For St. Bartholomew’s Eve (August 23, 1927)

Then die! Outside the prison gawk the crowds that you will see no more. A door slams shut behind you. Walk with turnkeys down a corridor smelling of lysol, through the gates to where a drunken sheriff waits.

St. Nicholas who blessed your birth, whose hands are rich with gifts, will bear no further gifts to you on earth, Sacco, whose heart abounds in prayer neither to Pilate nor a saint whose earthly sons die innocent.

And you that would not bow your knee to God, swarthy Bartholomew, no God will grant you liberty, nor Virgin intercede for you, nor bones of yours make sweet the plot where governors and judges rot.

A doctor sneezes. A chaplain maps the routes to heaven. You mount the chair. A jailor buckles tight the straps like those which aviators wear. The surgeon makes a signal.

Die!

Beyond the chair, beyond the bars of day and night, your path lies free; yours is an avenue of stars: march on, O dago Christs, while we march on to spread your name abroad like ashes in the winds of God.

From “Blue Juniata” (Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith: 1929). Malcolm Cowley, one of America’s most admired critics, died last Tuesday at age 90 after an apparent heart attack.