AT THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL

...3 — Think of us, river, where your eddies turn Returning on the purpose of the stream And the gulls scream...

...At the Lincoln Memorial A Poem for the Centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation by ARCHIBALD MacLEISH Slow Potomac, tarnished water Silent already with the sense of sea And still the stain upon you of those raging reaches, Ravaged Shenandoahs and the toppled elm— Hold us a little in your drifting thought, O soiled, sad river...

...4 — Within that door A man sits or the image of a man Staring at stillness on a marble floor...

...He hears beneath the river in its choking channel A deep river rushing on the stone, Sits there in his doubt alone, Discerns the Principle, The guns begin, Emancipates—but not the slaves, The Union—not from Servitude but shame: Emancipates the Union from the monstrous name Whose infamy dishonored Even the great Founders in their graves . . . He saves the Union and the dream goes on...

...And still beyond us always the lost dream...

...5 — Within this door A man sits or the image of a man Remembering the time before...

...far worse...

...To save the Union: To renew That promise and that hope again...

...What made the Union—held it in its origins together...

...Is this our destiny—defeated dream...

...made master— Hatred, the dry bitter thong That binds these two together at the last...

...We, We too, forefeel...

...we too remember: Greatness awaits us as it waits for you Beyond the sea-fall on those shuddering beaches . . . And the shame pursues...

...He listened for the time to come...

...No drum distracts him nor no trumpet can Although he hears the trumpet and the drum...

...Yes and beyond there where the surges burn Bright on their beaches and the waters live, Think of us, river...

...Think of our destiny, the place Named in our covenant where we began— The rendezvous of man, The concourse of our kind, O kindred face...

...I have often inquired of myself What great principle or idea it was . . . It was not the mere matter of the separation from the motherland But something in the Declaration giving liberty Not alone to the people of this country But hope to the word...

...Renew the holy dream we were to be...

...All that defiling refuse of old wrong, Of long injustice, of the mastered man, Of man (far worse...

...2 — We bring the past down with us as you bring your Sodden branches, Froth on your yellow eddies and a few Blind flowers floating like a dead bird's wing...

...And you, Within there, in our love, renew The rushing of that deeper flood To scour the hate clean and the rusted blood, The blind remembrance...

...Fear that feeds the hatred with its stale imposture...

...As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing' . . . I would save the Union . . . My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union...

...6 — Think of us, river, when the sea's enormous Surges meet you on that morning shore...

...O renew once more, Staring at stillness on that silent floor, The proud, lost promise of the sea...

...The trumpet's breath, The drummer's tune— Can drum and trumpet save the Union...

...We bring the past down with us, the shame gathers And the dream is lost...

...It was that which gave promise That in due time The weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men...

...Spoiled, corrupted tramplings of the grapes of wrath...