Vachel Lindsay

(Written with the hope that the socialists might yet dethrone Kaiser and Czar.)


Here's to the mice that scare the lions,
Creeping into their cages.
Here's to the fairy mice that bite
The elephants fat and wise:
Hidden in the hay-pile while the elephant thunder rages.
Here's to the scurrying, timid mice
Through whom the proud cause dies.

Here's to the seeming accident
When all is planned and working,
All the flywheels turning,
Not a vassal shirking.
Here's to the hidden tunneling thing
That brings the mountain's groans.
Here's to the midnight scamps that gnaw,
Gnawing away the thrones.

    We are the smirched.    Queen Honor is the spotless.
    We slept thro' wars where Honor could not sleep.
    We were faint-hearted.    Honor was full-valiant.
    We kept a silence Honor could not keep.

    Yet this late day we make a song to praise her.
    We, codeless, will yet vindicate her code.
    She who was mighty, walks with us, the beggars.
    The merchants drive her out upon the road.

    She makes a throne of sod beside our campfire.
    We give the maiden-queen our rags and tears.
    A battered, rascal guard have rallied round her,
    To keep her safe until the better years.

Dedicated to Lucy Bates

(Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.)



    Oh, cabaret dancer, I know a dancer,
    Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain.
    I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
    Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain:
    Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer,
    With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.

    Oh, thrice-painted dancer, vaudeville dancer,
    Sad in your spangles, with soul all astrain,
    I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
    Whose laughter and weeping are spiritual gain,
    A pure-hearted, high-hearted maiden evangel,
    With strength the dark cynical earth to disdain.

    Flowers of bright Broadway, you of the c...

    Ah, she was music in herself,
    A symphony of joyousness.
    She sang, she sang from finger tips,
    From every tremble of her dress.
    I saw sweet haunting harmony,
    An ecstasy, an ecstasy,
    In that strange curling of her lips,
    That happy curling of her lips.
    And quivering with melody
    Those eyes I saw, that tossing head.

    And so I saw what music was,
    Tho' still accursed with ears of lead.

Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone
Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky.
God and the angels, and the gleaming saints
Had journeyed out into the stars to die.

They had gone forth to win far citizens,
Bought at great price, bring happiness for all:
By such a harvest make a holier town
And put new life within old Zion's wall.

Each chose a far-off planet for his home,
Speaking of love and mercy, truth and right,
Envied and cursed, thorn-crowned and scourged in time,
Each tasted death on his appointed night.

Then resurrection day from sphere to sphere
Sped on, with all the POWERS arisen again,
While with them came in clouds recruited hosts
Of sun-born strangers and of earth-born men.

And on that day gray prophet saints went down
And...

(A Negro Sermon.)



Once, in a night as black as ink,
She drove him out when he would not drink.
Round the house there were men in wait
Asleep in rows by the Gaza gate.
But the Holy Spirit was in this man.
Like a gentle wind he crept and ran.
("It is midnight," said the big town clock.)

He lifted the gates up, post and lock.
The hole in the wall was high and wide
When he bore away old Gaza's pride
Into the deep of the night: -
The bold Jack Johnson Israelite, -
Samson -
The Judge,
The Nazarite.

The air was black, like the smoke of a dragon.
Samson's heart was as big as a wagon.
He sang like a shining golden fountain.
He sweated up to the top of the mountain.
He threw down the gates with a noise like judgment.

(The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)

This poem is intended to be half said, half sung, very softly, to the well-known tune: -

            "Last night I lay a-sleeping,
            There came a dream so fair,
            I stood in Old Jerusalem
            Beside the temple there, - " etc.

Yet this tune is not to be fitted on, arbitrarily.    It is here given to suggest the manner of handling rather than determine it.


                    # To be sung. #
    I heard Immanuel singing
    Within his own good lands,
    I saw him bend above his harp.
    I watched his wandering hands
    Lost amid the harp-strings;
    Sweet, sweet I heard him play.
    His wounds were altogether healed.
   ...

    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...

    The angels guide him now,
    And watch his curly head,
    And lead him in their games,
    The little boy we led.

    He cannot come to harm,
    He knows more than we know,
    His light is brighter far
    Than daytime here below.

    His path leads on and on,
    Through pleasant lawns and flowers,
    His brown eyes open wide
    At grass more green than ours.

    With playmates like himself,
    The shining boy will sing,
    Exploring wondrous woods,
    Sweet with eternal spring.

After having read a Great Deal of Good Current Poetry in the Magazines and Newspapers



    Ah, they are passing, passing by,
    Wonderful songs, but born to die!
    Cries from the infinite human seas,
    Waves thrice-winged with harmonies.
    Here I stand on a pier in the foam
    Seeing the songs to the beach go home,
    Dying in sand while the tide flows back,
    As it flowed of old in its fated track.
    Oh, hurrying tide that will not hear
    Your own foam-children dying near:
    Is there no refuge-house of song,
    No home, no haven where songs belong?
    Oh, precious hymns that come and go!
    You perish, and I love you so!

    I went down into the desert
    To meet Elijah -
    Arisen from the dead.
    I thought to find him in an echoing cave;
    For so my dream had said.

    I went down into the desert
    To meet John the Baptist.
    I walked with feet that bled,
    Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold.
    I spied foul fiends instead.

    I went down into the desert
    To meet my God.
    By him be comforted.
    I went down into the desert
    To meet my God.
    And I met the devil in red.

    I went down into the desert
    To meet my God.
    O, Lord my God, awaken from the dead!
    I see you there, your thorn-crown on the ground,
    I see you there, half-buried in the sand.
    I see you ther...

[Written while a field-worker in the Anti-Saloon League of Illinois.]


    King Arthur's men have come again.
    They challenge everywhere
    The foes of Christ's Eternal Church.
    Her incense crowns the air.
    The heathen knighthood cower and curse
    To hear the bugles ring,
    BUT SPEARS ARE SET, THE CHARGE IS ON,
    WISE ARTHUR SHALL BE KING!

    And Cromwell's men have come again,
    I meet them in the street.
    Stern but in this - no way of thorns
    Shall snare the children's feet.
    The reveling foemen wreak but waste,
    A sodden poisonous band.
    FIERCE CROMWELL BUILDS THE FLOWER-BRIGHT TOWNS,
    AND A MORE SUNLIT LAND!

    And Lincoln's men have come again.
    Up from the South he flayed,
   ...

    Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
    That which is gendered in the wilderness
    From lonely prairies and God's tenderness.
    Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,
    Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,
    Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,
    Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire -
    Fire that freed the slave.

    Look you, I'll go pray,
    My shame is crying,
    My soul is gray and faint,
    My faith is dying.
    Look you, I'll go pray -
    "Sweet Mary, make me clean,
    Thou rainstorm of the soul,
    Thou wine from worlds unseen."

    True Love is founded in rocks of Remembrance
    In stones of Forbearance and mortar of Pain.
    The workman lays wearily granite on granite,
    And bleeds for his castle 'mid sunshine and rain.

    Love is not velvet, not all of it velvet,
    Not all of it banners, not gold-leaf alone.
    'Tis stern as the ages and old as Religion.
    With Patience its watchword, and Law for its throne.

In "Man's Genesis", "The Wild Girl of the Sierras", "The Wharf Rat", "A Girl of the Paris Streets", etc.



    I

The arts are old, old as the stones
From which man carved the sphinx austere.
Deep are the days the old arts bring:
Ten thousand years of yesteryear.


    II

She is madonna in an art
As wild and young as her sweet eyes:
A frail dew flower from this hot lamp
That is today's divine surprise.

Despite raw lights and gloating mobs
She is not seared: a picture still:
Rare silk the fine director's hand
May weave for magic if he will.

When ancient films have crumbled like
Papyrus rolls of Egypt's day,
Let the dust speak: "Her pride was high,
All but the artist hid away:

"Kin to the myri...

When Yankee soldiers reach the barricade
Then Joan of Arc gives each the accolade.

For she is there in armor clad, today,
All the young poets of the wide world say.

Which of our freemen did she greet the first,
Seeing him come against the fires accurst?

Mark Twain, our Chief, with neither smile nor jest,
Leading to war our youngest and our best.

The Yankee to King Arthur's court returns.
The sacred flag of Joan above him burns.

For she has called his soul from out the tomb.
And where she stands, there he will stand till doom.

        .    .    .    .    .

But I, I can but mourn, and mourn again
At bloodshed caused by angels, saints, and men.

    Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul
    Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone
    And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone
    Could draw the face of God, the titan high
    Whose genius smote like lightning from the sky -
    And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?
    Nay he is in us!    Let us dare and dare.
    God help us to be brave.