And the poet! Again the poet! Is he not _vital_ to your society? Is he not, in the last analysis, the lawmaker, the law-enforcer--this seeker, this inspirer, this man with the new vision of right? I look at this society--body enough I see, bone and muscle, and a good, large, capable stomach. Brain enough I see, too, or nearly enough; but Soul? Soul? Who will dare to tell me that there is Soul enough? And your poet--why, _he_ is your Soul! He is the man who fills the millions with the breath of life, who makes the whole vast machine a living, rejoicing, beautiful thing. _He_--every noble impulse that you have has come originally from him--the memory of his words thrill in the hearts of men--pupils gather to study them--tired hearts seek them for refreshment--they grow and they fill all the earth--and never through the centuries do they die! They blossom into noble impulses, into new movements,--into reforms that reach down to the lowest wretches of the gutter, who never even heard of a poet. Why, they have reached to the very dogs, that are beaten less than they were. * * * * * And what is it that makes civilization in the end? What is it that the world really honors in the end? You Americans, you who love your country, you who believe in your country's institutions, who believe that your country holds in her womb the future of mankind! You who want the world to believe that!--how are you going to _get_ the world to believe that? Is it--poor, impotent, foolish creatures--by covering your land until it is a maze of twenty-story office buildings? By lining it with railroads six feet apart?--Do you not know that this very hour the reason why Europe does not believe in America is that it has not a man to sing its Soul? That it has been a century in the eyes of the world, and has not yet brought forth one single poet or thinker of the first rank? The poet! And I sought to be that man, my heart burned to sing that song! And look at me! * * * * * Who will dare to say that I might not have sung it? What chance have I had--have I not been handicapped and stunted, beaten and discouraged, punished as if I had been a loafer--by _you_, the world? Here I am--I am only a boy--and thrilling with unutterable things! And I am going down, down to destruction! Why, for what I had to say I needed years and years to ripen; and how can I tell now--how can any man tell now--what those things would have been? And I--what am I?--a worm, an atom! But what happens to me to-day may happen to another to-morrow, and may happen to a hundred in a century. And who knows?--who cares? * * * * *