Excluded Middle

Out of the mercury shimmer of glass     Over these daguerreotypes     The balloon-like spread of a skirt of silk emerges     With its little figure of flowers.     And the enameled glair of parted hair     Lies over the oval brow,     From under which eyes of fiery blackness     Look through you.     And the only repose of spirit shown     Is in the hands     Lying loosely one in the other,     Lightly clasped somewhat below the breast. ...     And in the companion folder of this case     Of gutta percha     Is the shape of a man.     His brow is oval too, but broader.     His nose is long, but thick at the tip.     His eyes are blue     Wherein faith burns her signal lights,     And flashes her convictions.     His mouth is tense, almost a slit.     And his face is a massive Calvinism     Resting on a stock tie.     They were married, you see.     The clasp on this gutta percha case     Locks them together.     They were locked together in life.     And a hasp of brass     Keeps their shadows face to face in the case     Which has been handed down -     (The pictures of noble ancestors,     Showing what strains of gentle blood     Flow in the third generation) -     From Massachusetts to Illinois. ...     Long ago it was over for them,     Massachusetts has done its part,     She raised the seed     And a wind blew it over to Illinois     Where it has mixed, multiplied, mutated     Until one soul comes forth:     But a soul all striped and streaked,     And a soul self-crossed and self-opposed,     As it were a tree which on one branch     Bears northern spies,     And on another thorn apples. ...     Come Weissmann, Von Baer and Schleiden,     And you Buffon and De Vries,     Come with your secrets of sea shore asters     Night-shade, henbanes, gloxinias,     Veronicas, snap-dragons, Danebrog,     And show us how they cross and change,     And become hybrids.     And show us what heredity is,     And how it works.     For the secret of these human beings     Locked in this gutta percha case     Is the secret of Mephistos and red Campions.     Let us lay out the facts as far as we can.     Her eyes were black,     His eyes were blue.     She saw through shadows, walls and doors,     She knew life and hungered for more.     But he lived in the mists, and climbed to high places     To feel clouds about his face, and get the lights     Of supernal sun-sets.     She was reason, and he was faith.     She had an illumination, but of the intellect.     And he had an illumination but of the soul.     And she saw God as merciless law,     And he knew God as divine love.     And she was a man, and he in part was a woman.     He stood in a pulpit and preached the Christ,     And the remission of sins by blood,     And the literal fall of man through Adam,     And the mystical and actual salvation of man     Through the coming of Christ.     And she sat in a pew shading her great eyes     To hide her scorn for it all.     She was crucified,     And raged to the last like the impenitent thief     Against the fate which wasted and trampled down     Her wisdom, sagacity, versatile skill,     Which would have piled up gold or honors     For a mate who knew that life is growth,     And health, and the satisfaction of wants,     And place and reputation and mansion houses,     And mahogany and silver,     And beautiful living.     She hated him, and hence she pitied him.     She was like the gardener with great pruners     Deciding to clip, sometimes not clipping     Just for the dread.     She had married him - but why?     Some inscrutable air     Wafted his pollen to her across a wide garden -     Some power had crossed them.     And here is the secret I think:     (As we would say here is electricity)     It is the vibration inhering in sex     That produces devils or angels,     And it is the sex reaction in men and women     That brings forth devils or angels,     And starts in them the germs of powers or passions,     Becoming loves, ferocities, gifts and weaknesses,     Till the stock dies out.     So now for their hybrid children: -     She gave birth to four daughters and one son.     But first what have we for the composition of these daughters?     Reason opposed and becoming keener therefor.     Faith mocked and drawing its mantel closer.     Love thwarted and becoming acid.     Hatred mounting too high and thinning into pity.     Hunger for life unappeased and becoming a stream under-ground     Where only blind things swim.     God year by year removing himself to remoter thrones     Of inexorable law.     God coming closer even while disease     And total blindness came between him and God     And defeated the mercy of God.     And a love and a trust growing deeper in him     As she in great thirst, hanging on the cross,     Mocked his crucifixion,     And talked philosophy between the spasms of pain,     Till at last she is all satirist,     And he is all saint.     And all the children were raised     After the strictest fashion in New England,     And made to join the church,     And attend its services.     And these were the children:     Janet was a religious fanatic and a virago,     She debated religion with her husband for ten years,     Then he refused to talk, and for twenty years     Scarcely spoke to her.     She died a convert to Catholicism.     They had two children:     The boy became a forgerer     Of notorious skill.     The daughter married, but was barren.     Miranda married a rich man     And spent his money so fast that he failed.     She lashed him with a scorpion tongue     And made him believe at last     With her incessant reasonings     That he was a fool, and so had failed.     In middle life he started over again,     But became tangled in a law-suit.     Because of these things he killed himself.     Louise was a nymphomaniac.     She was married twice.     Both husbands fled from her insatiable embraces.     At thirty-two she became a woman on a telephone list,     Subject to be called,     And for two years ran through a daily orgy of sex,     When blindness came on her, as it came on her father before her,     And she became a Christian Scientist,     And led an exemplary life.     Deborah was a Puritan of Puritans,     Her list of unmentionable things     Tabooed all the secrets of creation,     Leaving politics, religion, and human faults,     And the mistakes most people make,     And the natural depravity of man,     And his freedom to redeem himself if he chooses,     As the only subjects of conversation.     As a twister of words and meanings,     And a skilled welder of fallacies,     And a swift emerger from ineluctable traps of logic,     And a wit with an adder's tongue,     And a laugher,     And an unafraid facer of enemies,     Oppositions, hatreds,     She never knew her equal.     She was at once very cruel, and very tender,     Very selfish and very generous     Very little and very magnanimous.     Scrupulous as to the truth, and utterly disregardless of the truth.     Of the keenest intuitions, yet gullible,     Easily used at times, of erratic judgment,     Analytic but pursuing with incredible swiftness     The falsest trails to her own undoing -     All in all the strangest mixture of colors and scent     Derived from father and mother,     But mixed by whom, and how, and why?     Now for the son named Herman, rebel soul.     His brow was like a loaf of bread, his eyes     Turned from his father's blue to gray, his nose     Was like his mother's, skin was dark like hers.     His shapely body, hands and feet belonged     To some patrician face, not to Marat's.     And his was like Marat's, fanatical,     Materialistic, fierce, as it might guide     A reptile's crawl, but yet he crawled to peaks     Loving the hues of mists, but not the mists     His father loved. And being a rebel soul     He thought the world all wrong. A nothingness     Moving as malice marred the life of man.     'Twas man's great work to fight this Giant Fraud,     And all who praise and serve Him. 'Tis for man     To free the world from error, suffer, die     For liberty of thought. You see his mother     Is in possession of one part of him,     Or all of him for some time.          So he lives     Nursing the dream (like father he's a dreamer)     That genius fires him. All the while a gift     For analytics stored behind that brow,     That bulges like a loaf of bread, is all     Of which he well may boast above the man     He hates as but a slave of faith and fear.     He feeds luxurious doubt with Omar Khyam,     But for long years neglects the jug of wine.     And as for "thou" he does not wake for years,     Is a pure maiden when he weds, the grains     Run counter in him, end in knots at times.     He takes from father certain tastes and traits,     From mother certain others, one can see     His mother's sex re-actions to his father,     Not passed to him to make him celibate,     But holding back in sleeping passions which     Burst over bounds at last in lust, not love.     Not love since that great engine in the brow     Tears off the irised wings of love and bares     The poor worm's body where the wings had been:     What is it but desire? Such stuff in rhyme     In music over what is but desire,     And ends when that is satisfied!          He's a crank.     And follows all the psychic thrills which run     To cackles o'er the world. It's Looking Backward,     Or Robert Elsmere, Spencer's Social Statics,     It's socialism, Anarchism, Peace,     It's non-resistance with a swelling heart,     As who should say how truer to the faith     Of Jesus am I, without hope or faith,     Than churchmen. He's a prohibitionist,     The poor's protagonist, the knight at arms     Of fallen women, yelling at the rich     Whose wicked greed makes all the prostitutes -     No prostitutes without the wicked rich!     But as he ages, as the bitter days     Approach with perorations: O ye vipers,     The engine in him changes all the world,     Reverses all the wheels of thought behind.     For Nietzsche comes, and makes him superman.     He dumps the truth of Jesus over - there     It lies with his youth's textual skepticism,     And laughter at the supernatural.     Now what's the motivating principle     Of such a mind? In youth he sought for rules     Wherewith to trail and capture truths. He found it     In James McCosh's Logic, it was this:     Lex Exclusi Tertii aut Medii,     Law of Excluded Middle speaking plain:     A thing is true, or not true, never a third     Hypothesis, so God is or is not.     That's very good to start with, how to end     And how to know which of the two is false -     He hunted out the false, as mother did -     Requires a tool. He found it in this book,     Reductio ad absurdum; let us see     Excluded middle use reductio.     God is or God is not, but then what God?     Excluded Middle never sought a God     To suffer demolition at his hands     Except the God of Illinois, the God     Grown but a little with his followers     Since Moses lived and Peter fished. So now     God is or God is not. Let us assume     God is and use reductio ad absurdum,     Taking away the rotten props, the posts     That do not fit or hold, and let Him fall.     For if he falls, the other postulate     That God is not is demonstrated. See     A universe of truth pass on the way     Cleared by Excluded Middle through the stuff     Of thought and visible things, a way that lets     A greater God escape, uncaught by all     The nippers of reductio ad absurdum.     But to resume his argument was this:     God is or God is not, but if God is     Why pestilence and war, earthquake and famine?     He either wills them, or cannot prevent them,     But if he wills them God is evil, if     He can't prevent them, he is limited.     But God, you say, is good, omnipotent,     And here I prove Him evil, or too weak     To stay the evil. Having shown your God     Lacking in what makes God, the proposition     Which I oppose to this, that God is not     Stands proven. For as evil is most clear     In sickness, pain and death, it cannot be     There is a Power with strength to overcome them,     Yet suffers them to be.         And so this man     Went through the years of life, and stripped the fields     Of beauty and of thought with mandibles     Insatiable as the locust's, which devours     A season's care and labor in an hour.     He stripped these fields and ate them, but they made     No meat or fat for him. And so he lived     On his own thought, as starving men may live     On stored up fat. And so in time he starved.     The thought in him no longer fed his life,     And he had withered up the outer world     Of man and nature, stripped it to the bone,     Nothing but skull and cross-bones greeted him     Wherever he turned - the world became a bottle     Filled with a bitter essence he could drink     From long accustomed doses - labeled poison     And marked with skull and cross-bones. Could he laugh     As mother laughed? No more! He tried to find     The mother's laugh and secret for the laugh     Which kept her to the end - but did she laugh?     Or if she laughed, was it so hollow, forced     As all his laughter now was. He had proved     Too much for laughter. Nothing but himself     Remained to keep himself, he lived alone     Upon his stored up fat, now daily growing     To dangerous thinness.             So with love of woman.     He had found "thou" the jug of wine as well,     "Thou" "thou" had come and gone too many times.     For what is sex but touch of flesh, the hand     Is flesh and hands may touch, if so, the loins -     Reductio ad absurdum, O you fools,     Who see a wrong in touch of loins, no wrong     In clasp of hands. And so again, again     With his own tools of thought he bruised his hands     Until they grew too callous to perceive     When they were touched.         So by analysis     He turned on everything he once believed.     Let's make an end!          Men thought Excluded Middle     Was born for great things. Why that bulging brow     And analytic keen if not for greatness?     In those old days they thought so when he fought     For lofty things, a youthful radical     Come here to change the world! But now at last     He lectures in back halls to youths who are     What he was in his youth, to acid souls     Who must have bitterness, can take enough     To kill a healthy soul, as fiends for dope     Must have enough to kill a body clean.     And so upon a night Excluded Middle     Is lecturing to prove that life is evil,     Not worth the living - when his auditors     Behold him pale and sway and take his seat,     And later quit the hall, the lecture left     Half finished.     This had happened in a twinkling:     He had made life a punching bag, with fists,     Excluded Middle and Reductio,     Had whacked it back and forth. But just as often     As he had struck it with an argument     That it is not worth living, snap, the bag     Would fly back for another punch. For life     Just like a punching bag will stand your whacks     Of hatred and denial, let you punch     Almost at will. But sometime, like the bag,     The strap gives way, the bag flies up and falls     And lies upon the floor, you've knocked it out.     And this is what Excluded Middle does     This night, the strap breaks with his blows. He proves     His strength, his case and for the first he sees     Life is not worth the living. Life gives up,     Resists no more, flys back no more to him,     But hits the ceiling, snap the strap gives way!     The bag falls to the floor, and lies there still -     Who now shall pick it up, re-fasten it?     And so his color fades, it well may be     The crisis of a long neurosis, well     What caused it? But his eyes are wondrous clear     Perceiving life knocked out. His heart is sick,     He takes his seat, admiring friends swarm round him,     Conduct him to a carriage, he goes home     And sitting by the fire (O what is fire?     The miracle of fire dawns on his thought,     Fire has been near him all these years unseen,     How wonderful is fire!) which warms and soothes     Neuritic pains, he takes the rubber case     Which locks the images of father, mother.     And as he stares upon the oval brow,     The eyes of blue which flash the light of faith,     Preserved like dendrites in this silver shimmer,     Some spectral speculations fill his brain,     Float like a storm above the sorry wreck     Of all his logic tools, machines; for now     Since pains in back and shoulder like to father's     Fall to him at the age that father had them,     Father has entered him, has settled down     To live with him with those neuritic pangs.     Thus are his speculations. Over all     How comes it that a sudden feel of life,     Its wonder, terror, beauty is like father's?     As if the soul of father entered in him     And made the field of consciousness his own,     Emotions, powers of thought his instruments.     That is a horrible atavism, when     You find yourself reverting to a soul     You have not loved, despite yourself becoming     That other soul, and with an out-worn self     Crying for burial on your hands, a life     Not yours till now that waits your new found powers -     Live now or die indeed!