Edgar Lee Masters (Эдгар Ли Мастерс)

Sir Galahad

     I met Hosea Job on Randolph Street
     Who said to me: "I'm going for the train,
     I want you with me."

                          And it happened then
     My mind was hard, as muscles of the back
     Grow hard resisting cold or shock or strain
     And need the osteopath to be made supple,
     To give the nerves and streams of life a chance.
     Hosea Job was just the osteopath
     To loose, relax my mood. And so I said
     "All right"--and went.

                           Hosea was a man
     Whom nothing touched of danger, or of harm.
     His life was just a rare-bit dream, where some one
     Seems like to fall before a truck or train--
     Instead he walks across them. Or you see
     Shadows of falling things, great buildings topple,
     Pianos skid like bulls from hellish corners
     And chase the oblivious fool who stands and smiles.
     The buildings slant and sway like monstrous searchlights,
     But never touch him. And the mad piano
     Comes up to him, puts down its angry head,
     Runs out a friendly tongue and licks his hand,
     And lows a symphony.

                           By which I mean
     Hosea had some money, and would sign
     A bond or note for any man who asked him.
     He'd rent a house and leave it, rent another,
     Then rent a farm, move out from town and in.
     He'd have the leases of superfluous places
     Cancelled some how, was never sued for rent.
     One time he had a fancy he would see
     South Africa, took ship with a load of mules,
     First telegraphing home from New Orleans
     He'd be back in the Spring. Likewise he went
     To Klondike with the rush. I think he owned
     More kinds of mining stock than there were mines.
     He had more quaint, peculiar men for friends
     Than one could think were living. He believed
     In every doctrine in its time, that promised
     Salvation for the world. He took no thought
     For life or for to-morrow, or for health,
     Slept with his windows closed, ate what he wished.
     And if he cut his finger, let it go.
     I offered him peroxide once, he laughed.
     And when I asked him if his soul was saved
     He only said: "I see things. I lie back
     And take it easy. Nothing can go wrong
     In any serious sense."

                             So many thought
     Hosea was a nut, and others thought,
     That I was just a nut for liking him.
     And what would any man of business say
     If he knew that I didn't ask a question,
     But simply went with him to take the train
     That day he asked me.

                             And the train had gone
     Five miles or so when I said: "Where you going?"
     Hosea answered, and it made me start--
     Hosea answered simply, "We are going
     To see Sir Galahad."

                             It made me start
     To hear Hosea say this, for I thought
     He was now really off. But, I looked at him
     And saw his eyes were sane.

                             "Sir Galahad?
     Who is Sir Galahad?"

                             Hosea answered:
     "I'm going up to see Sir Galahad,
     And sound him out about re-entering
     The game and run for governor again."

     So then I knew he was the man our fathers
     Worked with and knew and called Sir Galahad,
     Now in retirement fifteen years or so.
     Well, I was twenty-five when he was famous.
     Sir Galahad was forty then, and now
     Must be some fifty-five while I am forty.
     So flashed across my thought the matter of time
     And ages. So I thought of all he did:
     Of how he went from faith to faith in politics
     And ran for every office up to governor,
     And ran for governor four times or so,
     And never was elected to an office.
     He drew more bills to remedy injustice,
     Improve the courts, relieve the poor, reform
     Administration, than the legislature
     Could read, much less digest or understand.
     The people beat him and the leaders flogged him.
     They shut the door against his face until
     He had no place to go except a farm
     Among the stony hills, and there he went.
     And thither we were going to see the knight,
     And call him from his solitude to the fight
     Against injustice, greed.

                               So we got off
     The train at Alden, just a little village
     Of fifty houses lying beneath the sprawl
     Of hills and hills. And here there was a stillness
     Made lonelier by an anvil ringing, by
     A plow-man's voice at intervals.

                                Here Hosea
     Engaged a horse and buggy, and we drove
     And wound about a crooked road between
     Great hills that stood together like the backs
     Of elephants in a herd, where boulders lay
     As thick as hail in places. Ruined pines
     Stood like burnt matches. There was one which stuck
     Against a single cloud so white it seemed
     A bursted bale of cotton.

                                We reached the summit
     And drove along past orchards, past a field
     Level and green, kept like a garden, rich
     Against the coming harvest. Here we met
     A scarecrow man, driving a scarecrow horse
     Hitched to a wobbly wagon. And we stopped,
     The scarecrow stopped. The scarecrow and Hosea
     Talked much of people and of farming--I
     Sat listening, and I gathered from the talk,
     And what Hosea told me as we drove,
     That once this field so level and so green
     The scarecrow owned. He had cleaned out the stumps,
     And tried to farm it, failed, and lost the field,
     But raged to lose it, thought he might succeed
     In further time. Now having lost the field
     So many years ago, could be a scarecrow,
     And drive a scarecrow horse, yet laugh again
     And have no care, the sorrow healed.

                                           It seemed
     The clearing of the stumps was scarce a starter
     Toward a field of profit. For in truth,
     The soil possessed a secret which the scarecrow
     Never went deep enough to learn about.
     His problem was all stumps. Not solving that,
     He sold it to a farmer who out-slaved
     The busiest bee, but only half succeeded.
     He tried to raise potatoes, made a failure.
     He planted it in beans, had half a crop.
     He sowed wheat once and reaped a stack of straw.
     The secret of the soil eluded him.
     And here Hosea laughed: "This fellow's failure
     Was just the thing that gave another man
     The secret of the soil. For he had studied
     The properties of soils and fertilizers.
     And when he heard the field had failed to raise
     Potatoes, beans and wheat, he simply said:
     There are other things to raise: the question is
     Whether the soil is suited to the things
     He tried to raise, or whether it needs building
     To raise the things he tried to raise, or whether
     It must be builded up for anything.
     At least he said the field is clear of stumps.
     Pass on your field, he said. If I lose out
     I'll pass it on. The field is his, he said
     Who can make something grow.

                                 And so this field
     Of waving wheat along which we were driving
     Was just the very field the scarecrow man
     Had failed to master, as that other man
     Had failed to master after him.

                                         Hosea
     Kept talking of this field as we drove on.
     That field, he said, is economical
     Of men compared with many fields. You see
     It only used two men. To grub the stumps
     Took all the scarecrow's strength. That other man
     Ran off to Oklahoma from this field.
     I have known fields that ate a dozen men
     In country such as this. The field remains
     And laughs and waits for some one who divines
     The secret of the field. Some farmers live
     To prove what can't be done, and narrow down
     The guess of what is possible. It's right
     A certain crop should prosper and another
     Should fail, and when a farmer tries to raise
     A crop before it's time, he wastes himself
     And wastes the field to try.

                                 We now were climbing
     To higher hills and rockier fields. Hosea
     Had fallen into silence. I was thinking
     About Sir Galahad, was wondering
     Which man he was, the scarecrow, or the farmer
     Who didn't know the seed to sow, or whether
     He might still prove the farmer raising wheat,
     Now we were come to give him back the field
     With all the stumps grubbed out, the secret lying
     Revealed and ready for the appointed hands.

     We passed an orchard growing on a knoll
     And saw a barn perked on a rocky hill,
     And near the barn a house. Hosea said:
     "This is Sir Galahad's." We tied the horse.
     And we were in the silence of the country
     At mid-day on a day in June. No bird
     Was singing, fowl was cackling, cow was lowing,
     No dog was barking. All was summer stillness.
     We crossed a back-yard past a windlass well,
     Dodged under clothes lines through a place of chips,
     Walked in a path along the house. I said:
     "Sir Galahad is ploughing, or perhaps
     Is mending fences, cutting weeds." It seemed
     Too bad to come so far and not to find him.
     "We'll find him," said Hosea. "Let us sit
     Under that tree and wait for him."

                                        And then
     We turned the corner of the house and there
     Under a tree an old man sat, his head
     Bowed down upon his breast, locked fast in sleep.
     And by his feet a dog half blind and fat
     Lay dozing, too inert to rise and bark.

     Hosea gripped my arm. "Be still" he said.
     "Let's ask him where Sir Galahad is," said I.
     And then Hosea whispered, "God forgive me,
     I had forgotten, you too have forgotten.
     The man is old, he's very old. The years
     Go by unnoticed. Come! Sir Galahad
     Should sleep and not be waked."

                                 We tip-toed off
     And hurried back to Alden for the train.

1. Clarence Fawcett
2. Paul McNeely
3. Penniwit, the Artist
4. Ezra Bartlett
5. Judson Stoddard

Alfred Tennyson (Альфред Теннисон) Sir Galahad ("My good blade carves the casques of men") 1880

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