THEODORE 
 ROOSEVELT 
 
 A VERSE 
 SEQUENCE 
 
 BY 
 BUSSELIi J. WILBUR 
 
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 Class. 
 
 Book 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
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THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 A VERSE SEQUENCE 
 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 A VERSE SEQUENCE 
 
 IN 
 
 SONNETS AND QUATORZAINS 
 
 BY 
 
 RUSSELL J. WILBUR 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 The Riverside Press Cambridge 
 1919 
 
E76'7 
 
 COPYRIGHT, I9I9, BY RUSSELL J. WILBUR 
 ALL RIGHTS RBSERVED 
 
 1.0 
 
 O 
 
 ©ciAf5ir.noi ( 
 
 I 
 
 m 17 1919 
 
 c ^v 
 
TO MY FATHER 
 JOHN EDWARD WILBUR 
 
PREFACE 
 
 All these sonnets and fourteeners, with three exceptions, 
 were written while Colonel Roosevelt was still living; to be 
 more nearly exact, just about six months before his death. 
 
 For all their romantic-fantastic character and metrical 
 form these verses constitute, for the most part, a contempo- 
 rary political document. Their tenor and sentiment presup- 
 pose Colonel Roosevelt to be, as when they were written, the 
 predominant leader of the reconstituted Republican Party, 
 the preeminent "possibility" of that party as a presidential 
 candidate for the year 1920. They cannot be read under- 
 standingly except in view of these presuppositions. 
 
 There are thirty-eight pieces in all, written, with four ex- 
 ceptions, during the month from June 23 to July 24, 1918; 
 between twenty-five and thirty of them during the three weeks 
 ending July 14, the date of the death in battle of Lieutenant 
 Quentin Roosevelt. 
 
 This goes to say that the Sequence had received its set, so 
 to speak, and its tone before this grim sorrow and the fortitude 
 with which it was borne elevated the subject of these pieces 
 to a plane upon which the freedom and ribaldry of criticism 
 with which he is treated in this little work seem somewhat 
 unfeeling and irreverent. Something of atonement for this 
 indignity was attempted in the lines "Peean Antiphonal" 
 
[ viii ^ 
 
 which constituted, before the death of Colonel Roosevelt, the 
 
 last sonnet of the Sequence.^ 
 
 > The two .'sonnets entitled " Fulget Crucis Mysterium" and 
 
 the final sonnet of the Sequence, as now published, entitled 
 
 "Apotheosis," b, were written since the death of Theodore 
 
 Roosevelt. 
 
 Colonel Roosevelt himself through the good offices of 
 William Hard received a manuscript of the Sequence, and the 
 great-heartedness which was, generally speaking, one of his 
 most striking characteristics is manifest in his acknowledg- 
 ments to Mr. Hard and to the author. 
 
 . To Mr. Hard he replied: 
 
 *'They have come; and I am really much interested in and 
 pleased with them." 
 
 ^ To the author he wrote: 
 
 "I very genuinely appreciate those poems of yours. . . . 
 There are two or three of the descriptive epithets which I 
 hope I don't altogether deserve — but perhaps I am a prej- 
 udiced witness ! E.g., I don't quite see how, since the war came 
 to the world, over four years ago, I 'did my friends betray ' by 
 the course I took — save the German 'friends' who had n't 
 believed that I meant what I said. Now, I should very much 
 like to have a talk with you and Hard, together, of some of 
 the matters incidentally touched on in these poems — mat- 
 ters which concern me only as they concern all Americans who 
 
 1 In a letter to the author Colonel Roosevelt wrote: "Naturally, the 
 last poem touched me deeply; there's room for any amount of criticism 
 about me — but my sons have rung true metal, and their wives, and my 
 daughters and sons-in-law." 
 
think as I do. Is there the least chance of your coming 
 East?"i 
 
 A subsequent letter to the author concludes as follows: 
 
 "I wish I could see you and talk of cabbages and kings and 
 sealing-wax, and a great many other things!" 
 
 I must cry the theologians mercy that I have in one of the 
 sonnets, speaking loosely rather than strictly and having re- 
 gard to the virtual rather than the actual extension of the 
 term, referred to the human race as constituting Christ's 
 Body Mystical. 
 
 The sonnet "The Highbrow Press " is now somewhat super- 
 annuated. The Survey shortly after the death of Colonel 
 Roosevelt published a fine number containing a symposium 
 advertised upon the cover as "T. R. Social Worker" with 
 Miss Jane Addams as the first contributor. The New York 
 Nation^ since its recent divorce from the New York Evening 
 Post, and driven by the exigencies of Oswald Garrison Vil- 
 lard's radical pacifism is much less solicitous than formerly 
 about vested interests and one hears less and less in its pages 
 "the clank of Dives Villard's golden chains." 
 
 In the sonnet "The Cross-Moving Blade" d. Colonel 
 Roosevelt is far too sharply disassociated from the idea of 
 " world-wide federation." The first in the order of time among 
 eminent and responsible contemporary political leaders to 
 
 ^ The phrase to which Colonel Roosevelt particularly objected, and of 
 which he seems not to have understood the reference, "Thou didst thy 
 friends without remorse betray," is contained in a rapid and impassioned 
 summing up of his actions and policies consequent to the World War and 
 alludes, in terms of scandalous hyperbole, to his part in bringing the Pro- 
 gressive Party to an end. 
 
1^1 
 
 do so, he explicitly, definitely, and strongly committed him- 
 self to the project of a world league of nations to enforce 
 peace, in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, at Christiania, Norway, 
 on the 5th of May, 1910. During the second month of the 
 World War, — to be exact, on September 23, 1914, — in an 
 article in the Outlook, he advocated with equal emphasis and 
 definiteness the formation of such a league at the end of this 
 war. 
 
 In fact, after re-reading these two masterpieces of his states- 
 manlike provision, one is obliged to confess that the line 
 in the sonnet "L'Intuition Bergsonienne " which reads, 
 "Where Wilson thinks thou oft canst only feel," is the most 
 questionable line in all the Sequence; not only that, it is, 
 absolutely speaking, a very highly questionable line indeed. 
 
 One hopes that the readers of the third of the "T. R. 
 Dionysus" sonnets will remember that the city of Ishpeming, 
 in the northern peninsula of Michigan, was once upon a time 
 the scene of a famous libel suit. 
 
 Twenty-one of the sonnets, in a shortened Sequence, were 
 published in the New Republic oi the issue of August 10, 1918, 
 and I wish here to thank its chief editor, Mr. Herbert Croly, 
 for permitting their subsequent publication in this little book. 
 
 Russell J. Wilbur 
 
 St. CronarCs Rectory, St. Louis 
 March 22, 1919 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Proem: a. Grave 3 
 
 Proem: h. Gay 4 
 
 Antitheses: a 5 
 
 Antitheses: 6 6 
 
 Elan Vital 7 
 
 The Platitudinarian 8 
 
 The Golden Thread 9 
 
 Sun Spots: a 10 
 
 Sun Spots: 6 11 
 
 Temperament 12 
 
 The Philistine 13 
 
 Tension 14 
 
 T. R. Dionysus: a. Zagreus 15 
 
 T. R. Dionysus: 6. Bromios 16 
 
 T. R. Dionysus: c. Bacchus 17 
 
 Four-Square 18 
 
 Culture 19 
 
 T. Moralistic Roosevelt 20 
 
 Nineteen Twelve 21 
 
 Nineteen Twenty 22 
 
 Kultur: a 23 
 
 Kultur: 6 24 
 
 The Liberal 25 
 
Truths Astringent . . . . . . .26 
 
 Truths Expansive 27 
 
 FuLGET Crucis Mysterium: a 28 
 
 Fulget Crucis Mysterium: & . . . . .29 
 
 L'Intuition Bergsonienne ^ 80 
 
 The Highbrow Press 31 
 
 The Pair of Shears 32 
 
 The Cross-moving Blade: a 33 
 
 The Cross-moving Blade: 6 34 
 
 The Cross-moving Blade: c 35 * 
 
 The Cross-moving Blade: d 36 
 
 Envoy 37 
 
 P^AN Antiphonal 38 
 
 Apotheosis: a ........ 39 
 
 Apotheosis: b 40 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 These poems of Father Wilbur's must surely be ranked 
 among the most successful of all efforts at political portrai- 
 ture. Their place as poetry, their claim to success in putting 
 politics into sonnets, will be much discussed. That technical 
 question, if it be a technical one, I must leave to persons more 
 technically competent. Humanly it is clear that these things 
 by Father Wilbur in rhythm and rhyme reach the end and 
 aim of art. They stretch the mind to new perceptions of the 
 beauty and terror and humor of the theme they cover, and 
 they carry us through fancy to truth not perceived by scien- 
 tific means. Their judgment of Theodore Roosevelt is there- 
 fore essentially an aesthetic judgment. 
 
 Being so, the personality of their author might be irrelevant. 
 If good wine needs no bush, art needs no biography. An aes- 
 thetic judgment proves or disproves itself. But this judgment 
 here before us, besides being aesthetic, is frankly political and 
 philosophical. Or, rather, it arrives at its aesthetic conclusion 
 through a use, bold and lavish, of political and philosophical 
 thought. The question therefore arises properly : What have 
 been the mental experiences of this author to fit him to form 
 such a judgment? The cleverness of the work of art cannot be 
 established by any establishment of the cleverness of the art- 
 ist; but when an artist insists on giving us the location of the 
 
Cxiv] 
 
 thought of Theodore Roosevelt in the history of the thought 
 of the world, we are justified in a certain curiosity regarding 
 his own mental history and character. For this reason, and 
 within the limits which it sets, I venture to draw on a few 
 of my personal recollections of Russell Wilbur. 
 
 I knew him first at a supper club which was formed in the 
 environs of Northwestern University ostensibly to listen to 
 the conversation of all of its members. I hope I do no injus- 
 tice to the other members and give no offense to Father 
 Wilbur when I say that the final purpose of the club was to 
 listen principally to him. He was the conversational and in- 
 tellectual amazement of my undergraduate days. He was 
 himself still an undergraduate, and not yet a Catholic. He 
 was especially skilled in Matthew Arnold and in all the con- 
 troversies with which Matthew Arnold surrounded himself 
 in England. He seemed to live largely in Arnold's hour. Faith 
 was receding from earth's human shore. But what faith is, 
 and whence it comes, and where it goes, held him even then. 
 It held us too, when he spoke. His interest in philosophy (if 
 one may still use the word broadly) was such that he could 
 even transmit it. 
 
 We were not certain, however (and I mention this doubt of 
 ours about him simply to indicate a certain comprehensive- 
 ness in his talents), whether he would grow up to be a pro- 
 fessional philosopher or a professional operatic singer. His 
 voice justified the stage. He was an artist in music before he 
 was an artist in verse. We could imagine him, and the train- 
 
i: XV ] 
 
 ers of his voice did imagine him, singing to the public. We 
 also imagined him sitting in the dust of a library doing his 
 absorbing trick of turning the combats of philosophers into 
 personal struggles between amusing persons. f* 
 
 He thereupon became head of the Northwestern University 
 Settlement in Chicago and went in for social reform. We 
 were not altogether surprised. The personalities which he put 
 into philosophy, the gossip and the chatter about Huxley and 
 Clifford with which he sprinkled Huxley's and Clifford's con- 
 troversial views, had already apprised us of his interest in 
 human beings. He continued, out of books as in books, to be 
 most curiously capable of insatiably making the acquaintance 
 of people in the very course of insatiably making the acquaint- 
 ance of abstracted and formulated ideas. 
 
 In the multitudes of people he came to know while he was 
 head of the Northwestern University Settlement there were 
 three who had a special importance for the future sonneteer 
 of Theodore Roosevelt. The first was Jane Addams. Her and 
 her Tolstoianism Russell Wilbur knew well, and her and her 
 personal character he reverenced with the humility which 
 people feel toward Jane Addams and toward few other char- 
 acters among us. When afterwards he turned aside to follow 
 the strange militaristic god of Oyster Bay, he turned with his 
 eyes open. He had seen non-resistance. He had seen it at its 
 most beautiful. 
 
 He came to know also Raymond Robins, greatest of ora- 
 tors among the persons called radicals, afterwards head of 
 
C xvi ^ 
 
 the American Red Cross Mission (with many characteristic 
 adventures) in Russia during the war; and, thirdly, he came 
 to know Medill McCormick, a young man from highly con- 
 servative antecedents (such as the Chicago Tribune), now 
 United States Senator from Illinois. Robins and McCormick 
 and Miss Addams all went into the Progressive Party and 
 became large in it. Together they were a whole picture of it, 
 spread intimately before Russell Wilbur's eyes. 
 ' In Jane Addams he could see the people who followed 
 Theodore Roosevelt with immense devotion to Social Jus- 
 tice, but with scant conviction about Two Battleships a 
 Year. In Medill McCormick he could see the people who with 
 hard heads but open eyes perceived the social necessity 
 and the social human decency of Roosevelt's programmes of 
 reforms. In Robins he could see the people who walked in the 
 middle, who were vehemently for social justice, but who, as 
 they showed when the Great War broke out, were equally for 
 the sterner needs of national defense and physical justice. 
 In the three of them together he could see the whole political 
 appeal of the most complex and most vivid of all Theodore 
 Roosevelts — the Theodore Roosevelt of 1912. 
 I In the midst of this picture and of this appeal, as they 
 grew toward completion through many years, Russell Wilbur 
 left the Northwestern University Settlement and became an 
 Episcopal clergyman, and then left Chicago and was arch- 
 deacon in the cathedral of the Episcopal diocese of Fond du 
 Lac. From time to time we saw him, expressing to us, occa- 
 
i: xvii ] 
 
 sionally, his growing conviction that one could not get very 
 far, after all, by taking the unity of the visible Church in a 
 Pickwickian sense; and fairly soon he was in the presence of 
 the Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Louis, being inducted 
 into the Roman Catholic Communion. He went then to Italy, 
 to Rome, and studied, and returned to St. Louis, and began 
 the duties, which he still performs, of assistant parish priest 
 in St. Cronan's parish. 
 
 At the risk of seeming to say too much for my friend, I 
 must confess and affirm that it seems to me to be unlikely that 
 many men among those who speak to us through their 
 writings have ranged the world's thought more actively than 
 Father Wilbur — both the thought welling up out of the 
 ground in our own day and the thought surviving to us in 
 the great streams of discovery and of authority out of other 
 days. His wealth, his extravagant wealth, of historical allu- 
 sion and of modern phrase in the sonnets ensuing is perhaps 
 a quite ample hint of his comprehensiveness of observation 
 and of appreciation; and one might almost say that out of 
 comprehensiveness these sonnets take their first motive and 
 their final value. They do not give us the Roosevelt of a 
 faction or of a moment. They give us Roosevelt's assemblage 
 of conflicts, of human eternal conflicts, demanding to be 
 resolved. 
 
 Father Wilbur saw Theodore Roosevelt vigorously resolv- 
 ing them. He saw him, and he has portrayed him, as a sort of 
 Titanic human mountain-range in which the peaks of the 
 
[ xviii ] 
 
 values of Radicalism and the peaks of the values of Tory- 
 ism rise tumultuously — and in their very tumultuousness 
 rightly and sanely — together. Through Theodore Roosevelt 
 Father Wilbur observes and essays a synthesis of the eternal 
 Radicalism and of the eternal Toryism of living life and 
 also a triumphant assertion of the superiority of moral dis- 
 cernment which thought in the heights of action gains over 
 thought in the shades of theory. 
 
 So his judgment of Roosevelt comes to be a judgment in 
 personality. It is true, as he himself says, that he has con- 
 fined himself to a consideration of Roosevelt "the public 
 man" and has not attempted, and in fact has deliberately 
 refrained from attempting, to "do justice to the nobility and 
 the purity and the charm of Mrs. Roosevelt's husband, Alice 
 Roosevelt's father. Oyster Bay's neighbor, Seth Bullock's 
 friend, and Mr. Whigham's table-companion." This is true, 
 and it is also true, as he himself again says, that "when I call 
 Theodore Roosevelt envious, jealous, selfish, spiteful, and 
 so on, I am speaking of him wholly in his public aspect." 
 Yes; but he is speaking of him, nevertheless, as a personality 
 in action and not as a political platform or even merely a 
 political mechanician. The judgment begins perhaps by being 
 political. It ends certainly by being entirely personal — a 
 vision of a man, of a man striving toward those issues of 
 character which the State, like every other human institu- 
 tion, raises and carries to some sort of further development, 
 noble or base. 
 
[ xix ] 
 
 To the seeing of this vision Father Wilbur brings at least 
 a mind which has traveled, and has tarried for meditation, 
 on more than one slope of the ascent to truth. Wholly a 
 Catholic, partly a Tory, very much a Progressive, he could 
 not have written these sonnets except after and through all 
 his wanderings and sojournings. His philosophical materials 
 must frankly be understood for what they are, in their 
 Catholicism, in their Toryism, in their Progressivism, in 
 their rejection of all straight-laced political sects and coteries. 
 They are materials of a long accumulation, in a highly indi- 
 vidualized combination. I do not claim for them any pre- 
 eminence over all other sets of materials usable. My purpose 
 is simply to note them, and to introduce Father Wilbur in 
 the noting, and to say of them : — 
 
 As an artist Father Wilbur must speak for himself. As 
 a thinker he may confidently be said to come to his paint- 
 ing of the poUtical scene with a box of colors varied and 
 abundant. 
 
 William Hard 
 
 Washington 
 May, 1919 
 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 A VERSE SEQUENCE 
 
[ 3 ] 
 
 PROEM 
 
 a. GRAVE 
 
 I CANNOT bring thee flawless works of art; 
 For first, in middle years, thou 'st moved my soul 
 To pen thy portrait, illustrate the whole 
 Of thy magnificent and turbid heart. 
 
 Never before in life has't been my part 
 
 To speak in rhyme; to spend the stingy dole" 
 
 Of a small gift; or burn my scanty coal 
 
 Of thought and passion; feel the Muse's smart. 
 
 It goads me much to know so many blind 
 When right before their eyes upon the stage 
 Of our own time there looms one who doth bind 
 Ulysses' tireless craft with Hector's rage. 
 Look! sons and daughters of Columbia, find 
 An epic hero on her living page! 
 
[ 4 ] 
 
 PROEM 
 
 b. GAY 
 
 Spirit of Roosevelt! Strenuously descend 
 
 And take all pale consistency away; 
 
 Give me blunt, forthright speech the truth to say; 
 
 Let rough and smooth in due proportion blend. 
 
 Let there be smack and smatter reverend 
 Of classic letters' now archaic day, 
 With gusto, too, of snappy modern lay — 
 All which, well pondered, suits the gear I tend. 
 
 Great Theodore, wert thou of lesser span 
 This work one had not dared to perpetrate; 
 If thou these reckless lines dost deign to scan 
 One hopes that thou canst bear to estimate: 
 Better the faithful wounds of friendly man 
 Than thrusts of enemy exacerbate. 
 
C 5 ] 
 
 ANTITHESES 
 
 a 
 
 Too childlike to dissimulate thy soul 
 Its envy, pride, ambition, self-regard; 
 Too hero-spirited to let the hard 
 Average eyes see clear thy purpose whole. 
 
 Too framed for action and for common life 
 
 To please the artist, scholar, sage, or saint; 
 
 Of sloth and cowardice so free from taint 
 
 That with the crowd, too, thou art doomed to strife. 
 
 And yet of that crowd's greater, saner part 
 Its manlier, homelier traits and instincts sound. 
 Time-honored decencies, the voice thou art. 
 The type, exponent. Thus in thee is found, 
 Though of patrician mould, high Nietzschean heart, 
 Of simple democratic faith the ground. 
 
1^1 
 
 ANTITHESES 
 
 b 
 
 Silk-stockinged mugwump, thou didst vote for Blaine! 
 "When Harvard's famed Porcellian Club had sent 
 Thee boist'rous forth to exercise thy bent 
 For giving academic persons pain. 
 
 High-souled reformer, thou didst pact with Piatt! 
 After "alone in Cuba" thou a war 
 Hadst reckless won. But Piatt was passing sore 
 Thou didst enchain the corporations fat 
 
 To the State's car. Course antithetical 
 
 Thou dost pursue — the Union League Club's pride 
 
 And its despair. Career antipodal. 
 
 Now brash, now Machiavellian. Nought can hide 
 
 That still, in this grim hour, there is unfurled 
 
 Thy banner, Play-boy of the Western Worldj^ 
 
C7 3 
 
 ELAN VITAL 
 
 Elan vital from what pulsating deep 
 
 Near to this Universe's very core. 
 
 What reservoir tumultuous, from what store 
 
 Of fiery energy dost seething sweep. 
 
 As rus-hing waters o'er Niagara leap, 
 
 A flood of life and power, with mighty roar 
 
 Of joy exultant, through the soul's wide door 
 
 WTiere Roosevelt's will a parlous guard doth keep. 
 
 It is heroic task to curb the tide 
 
 Of life that comes too quick to be controlled, 
 
 To harness such immitigable power. 
 
 Then honor him who, though he cannot hide 
 The turbulence of passion through him rolled. 
 Stands tense, the master of his fate, each hour. 
 
I 8 3 
 
 THE PLATITUDINARIAN 
 
 The truths by which man chiefly Hves are few — 
 
 Trite, simple, platitudinous, and plain; 
 
 Our "intellectuals" can see no gain 
 
 In quaffing ever such insipid brew 
 
 Of doctrine. Thou — of all the sniffing crew 
 
 Of radicals, professors, sesthetes — bane, 
 
 Though rich-sophisticated twice again 
 
 As much as they, dost through thy whole life view, 
 
 Full of a kind of ecstasy and joy, 
 
 This simple homespun store of tested truth. 
 
 So energized thy soul, nothing can cloy 
 
 Its hearty maw that eager, decent youth 
 
 Willingly hears; which makes thee, tireless boy, 
 
 Of threadbare maxims preacher without ruth. 
 
C93 
 
 THE GOLDEN THREAD 
 
 Thy master passion, Roosevelt, is the State; 
 Not formula thereof, abstract, jejune; no sour 
 Teutonic theory of unbridled power 
 Absolved from moral check. That dost thou hate. 
 
 But passion concrete, born of thy innate 
 Love of America, that she be dower 
 Of freemen bold, united; shining tower 
 Of justice and of culture; valor's mate. 
 
 Ambitious, envious, selfish as thou art, 
 
 Thou hast thy deepest self identified 
 
 With this high dream. Or rather, it's the heart 
 
 Of thy unconscious purpose; oft belied 
 
 By single acts of thine, it is the chart ' 
 
 By which the Unseen Powers thy course decide. 
 
C 10 ] 
 
 SUN SPOTS 
 
 a 
 
 Demagogue arts and tricks of charlatan, 
 Manipulator's ruses, astute shifts, 
 Consummate use of histrionic gifts, 
 Resourceful exploit of thy fellow man — 
 
 These things the Muse of History will scan 
 Ironically when her pen she lifts 
 To make thy record, when from silt she sifts. 
 Of thy career, its precious shining plan. 
 
 Knowing earth's satellite cannot prevent 
 Th' intrusion of the lower element 
 Although she governs sure the tidal boon; 
 
 Thy passion, rancor, violence will be, 
 For Clio, foam and surge upon the sea 
 Wind-swept, but yet obedient to the moon. 
 
C 11 3 
 
 SUN SPOTS 
 b 
 
 Even thy envy's captious pride will seem 
 Not weakness base of an else noble mind; 
 But a creative artist's quick, purblind 
 Impatience exigent, his turbid gleam 
 Of petulance, because he cannot deem ^ 
 In other's work, however fitly wrought, 
 The unique end achieved himself had sought, 
 The beauty singular of his own dream. 
 
 Jealous Prometheus stole the fire from heaven. 
 
 Unenvious, likely had not felt the nudge 
 
 To such emprise. And thus was gained the leaven 
 
 Of technic arts. Then blessed be the grudge 
 
 Of Japheth and th' Ouranidai eleven 
 
 The Titan brood — thus do the Muses judge. 
 
i: 12 ] 
 
 TEJVIPERAJVIENT 
 
 *T IS melancholy gives unto the mind 
 Reflection, elevation; to the style 
 Distinction, whether long the bitter file 
 For beauty simple or severe doth grind. 
 
 Thy soul and work miss not rotundity 
 Of content, pith, force, humor, lively wit; 
 Yet, lacking melancholy, never hit 
 Burke's splendor and his rich profundity. 
 
 Depths and shoals of this strange temperament. 
 
 To choicest natures as their portion sent, 
 
 In thee do wholly want; thou lovest not 
 
 The Rabelaisian jest and uncouth folly 
 
 Of Lincoln's surcharged soul; and never got 
 
 His brooding, high, majestic melancholy. 
 
i: 13 3 
 
 THE PHILISTINE 
 
 'T WAS Cromwell, Luther, Bunyan — Arnold named 
 Philistines, though ascribing genius great; 
 Had the sharp critic lived to see thy state 
 Another of like mould he had proclaimed. 
 
 In spite of savor in thee of the famed 
 Admirable Crichton, maugre elate 
 Romantic soul, aristocratic gait. 
 Thou too, Philistine, must be gently blamed. 
 
 'T is this that from thy side, alas, doth drive 
 Some choicest spirits, sons of Science cool, 
 Or to sweet Beauty's splendor all alive; 
 
 'T is this that lovers keen doth alienate 
 Of poor Assisi's blithe and holy fool 
 And of rich Florence's stern laureate. 
 
C 14] 
 
 TENSION 
 
 The circle's perfect rondure smugly swings 
 About one point. Th' ellipse — from foci two 
 Antagonistic generated, true 
 To inner law of tension — to me brings ^ 
 Similitude of thee. Thy nature rings 
 With joy of common comradeship, the dew 
 Of leaves of grass is on thee. Yet there 're few 
 Like thee with eagle's eye, beak, talons, wings. 
 
 Two mystics mind me of like conflict tense. 
 Twin morning stars, some say, of a new dawn; 
 Exclude poetic genius which anoints 
 Their names; include thy healthy bourgeois sense; 
 And lo! thy soul's ellipse is rightly drawn — • 
 Whitman and Nietzsche are thy focal points. 
 
[ 15 ] 
 
 T. R. DIONYSUS 
 
 a. ZAGREUS 
 
 Sometimes Lord Dionysus is a Bull 
 Furiously mad, with bellowing roar; 
 About him Maenads and Bacchantes pour, 
 And wooded heights with echoing cries are full. 
 
 Sometimes Lord Dionysus is a Snake 
 Whose cunning length lies coiled amidst the grass; 
 Now hissing spite when prey too far doth pass 
 Or quick up barren crags his cave to take. 
 
 So men of fresh primeval glance and pith 
 
 Did body forth strange likenesses that lie 
 
 'Twixt beasts and souls, and plastic wove their tale 
 
 Of gods and heroes. Had we power of myth 
 
 Left fictile in us, bacchic we would cry, 
 
 Evoei Roosevelt-Dionysus, hail I 
 
C 16] 
 
 T. R. DIONYSUS 
 
 b. BROMIUS 
 
 Lord Dionysus is the burgeoning Spring, 
 The Lord of Many Voices, when the rush 
 Of mountain torrents breaks the frozen hush 
 Of valleys where shrill revels soon will ring. ; 
 
 New sap of life to tree and grass doth bring 
 A birth again to quickened breath. The rush, 
 In green luxuriance, Unes the streams which gush 
 From cool far dells o'er moss and stones to sing. 
 
 O Mystery of Life, rank, pulsing, wild. 
 
 Which swift through plants, beasts, men doth ceaseless 
 
 course. 
 Rich in surprises, strange fantastic forms — 
 
 Is it too much to see in him thy child. 
 Many-voiced Roosevelt, whose unflagging force 
 Our sluggish torpor stirs, our chill blood warms .'^ 
 
C 17 3 
 
 T. R. DIONYSUS 
 
 C. BACCHUS 
 
 Iacchos ! lacchos ! heartening Vine, 
 
 Spirit of Ecstasy, man tic descend; 
 
 Make of our sloth and our cowardice end 
 
 When through our veins runs thy maddening wine. 
 
 Break down the barriers behind which repine 
 Powers long pent up which yearn for release; 
 Give to the humdrum of habit surcease. 
 Exhilaration, elation, divine. 
 
 "lacchos! lacchos! charlatan drunk" — 
 Thus bellowed round thee the plutocrat ring; 
 Pompous nonentities all in a funk, 
 Smitten as liars in far Ishpeming; 
 Varlets in torpor conservative sunk 
 Ken not thy bacchanals rightly to sing. 
 
[ 18 ;] 
 
 FOUR-SQUARE 
 
 The honest, rugged Cleveland prized thy youth, 
 Worked through thee, with thee, in now far-off days. 
 Censorious Godkin, exigent, did praise 
 Thy double task commissional. Uncouth 
 Cow-punchers, prize-fighters, in hearty sooth 
 Thee comrade deem. And Clio, in amaze 
 At versatility, doth crown with bays 
 *'The Winning of the West,'* its verve, its truth. 
 
 Woodmen of Maine, half-breeds of Canada, 
 Grave bishops heavy laden with their years. 
 In South America and Africa, 
 Of hard apostolate 'mid wildest parts, 
 W^hom memory of thy friendly sojourn cheers 
 Grant thee the freedom of their loyal hearts. 
 
[ 19] 
 
 CULTURE 
 
 The politician, sportsman, in thee, hide 
 Somewhat thy worth of scholar genuine. 
 Thyself, in thine own instinct's cunning fine. 
 Dost, of set purpose, show thy ruder side. 
 
 Here, dost thou judge, coarse, massive charms reside 
 To draw and hold the crowd, who scarce divine 
 That culture, finer manners, wit are thine, 
 That stores of learning in thy mind abide. 
 
 Our " intellectual *' classes make pretense 
 Thy public side is all there is of thee; 
 Thy gross humanity gives them offense. 
 
 Which, one may guess, is all the more intense 
 'Cause virtue thine and domesticity 
 Lend to their favored vices no defense. 
 
C ^o] 
 
 T. MORALISTIC ROOSEVELT 
 
 Your "radical" and "intellectual" 
 
 Is just as full of science as can be; 
 
 Zoology hath e'en his benison; 
 
 He knows full well it brings home venison. 
 
 Why is he full of hate effectual, 
 
 Thou first-rate "outdoor scientist," *gainst thee? 
 
 Is it because thou art spectacular? 
 
 Lack Wilson's elegance vernacular? 
 
 Or is't because in matters sexual 
 
 Pertaining to Anadyomene 
 
 Thou art no better than old-fashioned soul 
 
 When't comes to unions free and birth-control? 
 
 I think just there I've made the stroke heuristic 
 The New Republic calls thee "moralistic." 
 
C^i 3 
 
 NINETEEN TWELVE 
 
 I LIKE thee now, but I did like thee more 
 
 In nineteen twelve, when all the obscene train 
 
 Of Pharisees and Sadducees, with bane 
 
 Of lawyer-vermin, hypocrites, and corps 
 
 Of pimps and panders to the mighty whore 
 
 Plutocracy, like Penrose, Butler, Crane, 
 
 Did spit upon thee. All who grind amain 
 
 The faces of God's poor, and burdens sore, 
 
 Too heavy to be borne, on children bind 
 
 With fetters galling-tight of judge-made law, 
 
 Encompassed thee and maddened thee to schism. 
 
 Sepulchres whitened! Where there's nought to find 
 Save dead men's bones, and coming from their maw. 
 The acrid stench of foul conservatism. 
 
i; 22 ] 
 
 NINETEEN TWENTY 
 
 Oh, do not trust them ! Though thy course doth lie 
 At present close to theirs and they do aim 
 To use thee, aye, to crown thee, for their game. 
 With leadership. Keep thou a wary eye! 
 
 They are not with thee. In dank, foetid stye 
 
 Of plutocratic greed can burn no flame 
 
 Of nationalist hope, as thine the same. 
 
 Whose heart from Mammon's lust is clean and dry. 
 
 Let them not use thee, but do thou use them ! 
 Their skill and wealth right fitly are empowered 
 To arm the host that thou wilt lead, 'gainst horde 
 Of semi-Bolsheviki, whether stem 
 Of Marx or Wells, with millions richly dowered 
 By Hearst, by Baruch, and by Henry Ford. 
 
C 23 3 
 
 KULTUR 
 
 a 
 
 On Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights 
 
 One cannot live forever; e'en Rousseau, 
 
 Tom Paine, and Jefferson do somewhat grow 
 
 Shop- worn; some exigency in us fights 
 
 To force us upward unto greater heights 
 
 Than Marx, Lassalle, or Proudhon e'er could know; 
 
 With richer, higher hope we learn to glow 
 
 Than Bentham's sons, the Cobdens, Mills, and Brights. 
 
 Freedom, equality, and brotherhood 
 
 Do cry for supplement and balance true, 
 
 For order, higher arts, and discipline; 
 
 The State must nurture man's completes t good. 
 
 Although the finished specimens be few — 
 
 Here Aristotle should our suffrage win. 
 
C 24 ] 
 
 KULTUR 
 
 b 
 
 All is not wrong in the "Kultur" ideal; 
 
 'T will live in more humane, more gracious form; 
 
 But synthesized with Anglo-Saxon norm 
 
 Of freedom; stamped with democratic seal. 
 
 O'er time's strange sea, of man's emprise the keel 
 Moves on to richer havens through this storm. 
 Freedom is not enough; an envious swarm 
 Of pedants only e'er must equal feel. 
 
 The rich complex of values that thou hast, 
 
 The many-raying facets of thy soul, 
 
 Th' integrity of instinct rooted fast 
 
 In thy complete, will-dominated whole: 
 
 'T is these, with grit, vim, gumption that should last 
 
 To pilot us to culture's social goal. 
 
Z 25 ] 
 
 THE LIBERAL 
 
 A LIBERAL yes, a libertarian no. 
 
 Although not fond of jurist pedantry. 
 
 No formalist to press the tyranny 
 
 Of stale convention, though inclined to go 
 
 Too cross-quick to thy goal, scorning the slow 
 
 Safe round-about of regularity; 
 
 Thou 'rt yet of order and authority 
 
 Th' uncompromising friend; the anarch's foe. 
 
 Full well thou lov'st that each should have free lot 
 
 To build his destiny, his own course plan; 
 
 Other equality than this forgot 
 
 Thou hold'st the trained, free, bold, upstanding man 
 
 As culture's goal — a humanist, but not. 
 
 To suit the age, humanitarian. 
 
L 2^] 
 
 TRUTHS ASTRINGENT 
 
 That even right cannot dispense with might, 
 That God himself is Love but also Power; 
 That gentle rectitude alone the hour 
 Of evil cannot stay nor cure its blight; 
 
 That e'en Utopia cannot long subsist 
 In peace and frugal plenty, without light 
 Of culture high, nor this, without the right 
 Of excellence on power to close its fist; 
 
 That man's task, to be sure, is to transform 
 ^Miat of the ape and tiger doth persist, 
 But also of the rabbit to resist 
 The rutting, of the lamb the silly, norm: 
 
 These truths astringent, tonic, thou hast taught, 
 Stern realist, by mollycoddles fought. 
 
C 27 ] 
 
 TRUTHS EXPANSIVE 
 
 That in each man a fund of worth doth lie, 
 
 That all have profit of the good of each; 
 
 That Commonwealth therefore the hand should reach 
 
 Of opportunity that each may try; 
 
 That loving solidarity of men 
 In brotherhood no task can find too high, 
 No racial barrier built beneath the sky 
 Eternally this mystic force can pen: 
 
 These truths expansive are the constant strain 
 Of souls adorably one-sided. Ken 
 They will not take of stinking, stagnant fen 
 In man, that grit and discipline must drain. 
 
 Only in Roosevelt's whirling orb there could 
 Ensphered be Jane Addams, Leonard Wood. 
 
C 28 ] 
 
 FULGET CRUCIS MYSTERIU3I 
 
 a 
 
 An age of concentration stands and knocks. 
 
 Not of expansion. It is Gobineau 
 
 And Nietzsche, more than Tolstoi and Rousseau, 
 
 Can steel our purpose to withstand the shocks 
 
 Of Asia and the swarthy land that locks 
 
 The Middle Sea. And yet we must not throw 
 
 The Cross of Christ away nor headlong go 
 
 From Rousseau's whirlpool on to Nietzsche's rocks. 
 
 The Cross of Christ! Truth's self is Cross and strange! 
 
 How tawdry gleams the facile, specious breed 
 
 Of smooth idealists by Roosevelt's fire! 
 
 WTio never learn that progress cannot change 
 
 The law of the Cross, the core of Roosevelt's creed; 
 
 Pay with thy bodyj Man, for soul's desire I 
 
C 29] 
 
 FULGET CRUCIS MYSTERIUM 
 
 b 
 
 So facts-astringent facts-expansive cross. 
 And of their transverse tension there is born 
 (On Chaos' breast like jewelled bauble worn) 
 The universe itself, the Holy Cross; 
 Upon which stretched in agony doth toss 
 Christ's Body Mystical, the human race. 
 Oh! happy they who early learn to embrace 
 The mystery of pain and count l^ut dross 
 
 Its blood and sweat! Of such, of such, art thou, 
 Grim-visaged Berserker! Oh! there have lain 
 In thy Norse cult of valor — ripening how 
 We know not — seeds of wheat of finer grain, 
 Not all unlike to that of old, I trow, 
 Which grew — the Bread of Heaven — near Sharon's 
 plain. 
 
C 30 ] 
 
 L'INTUITION BERGSONIENNE 
 
 There is an intellectual instinct deep, 
 Concrete-intuitive it takes its course; 
 More than abstract-discursive reasoning's force 
 It has, the depths to plumb, the heights to sweep. 
 
 Experience 't is that makes its pulses leap, 
 
 Imaginative sympathy its source; 
 
 With all reality it holds discourse 
 
 Where through subconscious mind life's currents seep. 
 
 For what of intellect the statesman needs. 
 Of speculative power, thy gifts are poor; 
 Where Wilson thinks thou oft canst only feel. 
 
 But when the future judges by thy deeds 
 'T will hold thee, pragmatist, an instinct-sure 
 Intuitive evaluer of the real. 
 
[ 31 ] 
 
 THE HIGHBROW PRESS 
 
 The Survey doth not like thee; e'en Saint Jane 
 In grief doth ban thee from the sacred fane. 
 The Public cannot bear thee; Henry George 
 In hidden heavens thunderbolts doth forge 
 To lay thee low. From mouldy cerements 
 Of mid-Victorian days, there come the vents 
 Of Garrisonian passion's high disdains, 
 With clank of Dives Villard's golden chains, 
 
 The Nation to the New Republic cries. 
 The latter to the Masses — cunning elf 
 Itself to "liberate" by quick ciisguis^. 
 
 They charge thee not with murder, pilfered pelf j 
 No! No! 'T is thus the accusation lies; 
 Oh J Theodora i why art thou so thyself i 
 
[ 32 ] 
 
 THE PAIR OF SHEARS 
 
 Our English cousins hold in better light 
 
 One feature strong of Party Government: 
 
 That Opposition's constant drive is sent 
 
 As goad, lash, check and complement, with might 
 
 Of criticism sharp, with bitter spite 
 
 Of rivalry, to press the course's bent. 
 
 We 'd hold in our good-natured sentiment 
 
 Wilson and thee as brothers in our sight. 
 
 A pair of brothers ! That 's to fall in rut 
 Of ordinary thought. The notion fades 
 WTien one beholds how 't is with pair of shears 
 Columbia's hand firm-flexing skills to cut, 
 'Mid gnash and bite of two cross-moving blades, 
 The ample garment of her coming years. 
 
css :\ 
 
 THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 
 
 a 
 
 The moon that saw, o'er Flanders bounds, the might 
 Of frightfulness break forth from Prussian lair. 
 Found thee obHged in gratitude to spare 
 Three months of strenuous battle for the bright 
 Cordon of leaders who in name of right 
 Had joined thee in adventure bold.^ This care 
 Scarcely discharged, and thou didst rouse, with blare 
 Of trumpet voice and torch of flaming spite 
 'Gainst Belgium's foes, thy sleepy countrymen 
 Fat gorged by Mammon's feast, by shams deceived, 
 Adulterously fond — or full of hate — 
 Of other lands. O Gambler, it was then. 
 With past reverses still all unretrieved, 
 That thou didst risk on single throw thy fate. 
 
 * In August, September, and October, 1914, Colonel Roosevelt was engaged in 
 supporting Messrs. Gifford Pinchot, James Garfield, Raymond Robins, Victor 
 Murdock, and others of the Progressive Party leaders of 1912 who were seeking 
 election to the United States Senate or other important offices. His well-known 
 letter, insisting upon our responsibility in the matter of Belgium, appeared in the 
 New York Times November 8. 
 
C 34] 
 
 THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 
 
 b 
 
 O Patriot-Gambler! thou a game didst play 
 
 For stake more precious than thine own career: 
 
 Thy country's unity, the costly gear 
 
 On gaming-table left by strange delay 
 
 Of one whose hand might have been raised to stay 
 
 Poor Belgium's rapers, not to soothe our ear 
 
 By bland vibration of the lute-strings blear 
 
 Of strict neutrality. Let future day 
 
 Assess what compensation did reside 
 
 In Wilson's tactic. 'T was thy costly part 
 
 To stir our conscience, mind us of our state 
 
 Unready; racial predilections chide; 
 
 Shame us to stand, more tensely one in heart, 
 
 Th' intrepid steady challengers of fate. 
 
L 35 ] 
 
 THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 
 
 c 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt, thou didst will this war, 
 And, more than any single other, force 
 The issue of our entrance; didst divorce 
 
 Our nation's heart from sloth and sophists' lore; 
 
 ^. . . . 
 
 Into unwilling ears a stream didst pour 
 Of fiery warning; didst pursue a course 
 Brittle and steep; thy friends without remorse 
 Betray; our rulers press with cavils sore. 
 
 So if this war shall bring — God will it may ! — 
 
 First fruits to realize thy lifelong dream 
 
 Impassioned, of America's rebirth 
 
 To tenser unity — then one dare say 
 
 By Washington's and Lincoln's there shall gleam 
 
 Thy name and memory in rival worth. 
 
I S6 ] 
 
 THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 
 
 d 
 
 And if by side of thine a name shall gleam — 
 For Roland, Oliver; a Jefferson 
 Played fitly to thy role of Hamilton — 
 'T will be because war shall fulfill a dream 
 More lofty than thine own, (to thee doth seem 
 Top-lofty?) the sweet hope that there be won 
 An everlasting peace and that the sun 
 Of world-wide federation shed its beam. 
 
 If this be statesmanship and if the Rome 
 Of world-democracy shall pass from bricks 
 To marble under Wilson's hand — 't is well ! 
 
 And thou wilt something have to learn at home 
 At Oyster Bay or, past th' atrocious Styx, 
 Upon Elysian fields of asphodel. 
 
[37 3 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 Oh, 't is not thus that I farewell would say, 
 With smirk ironical and banter bland, 
 Where all America owes debt too grand 
 For instant praise or lasting fame to pay. 
 
 On many a simple man who ne'er did lay 
 His eager eyes on thee nor grasp thy hand, 
 On many a careworn woman through the land, 
 On me, too, debt more personal doth weigh. 
 
 Let all who read, then, know in thee I find — 
 All vehement, flawed, turbid as thou art — 
 Abundant storehouse whence I feed with dole; 
 
 The sanity and balance of my mind. 
 The hope, the joy and valor of my hearty 
 The energy and 'passion of my souL 
 
C 38 ] 
 
 P^AN ANTIPHONAL ' 
 
 Lift up your heads, Columbia's mighty gates ! 
 
 Who are they that pass forth? The brave, the young; 
 
 They march, while loving hearts with fears are wrung, 
 
 To France, where destiny on valor waits. 
 « 
 
 Be lifted up, Columbia's doors ! The fates 
 
 Are dreadful; some must lie unsung. 
 
 Of distant fields and foreign harvests dung. 
 
 While parents mourn their darlings, wives their mates. 
 
 Lift up your heads, Columbia's gates, and sing! 
 Who passes in unto my heart of hearts ? 
 'T is he whose sons do whole fulfillment bring, 
 AMiose breed dares finish what the father starts; 
 They pass together to th' Eternal Spring, 
 They pass, with all who, valiant, do their parts. 
 
 ^ Written to be added to the already completed Sonnets and Quatorzains Roose- 
 veltian after the death of Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt. 
 
C 39;] 
 
 APOTHEOSIS 
 
 a 
 
 Resilient world, Gargantuan, picturesque, 
 Blown by no breath of dire caducity, 
 World of gigantic, comic vanity. 
 Of shapes fantastic, lovable, grotesque! 
 
 Would that Cervantes, Shakespeare, Rabelais - 
 Prolific three — had lived to see the hour 
 When Nature*s self put forth her comic power 
 Quixote's antitype at Oyster Bay ! 
 
 O gargoyle shape! The smile dentiferous. 
 The cowboy hat, eyeglasses, and big stick. 
 The gesture of "The Luck of Roaring Camp"! 
 
 Gay wilt thou live, timeless, vociferous, 
 Breathing the air of egotism thick 
 With Falstaff, Tartarin, and Mrs. Gamp. 
 
[ 40 ] 
 
 APOTHEOSIS 
 b 
 
 Be still, thou ribald bard! Hast thou no shame? 
 When thine eyes rest on one of Plutarch's kind. 
 The scion of an elder race, art blind? 
 Be still and fear a living bush aflame 
 With puissant will; revere an august name 
 Which gallant youths in days to come will find 
 In many a tale by new Froissarts designed 
 To prick clean hearts to court a shining fame. 
 
 Hark! what strange horns are blowing! Silence, bard! 
 Siegfried and Roland from the welkin's dome 
 Their clarions wind; and bursting mortal shard, — 
 Earth's ashes to earth's ashes, loam to loam, — 
 Theodore the Viking journeys to Asgard 
 To find midth' yEsir his empyreal home. 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
lo 
 
 1 > r 
 
 n 
 
 JUN.-^O 1919 
 
CONGRESS 
 
 013 980 950 6