Sweet Briars of the Stairways

    We are happy all the time
    Even when we fight:
    Sweet briars of the stairways,
    Gay fairies of the grime;
    WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT.

    "Our feet are in the gutters,
    Our eyes are sore with dust,
    But still our eyes are bright.
    The wide street roars and mutters -
    We know it works because it must -
    WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT!

    "Dirt is everlasting. -    We never, never fear it.
    Toil is never ceasing. -    We will play until we near it.
    Tears are never ending. -    When once real tears have come;

    "When we see our people as they are -
    Our fathers - broken, dumb -
    Our mothers - broken, dumb -
    The weariest of women and of men;
    Ah - then our eyes will lose their light -
    Then we will never play again -
            WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT."

Vachel Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay was an American poet known for his innovative performances of his poetry, which combined spoken word with music and theatrics. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Lindsay's work often revolved around American history and culture, reflecting his progressive social views. He played a significant role in the early 20th-century American poetry scene, influencing contemporaries and later poets with his dynamic style and passionate delivery.

Vachel Lindsay

Above the Battle's Front

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

Honor Among Scamps

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

A Rhyme about an Electrical Advertising Sign

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

English

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The Master of the Dance

A chant to which it is intended a group of children shall dance and improvise pantomime led by their dancing-teacher.


            I

    A master deep-eyed
    Ere his manhood was ripe,
    He sang like a thrush,
    He could play any pipe.
    So dull in the school
    That he scarcely could spell,
    He read but a bit,
    And he figured not well.
    A bare-footed fool,
    Shod only with grace;
    Long hair streaming down
    Round a wind-hardened face;
    He smiled like a girl,
    Or like clear winter skies,
    A virginal light
    Making stars of his eyes.
    In swiftness and poise,
    A proud child of the deer,
    A white fawn he was,
    Yet a fawn without fear.
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Vachel Lindsay

The Voices Of The City

The voices of the city - merged and swelled
Into a mighty dissonance of sound,
And from the medley rose these broken strains
In changing time and ever-changing keys.

I

Pleasure seekers, silken clad,
    Led by cherub Day,
Ours the duty to be glad,
    Ours the toil of play.

Sleep has bound the commonplace,
    Pleasure rules the dawn.
Small hours set the merry pace
    And we follow on.

We must use the joys of earth,
    All its cares we'll keep;
Night was made for youth and mirth,
    Day was made for sleep.

Time has cut his beard, and lo!
    He is but a boy,
Singing, on with him we go,
    Ah! but life is joy.

II

We are the vendors of beauty,
    We the purveyors for hell;
The...

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The Perfect Marriage

            I

    I hate this yoke; for the world's sake here put it on:
    Knowing 'twill weigh as much on you till life is gone.
    Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine -
    Knowing that love unchained has been our life's great wine:
    Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none;
    Of the two cups free love at last the deadly one).


            II

    We grant our meetings will be tame, not honey-sweet
    No longer turning to the tryst with flying feet.
    We know the toil that now must come will spoil the bloom
    And tenderness of passion's touch, and in its room
    Will come tame habit, deadly calm, sorrow and gloom.
    Oh, how the battle scars the best who enter life!
    Each soldier comes out blind or...

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An Argument

            I.    The Voice of the Man Impatient with Visions and Utopias

    We find your soft Utopias as white
    As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells,
    O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are
    How human breasts adore alarum bells.
    You house us in a hive of prigs and saints
    Communal, frugal, clean and chaste by law.
    I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore
    Or be Lear's fool, straw-crowned amid the straw.
    Promise us all our share in Agincourt
    Say that our clerks shall venture scorns and death,
    That future ant-hills will not be too good
    For Henry Fifth, or Hotspur, or Macbeth.
    Promise that through to-morrow's spirit-war
    Man's deathless soul will hack and hew its way,
    Each flaunting Caesar climbing to his...

Vachel Lindsay

The Illinois Village

    O you who lose the art of hope,
    Whose temples seem to shrine a lie,
    Whose sidewalks are but stones of fear,
    Who weep that Liberty must die,
    Turn to the little prairie towns,
    Your higher hope shall yet begin.
    On every side awaits you there
    Some gate where glory enters in.

    Yet when I see the flocks of girls,
    Watching the Sunday train go thro'
    (As tho' the whole wide world went by)
    With eyes that long to travel too,
    I sigh, despite my soul made glad
    By cloudy dresses and brown hair,
    Sigh for the sweet life wrenched and torn
    By thundering commerce, fierce and bare.
    Nymphs of the wheat these girls should be:
    Kings of the grove, their lovers strong.
    Why are they not inspired,...

Vachel Lindsay

The Long Lane

All through the summer night, down the long lane in flower,
            The moon-white lane,
All through the summer night,--dim as a shower,
            Glimmer and fade the Twain:
Over the cricket hosts, throbbing the hour by hour,
            Young voices bloom and wane.

Down the long lane they go, and past one window, pale
            With visions silver-blurred;
Stirring the heart that waits,--the eyes that fail
            After a spring deferred.
Query, and hush, and Ah!--dim through a moon-lit veil,
            The same one word.

Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
            The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and star-strewn air,
            And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':--
All the wild bloom an...

Josephine Preston Peabody