Sherwood Anderson

From “Mid-American Songs”

IN the spring, when winds blew and farmers were plowing fields,

It came into my mind to be glad because of my brutality.

Along a street I went and over a bridge.

I went through many streets in my city and over many bridges.

Men and women I struck with my fists and my hands began to bleed.

Under a bridge I crawled, and stood trembling with joy

At the river’s edge.

Because it was spring and soft sunlight came through the cracks

Of the bridge, I tried to understand myself.

Out of the mud at the river’s edge I moulded myself a god,

A grotesque little god with a twisted face,

A god for myself and my men.

You see now, brother, how it was.

I was a man with clothes made by a Jewish tailor;

Cunningly wrought clothes, made for a nameless one.

I wore a white collar and someone had given me a jeweled pin

To wear at my throat.

That amused and hurt me too.

No one knew that I knelt in the mud beneath the bridge

In the city of Chicago.

You see I am whispering my secret to you.

I want you to believe in my insanity and to understand that I love God—

That’s what I want.

And then, you see, it was spring and soft sunlight

Came through the cracks of the bridge.

I had been long alone in a strange place where no gods came.

Creep, men, and kiss the twisted face of my mud god.

I’ll not hit you with my bleeding fists.

I’m a twisted God myself.

It is spring and love has come to me.

Love has come to me

And to my men.