To Buddha

    Awake again in Asia, Lord of Peace,
    Awake and preach, for her far swordsmen rise.
    And would they sheathe the sword before you, friend,
    Or scorn your way, while looking in your eyes?

    Good comrade and philosopher and prince,
    Thoughtful and thoroughbred and strong and kind,
    Dare they to move against your pride benign,
    Lord of the Law, high chieftain of the mind?

                *****

    But what can Europe say, when in your name
    The throats are cut, the lotus-ponds turn red?
    And what can Europe say, when with a laugh
    Old Asia heaps her hecatombs of dead?

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

The Wizard in the Street

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

What the Moon Saw

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

What Grandpa Mouse Said

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

The Hearth Eternal

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

English

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Above the Battle's Front

    St. Francis, Buddha, Tolstoi, and St. John -
    Friends, if you four, as pilgrims, hand in hand,
    Returned, the hate of earth once more to dare,
    And walked upon the water and the land,

    If you, with words celestial, stopped these kings
    For sober conclave, ere their battle great,
    Would they for one deep instant then discern
    Their crime, their heart-rot, and their fiend's estate?

    If you should float above the battle's front,
    Pillars of cloud, of fire that does not slay,
    Bearing a fifth within your regal train,
    The Son of David in his strange array -

    If, in his majesty, he towered toward Heaven,
    Would they have hearts to see or understand?
    ... Nay, for he hovers there to-night we know,
    Thorn-...

Vachel Lindsay

With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses

    I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate
    Saying:    "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait."
    Saying:    "I bring you my fair Law of Peace
    And from your withering passion full release;
    Release from that white hand that stabbed you so.
    The road is calling.    With the wind you go,
    Forgetting her imperious disdain -
    Quenching all memory in the sun and rain."

    "Excellent Lord, I come.    But first," I said,
    "Grant that I bring her these twelve roses red.
    Yea, twelve flower kisses for her rose-leaf mouth,
    And then indeed I go in bitter drouth
    To that far valley where your river flows
    In Peace, that once I found in every rose."

Vachel Lindsay

Buddha

    Would that by Hindu magic we became
    Dark monks of jeweled India long ago,
    Sitting at Prince Siddartha's feet to know
    The foolishness of gold and love and station,
    The gospel of the Great Renunciation,
    The ragged cloak, the staff, the rain and sun,
    The beggar's life, with far Nirvana gleaming:
    Lord, make us Buddhas, dreaming.

Vachel Lindsay

Incense

    Think not that incense-smoke has had its day.
    My friends, the incense-time has but begun.
    Creed upon creed, cult upon cult shall bloom,
    Shrine after shrine grow gray beneath the sun.

    And mountain-boulders in our aged West
    Shall guard the graves of hermits truth-endowed:
    And there the scholar from the Chinese hills
    Shall do deep honor, with his wise head bowed.

    And on our old, old plains some muddy stream,
    Dark as the Ganges, shall, like that strange tide -
    (Whispering mystery to half the earth) -
    Gather the praying millions to its side,

    And flow past halls with statues in white stone
    To saints unborn to-day, whose lives of grace
    Shall make one shining, universal church
    Where all Faith...

Vachel Lindsay

The Jingo and the Minstrel

An Argument for the Maintenance of Peace and Goodwill with the Japanese People



Glossary for the uninstructed and the hasty:    Jimmu Tenno, ancestor of all the Japanese Emperors; Nikko, Japan's loveliest shrine; Iyeyasu, her greatest statesman; Bushido, her code of knighthood; The Forty-seven Ronins, her classic heroes; Nogi, her latest hero; Fuji, her most beautiful mountain.


                    # The minstrel speaks. #
    "Now do you know of Avalon
        That sailors call Japan?
    She holds as rare a chivalry
        As ever bled for man.
    King Arthur sleeps at Nikko hill
        Where Iyeyasu lies,
    And there the broad Pendragon flag
        In deathless splendor flies."

                    # The jingo answers. #
    "Nay, mins...

Vachel Lindsay

A Broadway Pageant
Over the western sea, hither from Niphon come,
Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys,
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,
Ride to-day through Manhattan.

Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold,
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-
bearers,
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks
marching;
But I will sing you a song of what I behold, Libertad.

When million-footed Manhattan, unpent, descends to her pavements;
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar I love;
When the round-mouth'd guns, out of the smoke and smell I love, spit
their salutes;
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me--when heaven-clouds
canopy my city ...
Walt Whitman