Domesday Book

Take any life you choose and study it:         It gladdens, troubles, changes many lives.         The life goes out, how many things result?         Fate drops a stone, and to the utmost shores         The circles spread.          Now, such a book were endless,         If every circle, riffle should be traced         Of any life - and so of Elenor Murray,         Whose life was humble and whose death was tragic.         And yet behold the riffles spread, the lives         That are affected, and the secrets gained         Of lives she never knew of, as for that.         For even the world could not contain the books         That should be written, if all deeds were traced,         Effects, results, gains, losses, of her life,         And of her death.          Concretely said, in brief,         A man and woman have produced this child;         What was the child's pre-natal circumstance?         How did her birth affect the father, mother?         What did their friends, old women, relatives         Take from the child in feeling, joy or pain?         What of her childhood friends, her days at school,         Her teachers, girlhood sweethearts, lovers later,         When she became a woman? What of these?         And what of those who got effects because         They knew this Elenor Murray?             Then she dies.         Read how the human secrets are exposed         In many lives because she died - not all         Lives, by her death affected, written here.         The reader may trace out such other riffles         As come to him - this book must have an end.         Enough is shown to show what could be told         If we should write a world of books. In brief         One feature of the plot elaborates         The closeness of one life, however humble         With every life upon this globe. In truth         I sit here in Chicago, housed and fed,         And think the world secure, at peace, the clock         Just striking three, in Europe striking eight:         And in some province, in some palace, hut,         Some words are spoken, or a fisticuff         Results between two brawlers, and for that         A blue-eyed boy, my grandson, we may say,         Not even yet in seed, but to be born         A half a century hence, is by those words,         That fisticuff, drawn into war in Europe,         Shrieks from a bullet through the groin, and lies         Under the sod of France.             But to return         To Elenor Murray, I have made a book         Called Domesday Book, a census spiritual         Taken of our America, or in part         Taken, not wholly taken, it may be.         For William Merival, the coroner,         Who probed the death of Elenor Murray goes         As far as may be, and beyond his power,         In diagnosis of America,         While finding out the cause of death. In short         Becomes a William the Conqueror that way         In making up a Domesday Book for us....         Of this a little later. But before         We touch upon the Domesday book of old,         We take up Elenor Murray, show her birth;         Then skip all time between and show her death;         Then take up Coroner Merival - who was he?         Then trace the life of Elenor Murray through         The witnesses at the inquest on the body         Of Elenor Murray; - also letters written,         And essays written, conversations heard,         But all evoked by Elenor Murray's death.         And by the way trace riffles here and there....         A word now on the Domesday book of old:         Remember not a book of doom, but a book         Of houses; domus, house, so domus book.         And this book of the death of Elenor Murray         Is not a book of doom, though showing too         How fate was woven round her, and the souls         That touched her soul; but is a house book too         Of riches, poverty, and weakness, strength         Of this our country.          If you take St. Luke         You find an angel came to Mary, said:         Hail! thou art highly favored, shalt conceive,         Bring forth a son, a king for David's throne: -         So tracing life before the life was born.         We do the same for Elenor Murray, though         No man or angel said to Elenor's mother:         You have found favor, you are blessed of God,         You shall conceive, bring forth a daughter blest,         And blessing you. Quite otherwise the case,         As being blest or blessing, something like         Perhaps, in that desire, or flame of life,         Which gifts new souls with passion, strength and love....         This is the manner of the girl's conception,         And of her birth: - ...