— Trueblood

Trueblood is bewitched to write a drama —

Only one drama, then to die. Enough

To win the heights but once! He writes me letters,

These later days marked “Opened by the Censor,”

About his drama, asks me what I think

About this point of view, and that approach,

And whether to etch in his hero's soul

By etching in his hero's enemies,

Or luminate his hero by enshadowing

His hero's enemies. How shall I tell him

Which is the actual and the larger theme,

His hero or his hero's enemies?

And through it all I see that Trueblood's mind

Runs to the under-dog, the fallen Titan

The god misunderstood, the lover of man

Destroyed by heaven for his love of man.

In July, , while in London

He took me to his house to dine and showed me

The verses as above. And while I read

He left the room, returned, I heard him move

The ash trays on the table where we sat

And set some object on the table.

Then

As I looked up from reading I discovered

A skull and bony hand upon the table.

And Trueblood said: “Look at the loft brow!

And what a hand was this! A right hand too.

Those fingers in the flesh did miracles.

And when I have my hero's skull before me,

His hand that moulded peoples, I should write

The drama that possesses all my thought.

You'd think the spirit of the man would come

And show me how to find the key that fits

The story of his life, reveal its secret.

I know the secrets, but I want the secret.

You'd think his spirit out of gratitude

Would start me off. It's something, I insist,

To find a haven with a dramatist

After your bones have crossed the sea, and after

Passing from hand to hand they reach seclusion,

And reverent housing.

Dying in New York

He lay for ten years in a lonely grave

Somewhere along the Hudson, I believe.

No grave yard in the city would receive him.

Neither a banker nor a friend of banks,

Nor falling in a duel to awake

Indignant sorrow, space in Trinity

Was not so much as offered. He was poor,

And never had a tomb like Washington.

Of course he was n't Washington — but still,

Study that skull a little! In ten years

A mad admirer living here in England

Went to America and dug him up,

And brought his bones to Liverpool. Just then

Our country was in turmoil over France —

( The details are so rich I lose my head,

And can n't construct my acts. ) — hell's flaming here,

And we are fighting back the roaring fire

That France had lighted. England would abort

The era she embraced. Here is a point

That vexes me in laying out the scenes,

And persons of the play. For parliament

Went into fury that these bones were here

On British soil. The city raged. They took

The poor town-crier, gave him nine months’ prison

For crying on the streets the bones’ arrival.

I'd like to put that crier in my play.

The scene of his arrest would thrill, in case

I put it on a background understood,

And showing why the fellow was arrested,

And what a high offence to heaven it was.

Then here's another thing: The monument

This zealous friend had planned was never raised.

The city would n't have it — you can guess

The brain that filled this skull and moved this hand

Had given England trouble. Yes, believe me!

He roused rebellion and he scattered pamphlets.

He had the English gift of writing pamphlets.

He stirred up peoples with his English gift

Against the mother country. How to show this

In action, not in talk, is difficult.

Well, then here is our friend who has these bones

And cannot honor them in burial.

And so he keeps them, then becomes a bankrupt.

And look! the bones pass to our friend's receiver.

Are they an asset? Our Lord Chancellor

Does not regard them so. I'd like to work

Some humor in my drama at this point,

And satirize his lordship just a little.

Though you can scarcely call a skull an asset

If it be of a man who helped to cost you

The loss of half the world. So the receiver

Cast out the bones and for a time a laborer

Took care of them. He sold them to a man

Who dealt in furniture. The empty coffin

About this time turned up in Guilford — then

It's 1854, the man is dead

Near forty years, when just the skull and hand

Are owned by Rev. Ainslie, who evades

All questions touching on that ownership,

And where the ribs, spine, arms and thigh bones are —

The rest in short.

And as for me — no matter

Who sold them, gave them to me, loaned them to me.

Behold the good right hand, behold the skull

Of Thomas Paine, theo-philanthropist,

Of Quaker parents, born in England! Look,

That is the hand that wrote the Crisis, wrote

The Age of Reason, Common Sense, and rallied

Americans against the mother country,

With just that English gift of pamphleteering.

You see I'd have to bring George Washington,

And James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson

Upon the stage, and put into their mouths

The eulogies they spoke on Thomas Paine,

To get before the audience that they thought

He did as much as any man to win

Your independence; that your Declaration

Was founded on his writings, even inspired

A clause against your negro slavery — how —

Look at this hand!— he was the first to write

United States of America — there's the hand

That was the first to write those words. Good Lord

This drama would out-last a Chinese drama

If I put all the story in. But tell me

What to omit, and what to stress?

And still

I'd have the greatest drama in the world

If I could prove he was dishonored, hunted,

Neglected, libeled, buried like a beast,

His bones dug up, thrown in and out of Chancery.

And show these horrors overtook Tom Paine

Because he was too great, and by this showing

Instruct the world to honor its torch bearers

For time to come. No? Well, that can n't be done —

I know that; but it puzzles me to think

That Hamilton — we'll say, is so revered,

So lauded, toasted, all his papers studied

On tariffs and on banks, evoking ahs!

Great genius! and so forth — and there's the Crisis

And Common Sense which only little Shelleys

Haunting the dusty book shops read at all.

It was n't that he liked his rum and drank

Too much at times, or chased a pretty skirt —

For Hamilton did that. Paine never mixed

In money matters to another's wrong

For his sake or a system's. Yes, I know

The world cares more for chastity and temperance

Than for a faultless life in money matters.

No use to dramatize that vital contrast,

The world to-day is what it always was.

But you do n't call this Hamilton an artist

And Paine a mere logician and a wrangler?

Your artist soul gets limed in this mad world

As much as any. There is Leonardo —

The point's not here.

I think it's more like this:

Some men are Titans and some men are gods,

And some are gods who fall while climbing back

Up to Olympus whence they came. And some

While fighting for the race fall into holes

Where to return and rescue them is death.

Why look you here! You'd think America

Had gone to war to cheat the guillotine

Of Thomas Paine, in fiery gratitude.

He's there in France's national assembly,

And votes to save King Louis with this phrase:

Do n't kill the man but kill the kingly office.

They think him faithless to the revolution

For words like these — and clap! the prison door

Shuts on our Thomas. So he writes a letter

To president — of what! to Washington

President of the United States of America,

A title which Paine coined in seventy-seven

Now lettered on a monstrous seal of state!

And Washington is silent, never answers,

And leaves our Thomas shivering in a cell,

Who hears the guillotine go slash and click!

Perhaps this is the nucleus of my drama.

Or else to show that Washington was wise

Respecting England's hatred of our Thomas,

And wise to lift no finger to save Thomas,

Incurring England's wrath, who hated Thomas

For pamphlets like the “Crisis” “Common Sense.”

That may be just the story for my drama.

Old Homer satirized the human race

For warring for the rescue of a Cyprian.

But there's not stuff for satire in a war

Ensuing on the insult for the rescue

Of nothing but a fellow who wrote pamphlets,

And won a continent for the rescuer.

That's tragedy, the more so if the fellow

Likes rum and writes that Jesus was a man.

This crushing of poor Thomas in the hate

Of England and her power, America's

Great fear and lowered strength might make a drama

As showing how the more you do in life

The greater shall you suffer. This is true,

If what you battered down gets hold of you.

This drama almost drives me mad at times.

I have his story at my fingers’ ends.

But it wo n't take a shape. It flies my hands.

I think I'll have to give it up. What's that?

Well, if an audience of to-day would turn

From seeing Thomas Paine upon the stage

What is the use to write it, if they'd turn

No matter how you wrote it? I believe

They would n't like it in America,

Nor England either, maybe — you are right!

A drama with no audience is a failure.

But here's this skull. What shall I do with it?

If I should have it cased in solid silver

There is no shrine to take it — no Cologne

For skulls like this.

Well, I must die sometime,

And who will get it then? Look at this skull!

This bony hand! Then look at me, my friend:

A man who has a theme the world despises!