An Argument

I.    The Voice of the Man Impatient with Visions and Utopias          We find your soft Utopias as white          As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells,          O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are          How human breasts adore alarum bells.          You house us in a hive of prigs and saints          Communal, frugal, clean and chaste by law.          I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore          Or be Lear's fool, straw-crowned amid the straw.          Promise us all our share in Agincourt          Say that our clerks shall venture scorns and death,          That future ant-hills will not be too good          For Henry Fifth, or Hotspur, or Macbeth.          Promise that through to-morrow's spirit-war          Man's deathless soul will hack and hew its way,          Each flaunting Caesar climbing to his fate          Scorning the utmost steps of yesterday.          Never a shallow jester any more!          Let not Jack Falstaff spill the ale in vain.          Let Touchstone set the fashions for the wise          And Ariel wreak his fancies through the rain.                  II.    The Rhymer's Reply.    Incense and Splendor          Incense and Splendor haunt me as I go.          Though my good works have been, alas, too few,          Though I do naught, High Heaven comes down to me,          And future ages pass in tall review.          I see the years to come as armies vast,          Stalking tremendous through the fields of time.          MAN is unborn.    To-morrow he is born,          Flame-like to hover o'er the moil and grime,          Striving, aspiring till the shame is gone,          Sowing a million flowers, where now we mourn -          Laying new, precious pavements with a song,          Founding new shrines, the good streets to adorn.          I have seen lovers by those new-built walls          Clothed like the dawn in orange, gold and red.          Eyes flashing forth the glory-light of love          Under the wreaths that crowned each royal head.          Life was made greater by their sweetheart prayers.          Passion was turned to civic strength that day -          Piling the marbles, making fairer domes          With zeal that else had burned bright youth away.          I have seen priestesses of life go by          Gliding in samite through the incense-sea -          Innocent children marching with them there,          Singing in flowered robes, "THE EARTH IS FREE":          While on the fair, deep-carved unfinished towers          Sentinels watched in armor, night and day -          Guarding the brazier-fires of hope and dream -          Wild was their peace, and dawn-bright their array!