Domesday Book.

by Edgar Lee Masters.

SOME PRESS OPINIONS

"One of the greatest books of the present century."--_Nation._

"The 'Spoon River Anthology' has certain qualities essential to greatness--originality of conception and treatment, a daring that would soar to the stars, an instant felicity and facility of expression."--C. E.

LAWRENCE in _The Daily Chronicle_.

"Mr. Edgar Lee Masters will become a cla.s.sic ... so close-packed is the book's pregnant wit, so outspoken its language, so destructive of cant and pharisaism and the veneer of the proprieties, so piercingly true in insight."--EDWARD GARNETT in _The Manchester Guardian_.

"It is a remarkable book and it grips."--_Daily Telegraph._

"This book is of a quality that will endure.... Mr. Masters has been daring with the certainty of success."--_Liverpool Daily Post._

"A quite remarkable volume of verse ... quite masterly."--_Sphere._

"Its reality, ingenuity, irony, insight, and vision are unique."--_Bookman._

DOMESDAY BOOK

Take any life you choose and study it: It gladdens, troubles, changes many lives.

The life goes out, how many things result?

Fate drops a stone, and to the utmost sh.o.r.es The circles spread.

Now, such a book were endless, If every circle, riffle should be traced Of any life--and so of Elenor Murray, Whose life was humble and whose death was tragic.

And yet behold the riffles spread, the lives That are affected, and the secrets gained Of lives she never knew of, as for that.

For even the world could not contain the books That should be written, if all deeds were traced, Effects, results, gains, losses, of her life, And of her death.

Concretely said, in brief, A man and woman have produced this child; What was the child's pre-natal circ.u.mstance?

How did her birth affect the father, mother?

What did their friends, old women, relatives Take from the child in feeling, joy or pain?

What of her childhood friends, her days at school, Her teachers, girlhood sweethearts, lovers later, When she became a woman? What of these?

And what of those who got effects because They knew this Elenor Murray?

Then she dies.

Read how the human secrets are exposed In many lives because she died--not all Lives, by her death affected, written here.

The reader may trace out such other riffles As come to him--this book must have an end.

Enough is shown to show what could be told If we should write a world of books. In brief One feature of the plot elaborates The closeness of one life, however humble With every life upon this globe. In truth I sit here in Chicago, housed and fed, And think the world secure, at peace, the clock Just striking three, in Europe striking eight: And in some province, in some palace, hut, Some words are spoken, or a fisticuff Results between two brawlers, and for that A blue-eyed boy, my grandson, we may say, Not even yet in seed, but to be born A half a century hence, is by those words, That fisticuff, drawn into war in Europe, Shrieks from a bullet through the groin, and lies Under the sod of France.

But to return To Elenor Murray, I have made a book Called Domesday Book, a census spiritual Taken of our America, or in part Taken, not wholly taken, it may be.

For William Merival, the coroner, Who probed the death of Elenor Murray goes As far as may be, and beyond his power, In diagnosis of America, While finding out the cause of death. In short Becomes a William the Conqueror that way In making up a Domesday Book for us....

Of this a little later. But before We touch upon the Domesday book of old, We take up Elenor Murray, show her birth; Then skip all time between and show her death; Then take up Coroner Merival--who was he?

Then trace the life of Elenor Murray through The witnesses at the inquest on the body Of Elenor Murray;--also letters written, And essays written, conversations heard, But all evoked by Elenor Murray's death.

And by the way trace riffles here and there....

A word now on the Domesday book of old: Remember not a book of doom, but a book Of houses; domus, house, so domus book.

And this book of the death of Elenor Murray Is not a book of doom, though showing too How fate was woven round her, and the souls That touched her soul; but is a house book too Of riches, poverty, and weakness, strength Of this our country.

If you take St. Luke You find an angel came to Mary, said: Hail! thou art highly favored, shalt conceive, Bring forth a son, a king for David's throne:-- So tracing life before the life was born.

We do the same for Elenor Murray, though No man or angel said to Elenor's mother: You have found favor, you are blessed of G.o.d, You shall conceive, bring forth a daughter blest, And blessing you. Quite otherwise the case, As being blest or blessing, something like Perhaps, in that desire, or flame of life, Which gifts new souls with pa.s.sion, strength and love....

This is the manner of the girl's conception, And of her birth:--...

THE BIRTH OF ELENOR MURRAY

What are the mortal facts With which we deal? The man is thirty years, Most vital, in a richness physical, Of musical heart and feeling; and the woman Is twenty-eight, a cradle warm and rich For life to grow in.

And the time is this: This Henry Murray has a mood of peace, A splendor as of June, has for the time Quelled anarchy within him, come to law, Sees life a thing of beauty, happiness, And fortune glow before him. And the mother, Sunning her feathers in his genial light, Takes longing and has hope. For body's season The blood of youth leaps in them like a fountain, And splashes musically in the crystal pool Of quiet days and hours. They rise refreshed, Feel all the sun's strength flow through muscles, nerves; Extract from food no poison, only health; Are sensitive to simple things, the turn Of leaves on trees, flowers springing, robins' songs.

Now such a time must prosper love's desire, Fed gently, tended wisely, left to mount In flame and light. A prospering fate occurs To send this Henry Murray from his wife, And keep him absent for a month--inspire A daily letter, written of the joys, And hopes they have together, and omit, Forgotten for the time, old aches, despairs, Forebodings for the future.

What results?

For thirty days her youth, and youthful blood Under the stimulus of absence, letters, And growing longing, laves and soothes and feeds, Like streams that nourish fields, her body's being.

Enriches cells to plumpness, dim, asleep, Which stretch, expand and turn, the prototype Of a baby newly born; which after the cry At midnight, taking breath an hour before,-- That cry which is of things most tragical, The tragedy most poignant--sleeps and rests, And flicks its little fingers, with closed eyes Senses with visions of unopened leaves This monstrous and external sphere, the world, And what moves in it.

So she thinks of him, And longs for his return, and as she longs The rivers of her body run and ripple, Refresh and quicken her. The morning's light Flutters upon the ceiling, and she lies And stretches drowsily in the breaking slumber Of fluctuant emotion, calls to him With spirit and flesh, until his very name Seems like to form in sound, while lips are closed, And tongue is motionless, beyond herself, And in the middle s.p.a.ces of the room Calls back to her.

And Henry Murray caught, In letters, which she sent him, all she felt, Re-kindled it and sped it back to her.

Then came a lover's fancy in his brain: He would return unlooked for--who, the G.o.d, Inspired the fancy?--find her in what mood She might be in his absence, where no blur Of expectation of his coming changed Her color, flame of spirit. And he bought Some chablis and a cake, slipped noiselessly Into the chamber where she lay asleep, And had a light upon her face before She woke and saw him.

How she cried her joy!

And put her arms around him, burned away In one great moment from a goblet of fire, Which over-flowed, whatever she had felt Of shrinking or distaste, or loveless hands At any time before, and burned it there Till even the ashes sparkled, blew away In incense and in light.

She rose and slipped A robe on and her slippers; drew a stand Between them for the chablis and the cake.

And drank and ate with him, and showed her teeth, While laughing, shaking curls, and flinging back Her head for rapture, and in little crows.

And thus the wine caught up the resting cells, And flung them in the current, and their blood Flows silently and swiftly, running deep; And their two hearts beat like the rhythmic chimes Of little bells of steel made blue by flame, Because their lives are ready now, and life Cries out to life for life to be. The fire, Lit in the altar of their eyes, is blind For mysteries that urge, the blood of them In separate streams would mingle, hurried on By energy from the heights of ancient mountains; The G.o.d himself, and Life, the Gift of G.o.d.

And as result the hurrying microcosms Out of their beings sweep, seek out, embrace, Dance for the rapture of freedom, being loosed; Unite, achieve their destiny, find the cradle Of sleep and growth, take up the cryptic task Of maturation and of fas.h.i.+oning; Where no light is except the light of G.o.d To light the human spirit, which emerges From nothing that man knows; and where a face, To be a woman's or a man's takes form: Hands that shall gladden, lips that shall enthrall With songs or kisses, hands and lips, perhaps, To hurt and poison. All is with the fates, And all beyond us.

Now the seed is sown, The flower must grow and blossom. Something comes, Perhaps, to whisper something in the ear That will exert itself against the ma.s.s That grows, proliferates; but for the rest The task is done. One thing remains alone: It is a daughter, woman, that you bear, A whisper says to her--It is her wish-- Her wish materializes in a voice Which says: the name of Elenor is sweet, Choose that for her--Elenor, which is light, The light of Helen, but a lesser light In this our larger world; a light to s.h.i.+ne, And lure amid the tangled woodland ways Of this our life; a firefly beating wings Here, there amid the thickets of hard days.

And to go out at last, as all lights do, And leave a memory, perhaps, but leave No meaning to be known of any man....

So Elenor Murray is conceived and born.

But now this Elenor Murray being born, We start not with her life, but with her death, The finding of her body by the river.