Part 21 (1/2)
He looked at me with a steady blue eye in which there was something of humor and something of sadness.
”Yes, a long way out. I've just come back to see how the Great Idea is getting along. I thought maybe I could help a little.”
”The Great Idea?” I queried, puzzled.
”The value of the individual,” he said. ”The necessity for every human being to be able to live, think, act, dream, pray for himself. Nowadays I believe you call it the League of Nations. It's the same thing. Are men to be free to decide their fate for themselves or are they to be in the grasp of irresponsible tyrants, the h.e.l.l of war, the cruelties of creeds, executive deeds just or unjust, the power of personality just or unjust? What are your poets, your young Libertads, doing to bring About the Great Idea of perfect and free individuals?”
I was rather at a loss, but happily he did not stay for an answer. Above us an American flag was fluttering on a staff, showing its bright ribs of scarlet clear and vivid against the sky.
”You see that flag of stars,” he said, ”that thick-sprinkled bunting? I have seen that flag stagger in the agony of threatened dissolution, in years that trembled and reeled beneath us. You have only seen it in the days of its easy, sure triumphs. I tell you, now is the day for America to show herself, to prove her dreams for the race. But who is chanting the poem that comes from the soul of America, the carol of victory? Who strikes up the marches of Libertad that shall free this tortured s.h.i.+p of earth? Democracy is the destined conqueror, yet I see treacherous lip-smiles everywhere and death and infidelity at every step. I tell you, now is the time of battle, now the time of striving. I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, crying, 'Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!' I tell you, produce great Persons; the rest follows.”
”What do you think about the covenant of the League of Nations?” I asked. He looked out over the river for some moments before replying and then spoke slowly, with halting utterance that seemed to suffer anguish in putting itself into words.
”America will be great only if she builds for all mankind,” he said.
”This plan of the great Libertad leads the present with friendly hand toward the future. But to hold men together by paper and seal or by compulsion is no account. That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibers of plants. Does this plan answer universal needs? Can it face the open fields and the seaside? Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my strength, gait, face? Have real employments contributed to it--original makers, not mere amanuenses? I think so, and therefore I say to you, now is the day to fight for it.”
”Well,” he said, checking himself, ”there's the ferry coming in. I'm going over to Camden to have a look around on my way back to Harleigh.”
”I'm afraid you'll find Mickle street somewhat changed,” I said, for by this time I knew him.
”I love changes,” he said.
”Your centennial comes on May 31,” I said, ”I hope you won't be annoyed if Philadelphia doesn't pay much attention to it. You know how things are around here.”
”My dear boy,” he said, ”I am patient. The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferred till his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it. I have sung the songs of the Great Idea and that is reward in itself. I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches, I have given alms to every one that asked, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others, hated tyrants, argued not concerning G.o.d, had patience and indulgence toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown, gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things--”
”All aboard!” cried the man at the gate of the ferry house.
He waved his hand with a benign patriarchal gesture and was gone.