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The City

by Edgar Lee Masters

The Sun hung like a red balloon

As if he would not rise;

For listless Helios drowsed and yawned.

He cared not whether the morning dawned,

The brother of Eos and the Moon

Stretched him and rubbed his eyes.

He would have dreamed the dream again

That found him under sea:

He saw Zeus sit by Hera's side,

He saw H'phestos with his bride;

He traced from Enna's flowery plain

The child Persephone.

There was a time when heaven's vault

Cracked like a temple's roof.

A new hierarchy burst its shell,

And as the sapphire ceiling fell,

From stern Jehovah's mad assault,

Vast spaces stretched aloof:

Great blue black depths of frozen air

Engulfed the soul of Zeus.

And then Jehovah reigned instead.

For Judah was living and Greece was dead.

And Hope was born to nurse Despair,

And the Devil was let loose.

* * * * *

Far off in the waste empyrean

The world was a golden mote.

And the Sun hung like a red balloon,

Or a bomb afire o'er a barracoon.

And the sea was drab, and the sea was green

Like a many colored coat.

The sea was pink like cyclamen,

And red as a blushing rose.

It shook anon like the sensitive plant,

Under the golden light aslant.

The little waves patted the shore again

Where the restless river flows.

And thus it has been for ages gone -

For a hundred thousand years;

Ere Buddha lived or Jesus came,

Or ever the city had place or name,

The sea thrilled through at the kiss of dawn

Like a soul of smiles and tears.

When the city's seat was a waste of sand,

And the hydra lived alone,

The sound of the sea was here to be heard,

And the moon rose up like a great white bird,

Sailing aloft from the yellow strand

To her silent midnight throne.

Now Helios eyes the universe,

And he knows the world is small.

Of old he walked through pagan Tyre,

Babylon, Sodom destroyed by fire,

And sought to unriddle the primal curse

That holds the race in thrall.

So he stepped from the Sun in robes of flame

As the city woke from sleep.

He walked the markets, walked the squares,

He walked the places of sweets and snares,

Where men buy honor and barter shame,

And the weak are killed as sheep.

He saw the city is one great mart

Where life is bought and sold.

Men rise to get them meat and bread

To barter for drugs or coffin the dead.

And dawn is but a plucked-up heart

For the dreary game of gold.

"Ho! ho!" said Helios, "father Zeus

Would never botch it so.

If he had stolen Joseph's bride,

And let his son be crucified

The son's blood had been put to use

To ease the people's woe."

"He of the pest and the burning bush,

Of locusts, lice, and frogs,

Who made me stand, veiling my light,

While Joshua slaughtered the Amorite,

Who blacked the skin of the sons of Cush,

And builded the synagogues."

"And Jehovah the great is omnipotent,

While Zeus was bound by Fate.

But Athens fell when Peter took Rome,

And Chicago is made His hecatomb.

And since from the hour His son was sent

The hypocrite holds the state."

Helios traversed the city streets

And this is what he saw:

Some sold their honor, some their skill,

The soldier hired himself to kill,

The judges bartered the judgment seats

And trafficked in the law.

The starving artist sold his youth,

The writer sold his pen;

The lawyer sharpened up his wits

Like a burglar filing auger bits,

And Jesus' vicar sold the truth

To the famished sons of men.

In every heart flamed cruelty

Like a little emerald snake.

And each one knew if he should stand

In another's way the dagger-hand

Would make the stronger the feofee

Of the coveted wapentake.

There's not a thing men will not do

For honor, gold, or power.

We smile and call the city fair,

We call life lovely and debonair,

But Proserpina never grew

So deadly a passion flower.

Go live for an hour in a tropic land

Hid near a sinking pool:

The lion and tiger come to drink,

The boa crawls to the water's brink,

The elephant bull kneels down in the sand

And drinks till his throat is cool.

Jehovah will keep you awhile unseen

As you lie behind the rocks.

But go, if you dare, to slake your thirst,

Though Jesus died for our life accursed

Your bones by the tiger will be licked clean

As he licks the bones of an ox.

And the sky may be blue as fleur de lis,

And the earth be tulip red;

And God in heaven, and life all good

While you lie hid in the underwood:

And the city may leave you sorrow free

If you ask it not for bread.

One day Achilles lost a horse

While the pest at Troy was rife,

And a million maggots fought and ate

Like soldiers storming a city's gate,

And Thersites said, as he looked at the corse,

"Achilles, that is life."

* * * * *

Day fades and from a million cells

The office people pour.

Like bees that crawl on the honeycomb

The workers scurry to what is home,

And trains and traffic and clanging bells

Make the ca'on highways roar.

Helios walked the city's ways

Till the lights began to shine.

Then the janitor women start to scrub

And the Pharisees up and enter the club,

And the harlot wakes, and the music plays

And the glasses glow with wine.

Now we're good fellows one and all,

And the buffet storms with talk.

"The market's closed and trade's at end

We had our battle, now I'm your friend."

And thanks to the spirit of alcohol

Men go for a ride or walk.

Oh but traffic is not all done

Nor everything yet sold.

There's woman to win, and plots to weave,

There's a heart to hurt, or one to deceive,

And bargains to bind ere rise of Sun

To garner the morrow's gold.

The market at night is as full of fraud

As the market kept by day.

The courtesan buys a soul with a look,

A dinner tempers the truth in a book,

And love is sold till love is a bawd,

And falsehood froths in the play.

And men and women sell their smiles

For friendship's lifeless dregs.

For fear of the morrow we bend and bow

To moneybags with the slanting brow.

For the heart that knows life's little wiles

Seldom or never begs.

"Poor men," sighed Helios, "how they long

For the ultimate fire of love.

They yearn, through life, like the peacock moth,

And die worn out in search of the troth.

For love in the soul is the siren song

That wrecks the peace thereof."

* * * * *

Helios turned from the world and fled

As the convent bell tolled six.

For he caught a glimpse of an ag'd crone

Who knelt beside a coffin alone;

She had sold her cloak to shrive the dead

And buy a crucifix!