45. Jacob Goodpasture. Masters, Edgar Lee. 1916. Spoon River Anthology

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

45. Jacob Goodpasture

WHEN Fort Sumter fell and the war came
I cried out in bitterness of soul:
“O glorious republic now no more!”
When they buried my soldier son
To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums	5
My heart broke beneath the weight
Of eighty years, and I cried:
“Oh, son who died in a cause unjust!
In the strife of Freedom slain!”
And I crept here under the grass.	10
And now from the battlements of time, behold:
Thrice thirty million souls being bound together
In the love of larger truth,
Rapt in the expectation of the birth
Of a new Beauty,	15
Sprung from Brotherhood and Wisdom.
I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration
Before you see it.
But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ever higher,
Wheeling ever higher, the sun-light wooing	20
Of lofty places of Thought,
Forgive the blindness of the departed owl.