New Hampshire

I met a lady from the South who said(You won't believe she said it, but she said it):"None of my family ever worked, or hadA thing to sell." I don't suppose the workMuch matters. You may work for all of me.I've seen the time I've had to work myself.The having anything to sell is whatIs the disgrace in man or state or nation.

I met a traveller from ArkansasWho boasted of his state as beautifulFor diamonds and apples. "DiamondsAnd apples in commercial quantities?"I asked him, on my guard. "Oh yes," he answered,Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman."I see the porter's made your bed," I told him.

I met a Californian who wouldTalk California--a state so blessed,He said, in climate none had ever died thereA natural death, and Vigilance CommitteesHad had to organize to stock the graveyardsAnd vindicate the state's humanity."Just the way Steffanson runs on," I murmured,"About the British Arctic. That's what comesOf being in the market with a climate."

I met a poet from another state,A zealot full of fluid inspiration,Who in the name of fluid inspiration,But in the best style of bad salesmanship,Angrily tried to make me write a protest(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.He didn't even offer me a drinkUntil I asked for one to steady him.This is called having an idea to sell.

It never could have happened in New Hampshire.

The only person really soiled with tradeI ever stumbled on in old New HampshireWas someone who had just come back ashamedFrom selling things in California.He'd built a noble mansard roof with ballsOn turrets like Constantinople, deepIn woods some ten miles from a railroad station,As if to put forever out of mindThe hope of being, as we say, received.I found him standing at the close of dayInside the threshold of his open barn,Like a lone actor on a gloomy stage--And recognized him through the iron greyIn which his face was muffled to the eyesAs an old boyhood friend, and once indeedA drover with me on the road to Brighton.His farm was "grounds," and not a farm at all;His house among the local sheds and shantiesRose like a factor's at a trading station.And he was rich, and I was still a rascal.I couldn't keep from asking impolitely,Where had he been and what had he been doing?How did he get so? (Rich was understood.)In dealing in "old rags" in San Francisco.Oh it was terrible as well could be.We both of us turned over in our graves.

Just specimens is all New Hampshire has,One each of everything as in a show-caseWhich naturally she doesn't care to sell.

She had one President (pronounce him Purse,And make the most of it for better or worse.He's your one chance to score against the state).She had one Daniel Webster. He was allThe Daniel Webster ever was or shall be.She had the Dartmouth needed to produce him.

I call her old. She has one familyWhose claim is good to being settled hereBefore the era of colonization,And before that of exploration even.John Smith remarked them as he coasted byDangling their legs and fishing off a wharfAt the Isles of Shoals, and satisfied himselfThey weren't Red Indians but veritablePre-primitives of the white race, dawn people,Like those who furnished Adam's sons with wives;However uninnocent they may have beenIn being there so early in our history.They'd been there then a hundred years or more.Pity he didn't ask what they were up toAt that date with a wharf already built,And take their name. They've since told me their name--Today an honored one in Nottingham.

As for what they were up to more than fishing--Suppose they weren't behaving Puritanly,The hour had not yet struck for being good,Mankind had not yet gone on the Sabbatical.It became an explorer of the deepNot to explore too deep in others' business.

Did you but know of him, New Hampshire hasOne real reformer who would change the worldSo it would be accepted by two classes,Artists the minute they set up as artists,Before, that is, they are themselves accepted,And boys the minute they get out of college.I can't help thinking those are tests to go by.

And she has one I don't know what to call him,Who comes from Philadelphia every yearWith a great flock of chickens of rare breedsHe wants to give the educationalAdvantages of growing almost wildUnder the watchful eye of hawk and eagle--Dorkings because they're spoken of by Chaucer,Sussex because they're spoken of by Herrick.

She has a touch of gold. New Hampshire gold--You may have heard of it. I had a farmOffered me not long since up Berlin wayWith a mine on it that was worked for gold;But not gold in commercial quantities.Just enough gold to make the engagement ringsAnd marriage rings of those who owned the farm.What gold more innocent could one have asked for?

One of my children ranging after rocksLately brought home from Andover or CanaanA specimen of beryl with a traceOf radium. I know with radiumThe trace would have to be the merest traceTo be below the threshold of commercial,But trust New Hampshire not to have enoughOf radium or anything to sell.

A specimen of everything, I said.She has one witch--old style. She lives in Colebrook.(The only other witch I ever metWas lately at a cut-glass dinner in Boston.There were four candles and four people present.The witch was young, and beautiful (new style),And open-minded. She was free to questionHer gift for reading letters locked in boxes.Why was it so much greater when the boxesWere metal than it was when they were wooden?It made the world seem so mysterious.The S'ciety for Psychical ResearchWas cognizant. Her husband was worth millions.I think he owned some shares in Harvard College.)

New Hampshire used to have at SalemA company we called the White Corpuscles,Whose duty was at any hour of nightTo rush in sheets and fool's caps where they smelledA thing the least bit doubtfully perscentedAnd give someone the Skipper Ireson's Ride.One each of everything as in a show-case.More than enough land for a specimenYou'll say she has, but there there enters inSomething else to protect her from herself.There quality makes up for quantity.Not even New Hampshire farms are much for sale.The farm I made my home on in the mountainsI had to take by force rather than buy.I caught the owner outdoors by himselfRaking up after winter, and I said,"I'm going to put you off this farm: I want it.""Where are you going to put me? In the road?""I'm going to put you on the farm next to it.""Why won't the farm next to it do for you?""I like this better." It was really better.

Apples? New Hampshire has them, but unsprayed,With no suspicion in stem-end or blossom-endOf vitriol or arsenate of lead,And so not good for anything but cider.Her unpruned grapes are flung like lariatsFar up the birches out of reach of man.

A state producing precious metals, stones,And--writing; none of these except perhapsThe precious literature in quantityOr quality to worry the producerAbout disposing of it. Do you know,Considering the market, there are morePoems produced than any other thing?No wonder poets sometimes have to seemSo much more business-like than business men.Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.

She's one of the two best states in the Union.Vermont's the other. And the two have beenYoke-fellows in the sap-yoke from of oldIn many Marches. And they lie like wedges,Thick end to thin end and thin end to thick end,And are a figure of the way the strongOf mind and strong of arm should fit together,One thick where one is thin and vice versa.New Hampshire raises the ConnecticutIn a trout hatchery near Canada,But soon divides the river with Vermont.Both are delightful states for their absurdlySmall towns--Lost Nation, Bungey, Muddy Boo,Poplin, Still Corners (so called not becauseThe place is silent all day long, nor yetBecause it boasts a whisky still--becauseIt set out once to be a city and stillIs only corners, cross-roads in a wood).And I remember one whose name appearedBetween the pictures on a movie screenElection night once in Franconia,When everything had gone RepublicanAnd Democrats were sore in need of comfort:Easton goes Democratic, Wilson 4Hughes 2. And everybody to the saddestLaughed the loud laugh, the big laugh at the little.New York (five million) laughs at Manchester,Manchester (sixty or seventy thousand) laughsAt Littleton (four thousand), LittletonLaughs at Franconia (seven hundred), andFranconia laughs, I fear,--did laugh that night--At Easton. What has Easton left to laugh at,And like the actress exclaim, "Oh my God" at?There's Bungey; and for Bungey there are towns,Whole townships named but without population.

Anything I can say about New HampshireWill serve almost as well about Vermont,Excepting that they differ in their mountains.The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.

I had been coming to New Hampshire mountains.And here I am and what am I to say?Here first my theme becomes embarrassing.Emerson said, "The God who made New HampshireTaunted the lofty land with little men."Another Massachusetts poet said,"I go no more to summer in New Hampshire.I've given up my summer place in Dublin."But when I asked to know what ailed New Hampshire,She said she couldn't stand the people in it,The little men (it's Massachusetts speaking).And when I asked to know what ailed the people,She said, "Go read your own books and find out."I may as well confess myself the authorOf several books against the world in general.To take them as against a special stateOr even nation's to restrict my meaning.I'm what is called a sensibilitist,Or otherwise an environmentalist.I refuse to adapt myself a miteTo any change from hot to cold, from wetTo dry, from poor to rich, or back again.I make a virtue of my sufferingFrom nearly everything that goes on round me.In other words, I know wherever I am,Being the creature of literature I am,I shall not lack for pain to keep me awake.Kit Marlowe taught me how to say my prayers:"Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it."Samoa, Russia, Ireland I complain of,No less than England, France and Italy.Because I wrote my novels in New HampshireIs no proof that I aimed them at New Hampshire.

When I left Massachusetts years agoBetween two days, the reason why I soughtNew Hampshire, not Connecticut,Rhode Island, New York, or Vermont was this:Where I was living then, New Hampshire offeredThe nearest boundary to escape across.I hadn't an illusion in my hand-bagAbout the people being better thereThan those I left behind. I thought they weren't.I thought they couldn't be. And yet they were.I'd sure had no such friends in MassachusettsAs Hall of Windham, Gay of Atkinson,Bartlett of Raymond (now of Colorado),Harris of Derry, and Lynch of Bethlehem.The glorious bards of Massachusetts seemTo want to make New Hampshire people over.They taunt the lofty land with little men.I don't know what to say about the people.For art's sake one could almost wish them worseRather than better. How are we to writeThe Russian novel in AmericaAs long as life goes so unterribly?There is the pinch from which our only outcryIn literature to date is heard to come.We get what little misery we canOut of not having cause for misery.It makes the guild of novel writers sickTo be expected to be DostoievskisOn nothing worse than too much luck and comfort.This is not sorrow, though; it's just the vapors,And recognized as such in Russia itselfUnder the new régime, and so forbidden.If well it is with Russia, then feel freeTo say so or be stood against the wallAnd shot. It's Pollyanna now or death.This, then, is the new freedom we hear tell of;And very sensible. No state can buildA literature that shall at once be soundAnd sad on a foundation of wellbeing.

To show the level of intelligenceAmong us; it was just a Warren farmerWhose horse had pulled him short up in the roadBy me, a stranger. This is what he said,From nothing but embarrassment and wantOf anything more sociable to say:"You hear those hound-dogs sing on Moosilauke?Well they remind me of the hue and cryWe've heard against the Mid-VictoriansAnd never rightly understood till BryanRetired from politics and joined the chorus.The matter with the Mid-VictoriansSeems to have been a man named John L. Darwin.""Go 'long," I said to him, he to his horse.

I knew a man who failing as a farmerBurned down his farmhouse for the fire insurance,And spent the proceeds on a telescopeTo satisfy a life-long curiosityAbout our place among the infinities.And how was that for other-worldliness?

If I must choose which I would elevate--The people or the already lofty mountains,I'd elevate the already lofty mountains.The only fault I find with old New HampshireIs that her mountains aren't quite high enough.I was not always so; I've come to be so.How, to my sorrow, how have I attainedA height from which to look down criticalOn mountains? What has given me assuranceTo say what height becomes New Hampshire mountains,Or any mountains? Can it be some strengthI feel as of an earthquake in my backTo heave them higher to the morning star?Can it be foreign travel in the Alps?Or having seen and credited a momentThe solid moulding of vast peaks of cloudBehind the pitiful realityOf Lincoln, Lafayette and Liberty?Or some such sense as says how high shall jetThe fountain in proportion to the basin?No, none of these has raised me to my throneOf intellectual dissatisfaction,But the sad accident of having seenOur actual mountains given in a mapOf early times as twice the height they are--Ten thousand feet instead of only five--Which shows how sad an accident may be.Five thousand is no longer high enough.Whereas I never had a good ideaAbout improving people in the world,Here I am over-fertile in suggestion,And cannot rest from planning day or nightHow high I'd thrust the peaks in summer snowTo tap the upper sky and draw a flowOf frosty night air on the vale belowDown from the stars to freeze the dew as starry.

The more the sensibilitist I amThe more I seem to want my mountains wild;The way the wiry gang-boss liked the log-jam.After he'd picked the lock and got it started,He dodged a log that lifted like an armAgainst the sky to break his back for him,Then came in dancing, skipping, with his lifeAcross the roar and chaos, and the wordsWe saw him say along the zigzag journeyWere doubtless as the words we heard him sayOn coming nearer: "Wasn't she an i-dealSon-of-a-bitch? You bet she was an i-deal."

For all her mountains fall a little short,Her people not quite short enough for Art,She's still New Hampshire, a most restful state.

Lately in converse with a New York alecAbout the new school of the pseudo-phallic,I found myself in a close corner whereI had to make an almost funny choice."Choose you which you will be--a prude, or puke,Mewling and puking in the public arms.""Me for the hills where I don't have to choose.""But if you had to choose, which would you be?"I wouldn't be a prude afraid of nature.I know a man who took a double axeAnd went alone against a grove of trees;But his heart failing him, he dropped the axeAnd ran for shelter quoting Matthew Arnold:"Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood;There's been enough shed without shedding mine.Remember Birnam Wood! The wood's in flux!"He had a special terror of the fluxThat showed itself in dendrophobia.The only decent tree had been to millAnd educated into boards, he said.He knew too well for any earthly useThe line where man leaves off and nature starts,And never over-stepped it save in dreams.He stood on the safe side of the line talking;Which is sheer Matthew Arnoldism,The cult of one who owned himself "a foiled,Circuitous wanderer," and "took dejectedlyHis seat upon the intellectual throne."Agreed in frowning on these improvisedAltars the woods are full of nowadays,Again as in the days when Ahaz sinnedBy worship under green trees in the open.Scarcely a mile but that I come on one,A black-cheeked stone and stick of rain-washed charcoal.Even to say the groves were God's first templesComes too near to Ahaz' sin for safety.Nothing not built with hands of course is sacred.But here is not a question of what's sacred;Rather of what to face or run away from.I'd hate to be a runaway from nature.And neither would I choose to be a pukeWho cares not what he does in company,And, when he can't do anything, falls backOn words, and tries his worst to make words speakLouder than actions, and sometimes achieves it.It seems a narrow choice the age insists on.How about being a good Greek, for instance?That course, they tell me, isn't offered this year."Come, but this isn't choosing--puke or prude?"Well, if I have to choose one or the other,I choose to be a plain New Hampshire farmerWith an income in cash of say a thousand(From say a publisher in New York City).It's restful to arrive at a decision,And restful just to think about New Hampshire.At present I am living in Vermont.

(For Lincoln MacVeagh)

Never tell me that not one star of allThat slip from heaven at night and softly fallHas been picked up with stones to build a wall.

Some laborer found one faded and stone cold,And saving that its weight suggested gold,And tugged it from his first too certain hold,

He noticed nothing in it to remark.He was not used to handling stars thrown darkAnd lifeless from an interrupted arc.

He did not recognize in that smooth coalThe one thing palpable besides the soulTo penetrate the air in which we roll.

He did not see how like a flying thingIt brooded ant-eggs, and had one large wing,One not so large for flying in a ring,

And a long Bird of Paradise's tail,(Though these when not in use to fly and trailIt drew back in its body like a snail);

Nor know that he might move it from the spotThe harm was done; from having been star-shotThe very nature of the soil was hot

And burning to yield flowers instead of grain,Flowers fanned and not put out by all the rainPoured on them by his prayers prayed in vain.

He moved it roughly with an iron bar,He loaded an old stone-boat with the starAnd not, as you might think, a flying car,

Such as even poets would admit perforceMore practical than Pegasus the horseIf it could put a star back in its course.

He dragged it through the ploughed ground at a paceBut faintly reminiscent of the raceOf jostling rock in interstellar space.

It went for building stone, and I, as thoughCommanded in a dream, forever goTo right the wrong that this should have been so.

Yet ask where else it could have gone as well,I do not know--I cannot stop to tell:He might have left it lying where it fell.

From following walls I never lift my eyeExcept at night to places in the skyWhere showers of charted meteors let fly.

Some may know what they seek in school and church,And why they seek it there; for what I searchI must go measuring stone walls, perch on perch;

Sure that though not a star of death and birth,So not to be compared, perhaps, in worthTo such resorts of life as Mars and Earth,

Though not, I say, a star of death and sin,It yet has poles, and only needs a spinTo show its worldly nature and begin

To chafe and shuffle in my calloused palmAnd run off in strange tangents with my armAs fish do with the line in first alarm.

Such as it is, it promises the prizeOf the one world complete in any sizeThat I am like to compass, fool or wise.