From all corners of the world he hears: that he has given to the time the book most brimming with the whole seething life of the time; that he has given men the book most permeated with the essence of music and Orphean effects; that he has created an entire human race, a race in which all ages of life and degrees of development, in which women as well as men are equally convincing in truth to life; that he has given a work overflowing with ideas, with philosophy of life, with vital help, by exhibiting a great human life in all its weakness and in all its strength. And assuredly this will give him joy. But he will feel proud only when the word comes that his French heart longs to hear: The people that has given to the world such a work is not, as its enemies say, going to destruction. That nation is ever potent with the energy of life. Rolland’s great book is not merely a glorious revelation of the fact that all the greatest ideas that France has given the world live ever in the French people. It demonstrates also that mankind needs the French spirit always in order to realize them. Poems WITTER BYNNER I Shall Come to You Again If you have pity, pity me a little, For I had seen your pitiless lips and dared them And I deserve the pity given fools... Your mouth was passion but your eyes were love. Your mouth might soon consent to harshness, but your eyes, Your eyes would see me and be kind to me. I should not suffer, loving you. I should but carry the heroic pain of love. Wounds that might come from hardness of your heart, If I received them, I should heal, watching the everlasting pity of your eyes... If you have pity, pity me a little. I who had seen your cruelty and dared it Am stricken with it now And have come through the streets in daylight As though the daylight were the sound of laughter Surrounding and consuming me. I have put up my hands to ward it off, The heaviness of light that would not let me hide But held me and looked leering in my face... For there has come a passer-by .... And you have come with him. I have no hatred for the passer-by, and none for you, But hatred only of my own humiliation, For I had challenged and been overthrown... If you have pity, pity me a little. For I who love life Have heard its mouth despise me And have seen its eyes, that had been kind, turn into stone. Wherefore I lack new strength, new laughter. And in the time before that strength is due, If you have pity, pity me a little. But if you have none—soon I shall have no need. For I who choose life, Shall receive my strength, And I shall come to you again, laughing with love... For my humiliation shall have been a rain, Its arms about me and its lips alive. And I shall walk in daylight And it shall be a singing waterfall