off the sound. All that sweet absence. * Once I learned the thirteen principles of Rabbi Salanter, but I remember only seven: truth, diligence, honor, repose, cleanliness, frugality, and silence. If I collected words they would have to belong, like moss or fleas. Things you say that I can believe in. Honor reminds me too much of the Samurai. I like repose. It belongs to this landscape where even the lizards rest when we stand still and look at the wall together. Naming the things of this world you begin to own them. Cyclamen. Mustard. I can’t manage so many flowers. But I already know the word for lake in Italian. * Gulls wheel over Lago di Como at sundown on their way south trying to catch the last warm currents. Their wings are white, then silver, and then smoke when the light abandons them and dusk settles in their feathers. If you don’t collect things, it’s easier to move. Easier to stand on this cliff for another minute and watch the leaves fall, one by one, yellow, into the lake. They belong to the air for the time they are drifting. It’s a long way down.

In time and measure perfect moves All Art whose aim is sure; Evolving rhyme and stars divine Have rules, and they endure. Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right, And, warring so, prevailed, In geometric beauty curved, And in an orbit sailed. The rebel at Port Royal felt The Unity overawe, And rued the spell. A type was here, And victory of LAW.

Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set today a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.