Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket

    I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
    My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
    I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
    I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

    Man is a curious brute - he pets his fancies -
    Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
    So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal,
    Tho' all men plan to live in harmony.

    Come, let us vote against our human nature,
    Crying to God in all the polling places
    To heal our everlasting sinfulness
    And make us sages with transfigured faces.

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

Mark Twain and Joan of Arc

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

In Memory of a Child

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

Honor Among Scamps

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

Sweet Briars of the Stairways

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

My Maiden Vote - (To John Fraser)

There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay,
My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day.
It seemed a sort of maidenhood,
My little power for public good, -
Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray!
And, when it must be given away,
See it be given with a sense
Of most uncanvassed innocence.
Alas! - but few there be that know't -
How grave a thing it is to vote!
For most men's votes are given, I hear,
Either for rhetoric or - beer.

A young man's vote - O fair estate!
Of the great tree electorate
A living leaf, of this great sea
A motive wave of empire I,
On this stupendous wheel - a fly.
O maiden vote, how pure must be
The party that is worthy thee!
And thereupon my mind began
That perfect government to plan,
The high millennium of man.

Then in m...

Richard Le Gallienne

The Bankrupt Peace Maker

I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room.
The smoke formed the giant frog-cat of my doom.
His web feet left dreadful slime tracks on the floor.
He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door.
He sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair.
He looked through my heart to the mud that was there.
Like a black-mailer hating his victim he spoke:
"When I see all your squirming I laugh till I choke
Singing of peace. Railing at battle.
Soothing a handful with saccharine prattle.
All the millions of earth have voted for fight.
You are voting for talk, with hands lily white."
He leaped to the floor, then grew seven feet high,
Beautiful, terrible, scorn in his eye:
The Devil Eternal, Apollo grown old,
With beard of bright silver and garments of gold.
"What will ...

Vachel Lindsay

The Poor Voter On Election Day

The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Eve Of Election

From gold to gray
Our mild sweet day
Of Indian Summer fades too soon;
But tenderly
Above the sea
Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.
In its pale fire,
The village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;
The painted walls
Whereon it falls
Transfigured stand in marble trance!
O'er fallen leaves
The west-wind grieves,
Yet comes a seed-time round again;
And morn shall see
The State sown free
With baleful tares or healthful grain.
Along the street
The shadows meet
Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
The moulds of fate
That shape the State,
And make or mar the common weal.
Around I see
The powers that be;
I stand by Empire's primal springs;
And princes meet,
In every street,
And hear the tread ...

John Greenleaf Whittier

To the United States Senate

[Revelation 16: Verses 16-19]


    And must the Senator from Illinois
    Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes?
    This brazen gutter idol, reared to power
    Upon a leering pyramid of lies?

    And must the Senator from Illinois
    Be the world's proverb of successful shame,
    Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal,
    Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?

    If once or twice within his new won hall
    His vote had counted for the broken men;
    If in his early days he wrought some good -
    We might a great soul's sins forgive him then.

    But must the Senator from Illinois
    Be vindicated by fat kings of gold?
    And must he be belauded by the smirched,
    The sleek, unca...

Vachel Lindsay

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