If he only could go away without going away
And have everything turn out just as it ought to be
Without rings or hiding! He told himself “I’m all right.
I’m not like Bailey. I wouldn’t sleep with a girl
Who never slept with anybody before
And then just go off and leave her.” But it was Melora.
It wasn’t seducing a girl. It was all mixed up.
All real where it ought to be something told in a sermon,
And all unreal when you had to do something about it,
His thoughts went round and round like rats in a cage,
But all he knew was— he was sick for a room
And a red tablecloth with tasselled fringes,
Where a wife knitted on an end of a scarf,
A father read his paper through the same
Unchanging spectacles with the worn bows
And a young girl beneath a nickeled lamp
Soundlessly conjugated Latin verbs,
“Amo, amas, amat,” and still no sound—
Slight dryad, trailing the green, curled vines of the Spring,
I hate you for this moment, I hate your white breast
And idleness, sweet, hidden idleness—
He started awake. He had been walking through dreams.
How far had he come? He studied the sun and the trees.
Was he lost? No, there was the way. He turned back slowly,
To the dryad, the idleness—to the cheesecloth veil,
The incredible preacher, the falling out of life.
He’d ask her this evening where you could find such preachers.
The old man mustn’t know till the thing was done
Or he would turn to a father out of a cheap
Play, a cheap shotgun father with a wool beard
Roaring gilt rhetoric—and loading a musket.
He got the dry grins. If the property-father shot him
Would they carve his name on the soldiers’ monument
After the war? There should be a special tablet.
“Here lies John Ellyat Junior, shot and killed
By an angry father for the great cause of Union.
‘How sleep the brave.’ ” He stumbled and looked around him.
“Well, I might go on as far as the road,” he said.
A little while later he burst through the screen of brush.
And saw the highroad below him. He wiped his face.
The road dipped down a hill to a little bridge.
He was safe enough now. What was it Melora had said?
The highroad was six miles away from the farm,
Due west, and he could tell the west by the sun.
He must have covered a dozen, finding the road,
But getting back would be easy. The sun was high.
He ought to be starting soon. But he lay down
And stared for a while at the road. It was good to see
A road in the open again, a dust-bitten road
Where people and horses went along to a town.
—Dryad, deep in the woods, your trails are small,
Winding and faint—they run between grass and flowers—
But it is good once more to come on a road
That is not drowsy with your idleness—
He looked down toward the bridge. There were moving blobs of dust
Crossing it—men on horses. His heart gave a strange
Throb of desire. What were they? They looked like soldiers.
Blue coats or grey? He could not tell for the dust.
He’d have to get back in the woods before they passed,
He was a hider now. But he kept on staring
A long two minutes, trying to make them out,
Till his eyes stung. One man had a yellow beard
And carried his rifle slung the Missouri way
But there were Missouri troops on either side.
In a minute he could tell—and wriggle away—
A round stick jabbed in his back. A slow voice said
“Reach for the sky, Yank, or I’ll nachully drill yuh.”
His hands flew up. “Yuh’re the hell of a scout,” said the voice
With drawling scorn. “Yuh h’ain’t even got a gun.
I could have picked yuh off ten minutes ago,
Yuh made more noise than a bear, bustin thru’ that bresh.
What’d yuh ust to work at—wrappin’ up corsets?
Yeah—yuh kin turn around.” Jack Ellyat turned
Incredulously. “Well, I’ll be damned,” said the boy
In butternut clothes with the wrinkled face of a leaf.
“Yuh’re a young ’un all right—aw, well, don’t take it so hard.
Our boys get captured, too. Hey, Billy!” he called,
“Got a Yankee scout.” The horse-hoofs stopped in the road.
“Well, bring him along,” said a voice. Jack Ellyat slid
Down a little bank and stood in front of the horses.
He was dazed. This was not happening. But the horses
Were there, the butternut men on the horses were there.
A gaunt old man with a sour, dry mouth was talking,
“He’s no scout,” he said. “He’s one of their lousy spies.
Don’t he look like a spy? Let’s string him up to a tree.”
His eye roved, looking for a suitable branch,
His mouth seemed pleased. Ellyat saw two little scooped dishes,
Hung on a balance, wavering in the air.
One was bright tin and carried his life and breath,
The other was black. They were balanced with dreadful evenness.
But now the black dish trembled, starting to fall.
“Hell, no,” said the boy with the face like a wrinkled leaf.
“He’s a scout all right. What makes yuh so savage, Ben?
Yuh’re always hankerin’ after a necktie-party.
Who captured the bugger anyhow?” “Oh, well,”
Said the other man. “Oh, well.” He spat in the dust.
“Anyhow,” he said, with a hungry look at Ellyat,
“He’s got good boots.” The boy with the wrinkled face
Remarked that, as for the boots, no Arkansaw catfish
Was going to take them away from their lawful captor.
The rest sat their horses loosely and looked at him
With mild curiosity, ruminating tobacco.
Ellyat tried to think. He could not think. He was free,
These stuffless men on stuffless horses had freed him
From dryads and fathers, from cheesecloth veils and Melora.
He began to talk fast. He didn’t hear what he said.
“But I’ve got to get back,” he said. Then he stopped. They laughed.
“Oh, yuh’ll get over it, Bub,” said the wrinkled boy,
“It ain’t so bad. You won’t have to fight no more.
Maybe yuh’ll git exchanged. Git up on that horse.
No, take off them boots first, thanks.” He slung the boots
Around his neck. “Now I got some good boots,” he said.
And grinned at the gaunt man with the sour mouth.
“Now, Bub, I’ll just tie yuh a little with this yere rope
And then you won’t be bustin’ loose from
