Chant we the story nowTho' in a house we sleep;Tho' by a hearth of coalsVigil to-night we keep.Chant we the story now,Of the vague love we knewWhen I from out the seaRose to the feet of you.
Bird from the cliffs you came,Flew thro' the snow to me,Facing the icy blastThere by the icy sea.How did I reach your feet?Why should I—at the endHold out half-frozen handsDumbly to you my friend?Ne'er had I woman seen,Ne'er had I seen a flame.There you piled fagots on,Heat rose—the blast to tame.There by the cave-door dark,Comforting me you cried—Wailed o'er my wounded knee,Wept for my rock-torn side.
Up from the South I trailed—Left regions fierce and fair!Left all the jungle-trees,Left the red tiger's lair.Dream led, I scarce knew why,Into your North I trod—Ne'er had I known the snow,Or the frost-blasted sod.
O how the flakes came down!O how the fire burned high!Strange thing to see he was,Thro' his dry twigs would fly,Creep there awhile and sleep—Then wake and bark for fight—Biting if I too nearCame to his eye so bright.Then with a will you fedWood to his hungry tongue.
Then he did leap and sing—Dancing the clouds among,Turning the night to noon,Stinging my eyes with light,Making the snow retreat,Making the cave-house bright.
There were dry fagots piled,Nuts and dry leaves and roots,Stores there of furs and hides,Sweet-barks and grains and fruits.There wrapped in fur we lay,Half-burned, half-frozen still—Ne'er will my soul forgetAll the night's bitter chill.We had not learned to speak,I was to you a strangeWolfling or wounded fawn,Lost from his forest-range.
Thirsting for bloody meat,Out at the dawn we went.Weighed with our prey at eve,Home-came we all forespent.Comrades and hunters triedEre we were maid and man—Not till the spring awokeLaughter and speech began.
Whining like forest dogs,Rustling like budding trees,Bubbling like thawing springs,Humming like little bees,Crooning like Maytime tides,Chattering parrot words,Crying the panther's cry,Chirping like mating birds—Thus, thus, we learned to speak,Who mid the snows were dumb,Nor did we learn to kissUntil the Spring had come.
Genesis
I was but a half-grown boy,You were a girl-child slight.Ah, how weary you were!You had led in the bullock-fight . . .We slew the bullock at lengthWith knives and maces of stone.And so your feet were torn,Your lean arms bruised to the bone.
Perhaps 'twas the slain beast's bloodWe drank, or a root we ate,Or our reveling evening bathIn the fall by the garden gate,But you turned to a witching thing,Side-glancing, and frightened me;You purred like a panther's cub,You sighed like a shell from the sea.
We knelt. I caressed your hairBy the light of the leaping fire:Your fierce eyes blinked with smoke,Pine-fumes, that enhanced desire.I helped to unbraid your hairIn wonder and fear profound:You were humming your hunting tuneAs it swept to the grassy ground.
Our comrades, the shaggy bear,The tiger with velvet feet,The lion, crept to the lightWhining for bullock meat.We fed them and stroked their necks . . .They took their way to the fenWhere they hunted or hid all night;No enemies, they, of men.
Evil had entered notThe cobra, since defiled.He watched, when the beasts had goneOur kissing and singing wild.Beautiful friend he was,Sage, not a tempter grim.Many a year should passEre Satan should enter him.
He danced while the evening doveAnd the nightingale kept in tune.I sang of the angel sun:You sang of the angel-moon:We sang of the ANGEL-CHIEFWho blew thro' the trees strange breath,Who helped in the hunt all dayAnd granted the bullock's death.
O Eve with the fire-lit breastAnd child-face red and white!I heaped the great logs high!That was our bridal night.
Queen Mab in the Village
Once I loved a fairy,Queen Mab it was. Her voiceWas like a little FountainThat bids the birds rejoice.Her face was wise and solemn,Her hair was brown and fine.Her dress was pansy velvet,A butterfly design.
To see her hover round meOr walk the hills of air,Awakened love's deep pulsesAnd boyhood's first despair;A passion like a sword-bladeThat pierced me thro' and thro':Her fingers healed the sorrowHer whisper would renew.We sighed and reigned and feastedWithin a hollow tree,We vowed our love was boundless,Eternal as the sea.
She banished from her kingdomThe mortal boy I grew—So tall and crude and noisy,I killed grasshoppers too.I threw big rocks at pigeons,I plucked and tore apartThe weeping, wailing daisies,And broke my lady's heart.At length I grew to manhood,I scarcely could believeI ever loved the lady,Or caused her court to grieve,Until a dream came to me,One bleak first night of Spring,Ere tides of apple blossomsRolled in o'er everything,While rain and sleet and snowbanksWere still a-vexing men,Ere robin and his comradesWere nesting once again.
I saw Mab's Book of Judgment—Its clasps were iron and stone,Its leaves were mammoth ivory,Its boards were mammoth bone,—Hid in her seaside mountains,Forgotten or unkept,Beneath its mighty coversHer wrath against me slept.And deeply I repentedOf brash and boyish crime,Of murder of things lovelyNow and in olden time.I cursed my vain ambition,My would-be worldly days,And craved the paths of wonder,Of dewy dawns and fays.I cried, "Our love was boundless,Eternal as the sea,O Queen, reverse the sentence,Come back and master me!"
The book was by the cliff-sideUpon its edge upright.I laid me by it softly,And wept throughout the night.And there at dawn I saw it,No book now, but a door,Upon its panels written,"Judgment is no more."The bolt flew back with thunder,I saw within that placeA mermaid wrapped in seaweedWith Mab's immortal face,Yet grown now to a woman,A woman to the knee.She cried, she clasped me fondly,We soon were in the sea.
Ah, she was wise and subtle,And gay and strong and sleek,We chained the wicked sword-fish,We played at hide and seek.We floated on the water,We heard the dawn-wind sing,I made from ocean-wonders,Her bridal wreath and ring.All mortal girls were shadows,All earth-life but a mist,When deep beneath the maelstrom,The mermaid's heart I kissed.
I woke beside the church-doorOf our small inland town,Bowing to a maidenIn a pansy-velvet gown,Who had not heard of fairies,Yet seemed of love to dream.We planned an earthly cottageBeside an earthly stream.Our wedding long is over,With toil the years fill up,Yet in the evening silence,We drink a deep-sea cup.Nothing the fay remembers,Yet when she turns to me,We meet beneath the whirlpool,We swim the golden sea.
The Dandelion
O dandelion, rich and haughty,King of village flowers!Each day is coronation time,You have no humble hours.I like to see you bring a troopTo beat the blue-grass spears,To scorn the lawn-mower that would beLike fate's triumphant shears.Your yellow heads are cut away,It seems your reign is o'er.By noon you raise a sea of starsMore golden than before.
The Light o' the Moon
[How different people and different animals look upon the moon: showing that each creature finds in it his own mood and disposition]
The Old Horse in the City
The moon's a peck of corn. It liesHeaped up for me to eat.I wish that I might climb the pathAnd taste that supper sweet.
Men feed me straw and scanty grainAnd beat me till I'm sore.Some day I'll break the halter-ropeAnd smash the stable-door,
Run down the street and mount the hillJust as the corn appears.I've seen it rise at certain timesFor years and years and years.
What the Hyena Said
The moon is but a golden skull,She mounts the heavens now,And Moon-Worms, mighty Moon-WormsAre wreathed around her brow.
The Moon-Worms are a doughty race:They eat her gray and golden face.Her eye-sockets dead, and molding head:These caverns are their dwelling-place.
The Moon-Worms, serpents of the skies,From the great hollows of her eyesBehold all souls, and they are wise:With tiny, keen and icy eyes,Behold how each man sins and dies.
When Earth in gold-corruption liesLong dead, the moon-worm butterfliesOn cyclone wings will reach this place—Yea, rear their brood on earth's dead face.
What the Snow Man Said
The Moon's a snowball. See the driftsOf white that cross the sphere.The Moon's a snowball, melted downA dozen times a year.
Yet rolled again in hot JulyWhen all my days are doneAnd cool to greet the weary eyeAfter the scorching sun.
The moon's a piece of winter fairRenewed the year around,Behold it, deathless and unstained,Above the grimy ground!
It rolls on high so brave and whiteWhere the clear air-rivers flow,Proclaiming Christmas all the timeAnd the glory of the snow!
What the Scare-crow Said
The dim-winged spirits of the nightDo fear and serve me well.They creep from out the hedges ofThe garden where I dwell.
I wave my arms across the walk.The troops obey the sign,And bring me shimmering shadow-robesAnd cups of cowslip-wine.
Then dig a treasure called the moon,A very precious thing,And keep it in the air for meBecause I am a King.
What Grandpa Mouse Said
The moon's a holy owl-queen.She keeps them in a jarUnder her arm till evening,Then sallies forth to war.
She pours the owls upon us.They hoot with horrid noiseAnd eat the naughty mousie-girlsAnd wicked mousie-boys.
So climb the moonvine every nightAnd to the owl-queen pray:Leave good green cheese by moonlit treesFor her to take away.
And never squeak, my children,Nor gnaw the smoke-house door:The owl-queen then will love usAnd send her birds no more.
The Beggar Speaks
"What Mister Moon Said to Me."
Come, eat the bread of idleness,Come, sit beside the spring:Some of the flowers will keep awake,Some of the birds will sing.
Come, eat the bread no man has soughtFor half a hundred years:Men hurry so they have no griefs,Nor even idle tears:
They hurry so they have no loves:They cannot curse nor laugh—Their hearts die in their youth with neitherGrave nor epitaph.
My bread would make them careless,And never quite on time—Their eyelids would be heavy,Their fancies full of rhyme:
Each soul a mystic rose-tree,Or a curious incense tree:. . . .Come, eat the bread of idleness,Said Mister Moon to me.
What the Forester Said
The moon is but a candle-glowThat flickers thro' the gloom:The starry space, a castle hall:And Earth, the children's room,Where all night long the old trees standTo watch the streams asleep:Grandmothers guarding trundle-beds:Good shepherds guarding sheep.
A Net to Snare the Moonlight
[What the Man of Faith said]
The dew, the rain and moonlightAll prove our Father's mind.The dew, the rain and moonlightDescend to bless mankind.
Come, let us see that all menHave land to catch the rain,Have grass to snare the spheres of dew,And fields spread for the grain.
Yea, we would give to each poor manRipe wheat and poppies red,—A peaceful place at eveningWith the stars just overhead:
A net to snare the moonlight,A sod spread to the sun,A place of toil by daytime,Of dreams when toil is done.
Beyond the Moon
[Written to the Most Beautiful Woman in the World]
My Sweetheart is the TRUTH BEYOND THE MOON,And never have I been in love with Woman,Always aspiring to be set in tuneWith one who is invisible, inhuman.
O laughing girl, cold TRUTH has stepped between,Spoiling the fevers of your virgin face:Making your shining eyes but lead and clay,Mocking your brilliant brain and lady's grace.
TRUTH haunted me the day I wooed and lost,The day I wooed and won, or wooed in play:Tho' you were Juliet or Rosalind,Thus shall it be, forever and a day.
I doubt my vows, tho' sworn on my own blood,Tho' I draw toward you weeping, soul to soul,I have a lonely goal beyond the moon;Ay, beyond Heaven and Hell, I have a goal!
The Song of the Garden-Toad
Down, down beneath the daisy beds,O hear the cries of pain!And moaning on the cinder-pathThey're blind amid the rain.Can murmurs of the worms ariseTo higher hearts than mine?I wonder if that gardener hearsWho made the mold all fineAnd packed each gentle seedling downSo carefully in line?
I watched the red rose reaching upTo ask him if he heardThose cries that stung the evening earthTill all the rose-roots stirred.She asked him if he felt the hateThat burned beneath them there.She asked him if he heard the curseOf worms in black despair.He kissed the rose. What did it mean?What of the rose's prayer?
Down, down where rain has never comeThey fight in burning graves,Bleeding and drinking bloodWithin those venom-caves.Blaspheming still the gardener's name,They live and hate and go.I wonder if the gardener heardThe rose that told him so?
A Gospel of Beauty:—
I recited these three poems more than any others in my late mendicant preaching tour through the West. Taken as a triad, they hold in solution my theory of American civilization.
The Proud Farmer
[In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana]
Into the acres of the newborn stateHe poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name,And, when the traders followed him, he stoodTowering above their furtive souls and tame.
That brow without a stain, that fearless eyeOft left the passing stranger wonderingTo find such knighthood in the sprawling land,To see a democrat well-nigh a king.
He lived with liberal hand, with guests from far,With talk and joke and fellowship to spare,—Watching the wide world's life from sun to sun,Lining his walls with books from everywhere.He read by night, he built his world by day.The farm and house of God to him were one.For forty years he preached and plowed and wrought—A statesman in the fields, who bent to none.
His plowmen-neighbors were as lords to him.His was an ironside, democratic pride.He served a rigid Christ, but served him well—And, for a lifetime, saved the countryside.
Here lie the dead, who gave the church their bestUnder his fiery preaching of the word.They sleep with him beneath the ragged grass . . .The village withers, by his voice unstirred.
And tho' his tribe be scattered to the windFrom the Atlantic to the China sea,Yet do they think of that bright lamp he burnedOf family worth and proud integrity.
And many a sturdy grandchild hears his nameIn reverence spoken, till he feels akinTo all the lion-eyed who built the world—And lion-dreams begin to burn within.
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 thereSome 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 gladBy cloudy dresses and brown hair,Sigh for the sweet life wrenched and tornBy 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, aflame?This beauty calls for valiant song—For men to carve these fairy-formsAnd faces in a fountain-frieze;Dancers that own immortal hours;Painters that work upon their knees;Maids, lovers, friends, so deep in life,So deep in love and poet's deeds,The railroad is a thing disowned,The city but a field of weeds.
Who can pass a village churchBy night in these clean prairie landsWithout a touch of Spirit-power?So white and fixed and cool it stands—A thing from some strange fairy-town,A pious amaranthine flower,Unsullied by the winds, as pureAs jade or marble, wrought this hour:—Rural in form, foursquare and plain,And yet our sister, the new moon,Makes it a praying wizard's dream.The trees that watch at dusty noonBreaking its sharpest lines, veil notThe whiteness it reflects from God,Flashing like Spring on many an eye,Making clean flesh, that once was clod.
Who can pass a district schoolWithout the hope that there may waitSome baby-heart the books shall flameWith zeal to make his playmates great,To make the whole wide village gleamA strangely carved celestial gem,Eternal in its beauty-light,The Artist's town of Bethlehem!
On the Building of Springfield
Let not our town be large, rememberingThat little Athens was the Muses' home,That Oxford rules the heart of London still,That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome.
Record it for the grandson of your son—A city is not builded in a day:Our little town cannot complete her soulTill countless generations pass away.
Now let each child be joined as to a churchTo her perpetual hopes, each man ordained:Let every street be made a reverent aisleWhere Music grows and Beauty is unchained.
Let Science and Machinery and TradeBe slaves of her, and make her all in all,Building against our blatant, restless timeAn unseen, skilful, medieval wall.
Let every citizen be rich toward God.Let Christ the beggar, teach divinity.Let no man rule who holds his money dear.Let this, our city, be our luxury.
We should build parks that students from afarWould choose to starve in, rather than go home,Fair little squares, with Phidian ornament,Food for the spirit, milk and honeycomb.
Songs shall be sung by us in that good day,Songs we have written, blood within the rhymeBeating, as when Old England still was glad,—The purple, rich Elizabethan time.
. . . . .
Say, is my prophecy too fair and far?I only know, unless her faith be high,The soul of this, our Nineveh, is doomed,Our little Babylon will surely die.
Some city on the breast of IllinoisNo wiser and no better at the startBy faith shall rise redeemed, by faith shall riseBearing the western glory in her heart.
The genius of the Maple, Elm and Oak,The secret hidden in each grain of corn,The glory that the prairie angels singAt night when sons of Life and Love are born,
Born but to struggle, squalid and alone,Broken and wandering in their early years.When will they make our dusty streets their goal,Within our attics hide their sacred tears?
When will they start our vulgar blood athrillWith living language, words that set us free?When will they make a path of beauty clearBetween our riches and our liberty?
We must have many Lincoln-hearted men.A city is not builded in a day.And they must do their work, and come and goWhile countless generations pass away.
[End of original text.]
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931):(Vachel is pronounced Vay-chul, that is, it rhymes with 'Rachel').
Vachel Lindsay, of Springfield, Illinois, is best known for his efforts to restore the vocal tradition to poetry. He made a journey on foot as far as New Mexico, taking along copies of a pamphlet, "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread", for the purpose the title suggests. He wrote of this journey in "Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty".
"The Eagle that is Forgotten" and "The Congo" are his best-known poems, and appear in his first two volumes of verse, "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" (1913) and "The Congo" (1914).
As a sidenote, he became close friends with the poet Sara Teasdale (well worth reading in her own right—perhaps the better poet), and his third volume of verse, "The Chinese Nightingale" (1917), is dedicated to her. In turn, she wrote a memorial verse for him after he committed suicide in 1931.