Look here! This master book of Stephens which you sent me Accuses Lincoln of imperial deeds, And breach of laws, and rightly so, in truth. That makes me love him, but the end he sought Is something else. At first that was the Union, Straight through it was the Union, but at last The strain of Christian softness always his Which filled him full of hate for slavery Cropped out in freedom for your negro slaves, Which was an act of war, and so confessed, Not propped by law, but only by a will. Thus he became a man who broke all law To have his law. He killed a million men For what he called the Union, what he thought Was truth of Christian brotherhood. I say He killed a million men, for it is true Your war had never come, had he believed All government must rest in men’s consent. What have we but a soul imperial? A brother to me, standing for the strong, For master races, blindly at the work Of biologic mount? The cells of him That make him saint for radicals and dreamers Are but somatic, but the sperm of him Will propagate great rulers. See his face! Its tragic pathos fools the idealist-- But study it. First, then, observe the eyes, And tell me how within their gaze events Or men could lose their true proportions! Here No visions swarm, no dreams with flashing wings Throw light upon them. No, they only look Across a boundless prairie, that is all. And in that brow and nose we see a strength Slow, steady, wary, cautious--why this man Is your conservative, perhaps your best, Which is one reason why he loved the Union, And even said at last that government Of the people meant the Union--how absurd!-- Would perish, if it perished, clearly false! And if ’twere true would be the better. Read My Renaissance, and other books, you’ll see How I’d protect the master spirits, keep The master races pure; how I detest The brotherhood of man, how I have shown The falseness of these Galilean dreams, These syrups strained in secret, used to drug The strong and make them equal with the weak. Such things are of the mind which weaves in space,-- A penalty of thought. Come back to earth, Live close to nature. Do not sap a rose To nourish cabbages, and call it truth!