initial commit of ebook 424HEADmain

1 files changed, 3021 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/gnbth10.txt b/old/gnbth10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f713bfd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/gnbth10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3021 @@
+Project Gutenberg Etext General William Booth Enters into Heaven
+  and Other Poems
+by Vachel Lindsay
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext General William Booth Enters into Heaven
+and Other Poems
+
+by Vachel Lindsay
+
+February, 1995  [Etext #424]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext General William Booth Enters into Heaven
+******This file should be named gnbth10.txt or gnbth10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gnbth11.txt.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gnbth10a.txt.
+
+
+Entered/Proofed by A. Light <alight@mercury.interpath.net> while on the road.
+Proofread by L. Bowser <bowser@mars.senecac.on.ca>
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4
+million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text
+files per month:  thus upping our productivity from $2 million.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end
+of the year 2001.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois
+Benedictine College).  (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go
+to IBC, too)
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive
+Director:
+hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet)   hart@uiucvmd   (bitnet)
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET INDEX?00.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
+     Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Illinois Benedictine College".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+
+General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems
+by Vachel Lindsay [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Illinois Poet -- 1879-1931]
+
+
+[Note on text:  Italicized stanzas will be indented 5 spaces.
+Italicized AND indented stanzas will be indented 10 spaces.
+Italicized words or phrases will be capitalised.
+Some obvious errors may have been corrected.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems
+
+
+
+
+
+
+---------------------------------------------------
+| By Vachel Lindsay                               |
+|                                                 |
+| The Congo and Other Poems                       |
+| General William Booth Enters into Heaven        |
+| The Art of the Moving Picture                   |
+| Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty |
+---------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+
+
+General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems by
+
+Vachel Lindsay
+
+
+
+[This etext has been transcribed from a 1916 reprint (New York)
+of the original 1913 edition.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+This book is dedicated to
+
+Dr. Arthur Paul Wakefield
+  and
+Olive Lindsay Wakefield
+
+Missionaries in China
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+General William Booth Enters into Heaven
+The Drunkards in the Street
+The City That Will Not Repent
+The Trap
+Where is David, the Next King of Israel?
+On Reading Omar Khayyam
+The Beggar's Valentine
+Honor Among Scamps
+The Gamblers
+On the Road to Nowhere
+Upon Returning to the Country Road
+The Angel and the Clown
+Springfield Magical
+Incense
+The Wedding of the Rose and the Lotos
+King Arthur's Men Have Come Again
+Foreign Missions in Battle Array
+Star of My Heart
+Look You, I'll Go Pray
+At Mass
+Heart of God
+The Empty Boats
+With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses
+St. Francis of Assisi
+Buddha
+A Prayer to All the Dead Among Mine Own People
+To Reformers in Despair
+Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket
+To the United States Senate
+The Knight in Disguise
+The Wizard in the Street
+The Eagle that is Forgotten
+Shakespeare
+Michelangelo
+Titian
+Lincoln
+The Cornfields
+Sweet Briars of the Stairways
+Fantasies and Whims: --
+   The Fairy Bridal Hymn
+   The Potato's Dance
+   How a Little Girl Sang
+   Ghosts in Love
+   The Queen of Bubbles
+   The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings of the Morning
+   Sweethearts of the Year
+   The Sorceress!
+   Caught in a Net
+   Eden in Winter
+   Genesis
+   Queen Mab in the Village
+   The Dandelion
+   The Light o' the Moon
+   A Net to Snare the Moonlight
+   Beyond the Moon
+   The Song of the Garden-Toad
+A Gospel of Beauty: --
+   The Proud Farmer
+   The Illinois Village
+   On the Building of Springfield
+
+
+
+
+
+
+General William Booth Enters into Heaven
+
+[To be sung to the tune of `The Blood of the Lamb' with indicated instrument]
+
+
+
+  I
+
+ [Bass drum beaten loudly.]
+Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
+(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
+The Saints smiled gravely and they said:  "He's come."
+(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
+Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
+Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,
+Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale --
+Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail: --
+Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,
+Unwashed legions with the ways of Death --
+(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
+
+ [Banjos.]
+Every slum had sent its half-a-score
+The round world over.  (Booth had groaned for more.)
+Every banner that the wide world flies
+Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes.
+Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang,
+Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang: --
+"Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
+Hallelujah!  It was queer to see
+Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.
+Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
+On, on upward thro' the golden air!
+(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
+
+
+  II
+
+ [Bass drum slower and softer.]
+Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
+Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
+Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
+Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
+Beard a-flying, air of high command
+Unabated in that holy land.
+
+ [Sweet flute music.]
+Jesus came from out the court-house door,
+Stretched his hands above the passing poor.
+Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there
+Round and round the mighty court-house square.
+Yet in an instant all that blear review
+Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.
+The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled
+And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.
+
+ [Bass drum louder.]
+Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!
+Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!
+Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,
+Rulers of empires, and of forests green!
+
+ [Grand chorus of all instruments.  Tambourines to the foreground.]
+The hosts were sandalled, and their wings were fire!
+(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
+But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir.
+(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
+O, shout Salvation!  It was good to see
+Kings and Princes by the Lamb set free.
+The banjos rattled and the tambourines
+Jing-jing-jingled in the hands of Queens.
+
+ [Reverently sung, no instruments.]
+And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer
+He saw his Master thro' the flag-filled air.
+Christ came gently with a robe and crown
+For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down.
+He saw King Jesus.  They were face to face,
+And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place.
+Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
+
+
+
+
+The Drunkards in the Street
+
+
+
+The Drunkards in the street are calling one another,
+Heeding not the night-wind, great of heart and gay, --
+Publicans and wantons --
+Calling, laughing, calling,
+While the Spirit bloweth Space and Time away.
+
+Why should I feel the sobbing, the secrecy, the glory,
+This comforter, this fitful wind divine?
+I the cautious Pharisee, the scribe, the whited sepulchre --
+I have no right to God, he is not mine.
+
+     *    *    *    *    *
+
+Within their gutters, drunkards dream of Hell.
+I say my prayers by my white bed to-night,
+With the arms of God about me, with the angels singing, singing
+Until the grayness of my soul grows white.
+
+
+
+
+The City That Will Not Repent
+
+
+
+Climbing the heights of Berkeley
+Nightly I watch the West.
+There lies new San Francisco,
+Sea-maid in purple dressed,
+Wearing a dancer's girdle
+All to inflame desire:
+Scorning her days of sackcloth,
+Scorning her cleansing fire.
+
+See, like a burning city
+Sets now the red sun's dome.
+See, mystic firebrands sparkle
+There on each store and home.
+See how the golden gateway
+Burns with the day to be --
+Torch-bearing fiends of portent
+Loom o'er the earth and sea.
+
+Not by the earthquake daunted
+Nor by new fears made tame,
+Painting her face and laughing
+Plays she a new-found game.
+Here on her half-cool cinders
+'Frisco abides in mirth,
+Planning the wildest splendor
+Ever upon the earth.
+
+Here on this crumbling rock-ledge
+'Frisco her all will stake,
+Blowing her bubble-towers,
+Swearing they will not break,
+Rearing her Fair transcendent,
+Singing with piercing art,
+Calling to Ancient Asia,
+Wooing young Europe's heart.
+Here where her God has scourged her
+Wantoning, singing sweet:
+Waiting her mad bad lovers
+Here by the judgment-seat!
+
+'Frisco, God's doughty foeman,
+Scorns and blasphemes him strong.
+Tho' he again should smite her
+She would not slack her song.
+Nay, she would shriek and rally --
+'Frisco would ten times rise!
+Not till her last tower crumbles,
+Not till her last rose dies,
+Not till the coast sinks seaward,
+Not till the cold tides beat
+Over the high white Shasta,
+'Frisco will cry defeat.
+
+God loves this rebel city,
+Loves foemen brisk and game,
+Tho', just to please the angels,
+He may send down his flame.
+God loves the golden leopard
+Tho' he may spoil her lair.
+God smites, yet loves the lion.
+God makes the panther fair.
+
+Dance then, wild guests of 'Frisco,
+Yellow, bronze, white and red!
+Dance by the golden gateway --
+Dance, tho' he smite you dead!
+
+
+
+
+The Trap
+
+
+
+She was taught desire in the street,
+Not at the angels' feet.
+By the good no word was said
+Of the worth of the bridal bed.
+The secret was learned from the vile,
+Not from her mother's smile.
+Home spoke not.  And the girl
+Was caught in the public whirl.
+Do you say "She gave consent:
+Life drunk, she was content
+With beasts that her fire could please?"
+But she did not choose disease
+Of mind and nerves and breath.
+She was trapped to a slow, foul death.
+The door was watched so well,
+That the steep dark stair to hell
+Was the only escaping way . . .
+"She gave consent," you say?
+
+Some think she was meek and good,
+Only lost in the wood
+Of youth, and deceived in man
+When the hunger of sex began
+That ties the husband and wife
+To the end in a strong fond life.
+Her captor, by chance was one
+Of those whose passion was done,
+A cold fierce worm of the sea
+Enslaving for you and me.
+The wages the poor must take
+Have forced them to serve this snake.
+Yea, half-paid girls must go
+For bread to his pit below.
+What hangman shall wait his host
+Of butchers from coast to coast,
+New York to the Golden Gate --
+The merger of death and fate,
+Lust-kings with a careful plan
+Clean-cut, American?
+
+In liberty's name we cry
+For these women about to die.
+
+O mothers who failed to tell
+The mazes of heaven and hell,
+Who failed to advise, implore
+Your daughters at Love's strange door,
+What will you do this day?
+Your dear ones are hidden away,
+As good as chained to the bed,
+Hid like the mad, or the dead: --
+The glories of endless years
+Drowned in their harlot-tears:
+The children they hoped to bear,
+Grandchildren strong and fair,
+The life for ages to be,
+Cut off like a blasted tree,
+Murdered in filth in a day,
+Somehow, by the merchant gay!
+
+In liberty's name we cry
+For these women about to die.
+
+What shall be said of a state
+Where traps for the white brides wait?
+Of sellers of drink who play
+The game for the extra pay?
+Of statesmen in league with all
+Who hope for the girl-child's fall?
+Of banks where hell's money is paid
+And Pharisees all afraid
+Of pandars that help them sin?
+When will our wrath begin?
+
+
+
+
+Where is David, the Next King of Israel?
+
+
+
+Where is David? . . .  O God's people,
+Saul has passed, the good and great.
+Mourn for Saul the first-anointed --
+Head and shoulders o'er the state.
+
+He was found among the Prophets:
+Judge and monarch, merged in one.
+But the wars of Saul are ended
+And the works of Saul are done.
+
+Where is David, ruddy shepherd,
+God's boy-king for Israel?
+Mystic, ardent, dowered with beauty,
+Singing where still waters dwell?
+
+Prophet, find that destined minstrel
+Wandering on the range to-day,
+Driving sheep and crooning softly
+Psalms that cannot pass away.
+
+"David waits," the prophet answers,
+"In a black notorious den,
+In a cave upon the border
+With four hundred outlaw men.
+
+"He is fair, and loved of women,
+Mighty-hearted, born to sing:
+Thieving, weeping, erring, praying,
+Radiant royal rebel-king.
+
+"He will come with harp and psaltry,
+Quell his troop of convict swine,
+Quell his mad-dog roaring rascals,
+Witching them with words divine --
+
+     "They will ram the walls of Zion!
+     They will win us Salem hill,
+     All for David, Shepherd David --
+     Singing like a mountain rill!"
+
+
+
+
+On Reading Omar Khayyam
+
+[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]
+
+
+
+In the midst of the battle I turned,
+(For the thunders could flourish without me)
+And hid by a rose-hung wall,
+Forgetting the murder about me;
+And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
+In mirth, half prayer, half play: --
+"Send me a picture book,
+Send me a song, to-day."
+
+I saw him there by the wall
+When I scarce had written the line,
+In the enemy's colors dressed
+And the serpent-standard of wine
+Writhing its withered length
+From his ghostly hands o'er the ground,
+And there by his shadowy breast
+The glorious poem I found.
+
+This was his world-old cry:
+Thus read the famous prayer:
+"Wine, wine, wine and flowers
+And cup-bearers always fair!"
+'Twas a book of the snares of earth
+Bordered in gold and blue,
+And I read each line to the wind
+And read to the roses too:
+And they nodded their womanly heads
+And told to the wall just why
+For wine of the earth men bleed,
+Kingdoms and empires die.
+I envied the grape stained sage:
+(The roses were praising him.)
+The ways of the world seemed good
+And the glory of heaven dim.
+I envied the endless kings
+Who found great pearls in the mire,
+Who bought with the nation's life
+The cup of delicious fire.
+
+But the wine of God came down,
+And I drank it out of the air.
+(Fair is the serpent-cup,
+But the cup of God more fair.)
+The wine of God came down
+That makes no drinker to weep.
+And I went back to battle again
+Leaving the singer asleep.
+
+
+
+
+The Beggar's Valentine
+
+
+
+Kiss me and comfort my heart
+ Maiden honest and fine.
+I am the pilgrim boy
+ Lame, but hunting the shrine;
+
+Fleeing away from the sweets,
+ Seeking the dust and rain,
+Sworn to the staff and road,
+ Scorning pleasure and pain;
+
+Nevertheless my mouth
+ Would rest like a bird an hour
+And find in your curls a nest
+ And find in your breast a bower:
+
+Nevertheless my eyes
+ Would lose themselves in your own,
+Rivers that seek the sea,
+ Angels before the throne:
+
+Kiss me and comfort my heart,
+ For love can never be mine:
+Passion, hunger and pain,
+ These are the only wine
+
+Of the pilgrim bound to the road.
+ He would rob no man of his own.
+Your heart is another's I know,
+ Your honor is his alone.
+
+The feasts of a long drawn love,
+ The feasts of a wedded life,
+The harvests of patient years,
+ And hearthstone and children and wife:
+
+These are your lords I know.
+ These can never be mine --
+This is the price I pay
+ For the foolish search for the shrine:
+
+This is the price I pay
+ For the joy of my midnight prayers,
+Kneeling beneath the moon
+ With hills for my altar stairs;
+
+This is the price I pay
+ For the throb of the mystic wings,
+When the dove of God comes down
+ And beats round my heart and sings;
+
+This is the price I pay
+ For the light I shall some day see
+At the ends of the infinite earth
+ When truth shall come to me.
+
+And what if my body die
+ Before I meet the truth?
+The road is dear, more dear
+ Than love or life or youth.
+
+The road, it is the road,
+ Mystical, endless, kind,
+Mother of visions vast,
+ Mother of soul and mind;
+
+Mother of all of me
+ But the blood that cries for a mate --
+That cries for a farewell kiss
+ From the child of God at the gate.
+
+
+
+
+Honor Among Scamps
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+The Gamblers
+
+
+
+Life's a jail where men have common lot.
+Gaunt the one who has, and who has not.
+All our treasures neither less nor more,
+Bread alone comes thro' the guarded door.
+Cards are foolish in this jail, I think,
+Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink.
+She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid
+Will not scorn with me this jail-bird trade,
+Pets some fox-eyed boy who turns the trick,
+Tho' he win a button or a stick,
+Pencil, garter, ribbon, corset-lace --
+HIS the glory, MINE is the disgrace.
+
+Sweet, I'd rather lose than win despite
+Love of hearty words and maids polite.
+"Love's a gamble," say you.  I deny.
+Love's a gift.  I love you till I die.
+Gamblers fight like rats.  I will not play.
+All I ever had I gave away.
+All I ever coveted was peace
+Such as comes if we have jail release.
+Cards are puzzles, tho' the prize be gold,
+Cards help not the bread that tastes of mold,
+Cards dye not your hair to black more deep,
+Cards make not the children cease to weep.
+
+Scorned, I sit with half shut eyes all day --
+Watch the cataract of sunshine play
+Down the wall, and dance upon the floor.
+Sun, come down and break the dungeon door!
+Of such gold dust could I make a key, --
+Turn the bolt -- how soon we would be free!
+Over borders we would hurry on
+Safe by sunrise farms, and springs of dawn,
+Wash our wounds and jail stains there at last,
+Azure rivers flowing, flowing past.
+GOD HAS GREAT ESTATES JUST PAST THE LINE,
+GREEN FARMS FOR ALL, AND MEAT AND CORN AND WINE.
+
+
+
+
+On the Road to Nowhere
+
+
+
+On the road to nowhere
+What wild oats did you sow
+When you left your father's house
+With your cheeks aglow?
+Eyes so strained and eager
+To see what you might see?
+Were you thief or were you fool
+Or most nobly free?
+
+Were the tramp-days knightly,
+True sowing of wild seed?
+Did you dare to make the songs
+Vanquished workmen need?
+Did you waste much money
+To deck a leper's feast?
+Love the truth, defy the crowd
+Scandalize the priest?
+On the road to nowhere
+What wild oats did you sow?
+Stupids find the nowhere-road
+Dusty, grim and slow.
+
+Ere their sowing's ended
+They turn them on their track,
+Look at the caitiff craven wights
+Repentant, hurrying back!
+Grown ashamed of nowhere,
+Of rags endured for years,
+Lust for velvet in their hearts,
+Pierced with Mammon's spears,
+All but a few fanatics
+Give up their darling goal,
+Seek to be as others are,
+Stultify the soul.
+Reapings now confront them,
+Glut them, or destroy,
+Curious seeds, grain or weeds
+Sown with awful joy.
+Hurried is their harvest,
+They make soft peace with men.
+Pilgrims pass.  They care not,
+Will not tramp again.
+
+O nowhere, golden nowhere!
+Sages and fools go on
+To your chaotic ocean,
+To your tremendous dawn.
+Far in your fair dream-haven,
+Is nothing or is all . . .
+They press on, singing, sowing
+Wild deeds without recall!
+
+
+
+
+Upon Returning to the Country Road
+
+
+
+Even the shrewd and bitter,
+Gnarled by the old world's greed,
+Cherished the stranger softly
+Seeing his utter need.
+Shelter and patient hearing,
+These were their gifts to him,
+To the minstrel, grimly begging
+As the sunset-fire grew dim.
+The rich said "You are welcome."
+Yea, even the rich were good.
+How strange that in their feasting
+His songs were understood!
+The doors of the poor were open,
+The poor who had wandered too,
+Who had slept with ne'er a roof-tree
+Under the wind and dew.
+The minds of the poor were open,
+Their dark mistrust was dead.
+They loved his wizard stories,
+They bought his rhymes with bread.
+Those were his days of glory,
+Of faith in his fellow-men.
+Therefore, to-day the singer
+Turns beggar once again.
+
+
+
+
+The Angel and the Clown
+
+
+
+I saw wild domes and bowers
+And smoking incense towers
+And mad exotic flowers
+In Illinois.
+Where ragged ditches ran
+Now springs of Heaven began
+Celestial drink for man
+In Illinois.
+
+There stood beside the town
+Beneath its incense-crown
+An angel and a clown
+In Illinois.
+He was as Clowns are:
+She was snow and star
+With eyes that looked afar
+In Illinois.
+
+I asked, "How came this place
+Of antique Asian grace
+Amid our callow race
+In Illinois?"
+Said Clown and Angel fair:
+"By laughter and by prayer,
+By casting off all care
+In Illinois."
+
+
+
+
+Springfield Magical
+
+
+
+In this, the City of my Discontent,
+Sometimes there comes a whisper from the grass,
+"Romance, Romance -- is here.  No Hindu town
+Is quite so strange.  No Citadel of Brass
+By Sinbad found, held half such love and hate;
+No picture-palace in a picture-book
+Such webs of Friendship, Beauty, Greed and Fate!"
+
+In this, the City of my Discontent,
+Down from the sky, up from the smoking deep
+Wild legends new and old burn round my bed
+While trees and grass and men are wrapped in sleep.
+Angels come down, with Christmas in their hearts,
+Gentle, whimsical, laughing, heaven-sent;
+And, for a day, fair Peace have given me
+In this, the City of my Discontent!
+
+
+
+
+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 Faiths kneel, as brothers, in one place.
+
+
+
+
+The Wedding of the Rose and the Lotos
+
+
+
+The wide Pacific waters
+ And the Atlantic meet.
+With cries of joy they mingle,
+In tides of love they greet.
+Above the drowned ages
+A wind of wooing blows: --
+The red rose woos the lotos,
+The lotos woos the rose . . .
+
+The lotos conquered Egypt.
+ The rose was loved in Rome.
+Great India crowned the lotos:
+(Britain the rose's home).
+Old China crowned the lotos,
+They crowned it in Japan.
+But Christendom adored the rose
+Ere Christendom began . . .
+
+The lotos speaks of slumber:
+The rose is as a dart.
+ The lotos is Nirvana:
+The rose is Mary's heart.
+The rose is deathless, restless,
+The splendor of our pain:
+ The flush and fire of labor
+That builds, not all in vain. . . .
+
+The genius of the lotos
+Shall heal earth's too-much fret.
+The rose, in blinding glory,
+Shall waken Asia yet.
+Hail to their loves, ye peoples!
+Behold, a world-wind blows,
+That aids the ivory lotos
+To wed the red red rose!
+
+
+
+
+King Arthur's Men Have Come Again
+
+[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,
+The grandsons of his foes arise
+In his own cause arrayed.
+They rise for freedom and clean laws
+High laws, that shall endure.
+OUR GOD ESTABLISHES HIS ARM
+AND MAKES THE BATTLE SURE!
+
+
+
+
+Foreign Missions in Battle Array
+
+
+
+An endless line of splendor,
+These troops with heaven for home,
+With creeds they go from Scotland,
+With incense go from Rome.
+These, in the name of Jesus,
+Against the dark gods stand,
+They gird the earth with valor,
+They heed their King's command.
+
+Onward the line advances,
+Shaking the hills with power,
+Slaying the hidden demons,
+The lions that devour.
+No bloodshed in the wrestling, --
+But souls new-born arise --
+The nations growing kinder,
+The child-hearts growing wise.
+
+What is the final ending?
+The issue, can we know?
+Will Christ outlive Mohammed?
+Will Kali's altar go?
+This is our faith tremendous, --
+Our wild hope, who shall scorn, --
+That in the name of Jesus
+The world shall be reborn!
+
+
+
+
+Star of My Heart
+
+
+
+Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
+Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
+Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
+Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
+And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed.
+O lead me to Jehovah's child
+Across this dreamland lone and wild,
+Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,
+And kiss his little haloed head --
+"My star and I, we love thee, little child."
+
+Except the Christ be born again to-night
+In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
+The world will never see his kingdom bright.
+Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night
+Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
+Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
+To that far sky where mystic births begin,
+Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win.
+Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there,
+And each shall find his brother fair,
+Like a little child within:
+All hearts of the earth shall find new birth
+And wake, no more to sin.
+
+
+
+
+Look You, I'll Go Pray
+
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+At Mass
+
+
+
+No doubt to-morrow I will hide
+My face from you, my King.
+Let me rejoice this Sunday noon,
+And kneel while gray priests sing.
+
+It is not wisdom to forget.
+But since it is my fate
+Fill thou my soul with hidden wine
+To make this white hour great.
+
+My God, my God, this marvelous hour
+I am your son I know.
+Once in a thousand days your voice
+Has laid temptation low.
+
+
+
+
+Heart of God
+
+
+
+O great heart of God,
+Once vague and lost to me,
+Why do I throb with your throb to-night,
+In this land, eternity?
+
+O little heart of God,
+Sweet intruding stranger,
+You are laughing in my human breast,
+A Christ-child in a manger.
+
+Heart, dear heart of God,
+Beside you now I kneel,
+Strong heart of faith.  O heart not mine,
+Where God has set His seal.
+
+Wild thundering heart of God
+Out of my doubt I come,
+And my foolish feet with prophets' feet,
+March with the prophets' drum.
+
+
+
+
+The Empty Boats
+
+
+
+Why do I see these empty boats, sailing on airy seas?
+One haunted me the whole night long, swaying with every breeze,
+Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass:
+There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass.
+Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that soul might ride
+And climb the glorious mysteries of Heaven's silent tide
+In voyages that change the very metes and bounds of Fate --
+O empty boats, we all refuse, that by our windows wait!
+
+
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+St. Francis of Assisi
+
+
+
+Would I might wake St. Francis in you all,
+Brother of birds and trees, God's Troubadour,
+Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor;
+Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men,
+Come, let us chant the canticle again
+Of mother earth and the enduring sun.
+God make each soul the lonely leper's slave;
+God make us saints, and brave.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+A Prayer to All the Dead Among Mine Own People
+
+
+
+Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven?
+Are these your hands upon my wounded soul?
+Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me,
+Fly by my path till you have made me whole!
+
+
+
+
+To Reformers in Despair
+
+
+
+'Tis not too late to build our young land right,
+Cleaner than Holland, courtlier than Japan,
+Devout like early Rome, with hearths like hers,
+Hearths that will recreate the breed called man.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+     The following verses were written on the evening of March the first,
+     nineteen hundred and eleven, and printed next morning
+     in the Illinois State Register.
+
+     They celebrate the arrival of the news that the United States Senate
+     had declared the election of William Lorimer good and valid,
+     by a vote of forty-six to forty.
+
+
+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, uncanny chiefs in lies grown old?
+
+Be warned, O wanton ones, who shielded him --
+Black wrath awaits.  You all shall eat the dust.
+You dare not say:  "To-morrow will bring peace;
+Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."
+
+What will you trading frogs do on a day
+When Armageddon thunders thro' the land;
+When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame,
+His ballot or his musket in his hand?
+
+In the distracted states from which you came
+The day is big with war hopes fierce and strange;
+Our iron Chicagos and our grimy mines
+Rumble with hate and love and solemn change.
+
+Too many weary men shed honest tears,
+Ground by machines that give the Senate ease.
+Too many little babes with bleeding hands
+Have heaped the fruits of empire on your knees.
+
+And swine within the Senate in this day,
+When all the smothering by-streets weep and wail;
+When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best sons;
+When kingly men, voting for truth, may fail: --
+
+These are a portent and a call to arms.
+Our protest turns into a battle cry:
+"Our shame must end, our States be free and clean;
+And in this war we choose to live and die."
+
+
+     [So far as the writer knows this is the first use
+     of the popular term Armageddon in present day politics.]
+
+
+
+
+The Knight in Disguise
+
+[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]
+
+     "He could not forget that he was a Sidney."
+
+
+
+Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
+The darling of the glad and gaping town?
+
+This is that dubious hero of the press
+Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
+Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon
+The man with yellow journals round him strewn.
+We laughed and dozed, then roused and read again,
+And vowed O. Henry funniest of men.
+He always worked a triple-hinged surprise
+To end the scene and make one rub his eyes.
+
+He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer.
+He comes with megaphone and specious cheer.
+His troupe, too fat or short or long or lean,
+Step from the pages of the magazine
+With slapstick or sombrero or with cane:
+The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain.
+They over-act each part.  But at the height
+Of banter and of canter and delight
+The masks fall off for one queer instant there
+And show real faces:  faces full of care
+And desperate longing:  love that's hot or cold;
+And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold.
+The masks go back.  'Tis one more joke.  Laugh on!
+The goodly grown-up company is gone.
+
+No doubt had he occasion to address
+The brilliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess,
+He would have wrought for them the best he knew
+And led more loftily his actor-crew.
+How coolly he misquoted.  'Twas his art --
+Slave-scholar, who misquoted -- from the heart.
+So when we slapped his back with friendly roar
+Aesop awaited him without the door, --
+Aesop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh
+With little tales of FOX and DOG and CALF.
+And be it said, mid these his pranks so odd
+With something nigh to chivalry he trod
+And oft the drear and driven would defend --
+The little shopgirls' knight unto the end.
+Yea, he had passed, ere we could understand
+The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand.
+Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn
+With valiant cut and thrust, and he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+The Wizard in the Street
+
+[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]
+
+
+
+Who now will praise the Wizard in the street
+With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet --
+This Jingle-man, of strolling players born,
+Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn,
+This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good,
+With melancholy bells upon his hood?
+
+The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak,
+And well may mock his mystifying cloak
+Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read
+To make the ignoramus turn his head.
+The artificial glitter of his eyes
+Has captured half-grown boys.  They think him wise.
+Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep,
+Soothed by his steady wand's mesmeric sweep.
+The little lacquered boxes in his hands
+Somehow suggest old times and reverenced lands.
+From them doll-monsters come, we know not how:
+Puppets, with Cain's black rubric on the brow.
+Some passing jugglers, smiling, now concede
+That his best cabinet-work is made, indeed
+By bleeding his right arm, day after day,
+Triumphantly to seal and to inlay.
+They praise his little act of shedding tears;
+A trick, well learned, with patience, thro' the years.
+
+I love him in this blatant, well-fed place.
+Of all the faces, his the only face
+Beautiful, tho' painted for the stage,
+Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage,
+Shames that are living, loves and hopes long dead,
+Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.
+
+Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep:
+"What Nations sow, they must expect to reap,"
+Or haste to clothe the race with truth and power,
+With hymns and shouts increasing every hour.
+Useful are you.  There stands the useless one
+Who builds the Haunted Palace in the sun.
+Good tailors, can you dress a doll for me
+With silks that whisper of the sounding sea?
+One moment, citizens, -- the weary tramp
+Unveileth Psyche with the agate lamp.
+Which one of you can spread a spotted cloak
+And raise an unaccounted incense smoke
+Until within the twilight of the day
+Stands dark Ligeia in her disarray,
+Witchcraft and desperate passion in her breath
+And battling will, that conquers even death?
+
+And now the evening goes.  No man has thrown
+The weary dog his well-earned crust or bone.
+We grin and hie us home and go to sleep,
+Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep.
+He drank alone, for sorrow, and then slept,
+And few there were that watched him, few that wept.
+He found the gutter, lost to love and man.
+Too slowly came the good Samaritan.
+
+
+
+
+The Eagle that is Forgotten
+
+[John P. Altgeld.  Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]
+
+
+
+Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.
+Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.
+
+"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
+They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
+They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day,
+Now you were ended.  They praised you, * * * and laid you away.
+
+The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,
+The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,
+The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor
+That should have remembered forever, * * * remember no more.
+
+Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call
+The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?
+They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones,
+A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons,
+The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began
+The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.
+
+Sleep softly, * * * eagle forgotten, * * * under the stone,
+Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own.
+Sleep on, O brave hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame --
+To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name,
+To live in mankind, far, far more * * * than to live in a name.
+
+
+
+
+Shakespeare
+
+
+
+Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came
+Visible emperor of the deeds of Time,
+With Justice still the genius of his rhyme,
+Giving each man his due, each passion grace,
+Impartial as the rain from Heaven's face
+Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun.
+Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again.
+Teach us to write, and writing, to be men.
+
+
+
+
+Michelangelo
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+Titian
+
+
+
+Would that such hills and cities round us sang,
+Such vistas of the actual earth and man
+As kindled Titian when his life began;
+Would that this latter Greek could put his gold,
+Wisdom and splendor in our brushes bold
+Till Greece and Venice, children of the sun,
+Become our every-day, and we aspire
+To colors fairer far, and glories higher.
+
+
+
+
+Lincoln
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+The Cornfields
+
+
+
+The cornfields rise above mankind,
+Lifting white torches to the blue,
+Each season not ashamed to be
+Magnificently decked for you.
+
+What right have you to call them yours,
+And in brute lust of riches burn
+Without some radiant penance wrought,
+Some beautiful, devout return?
+
+
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Fantasies and Whims: --
+
+
+
+
+
+
+   The Fairy Bridal Hymn
+
+[This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone,
+sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God,
+the yellow rose]
+
+
+
+This is a song to the white-armed one
+Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring,
+Whose feet are slow on the hills of life,
+Whose round mouth rules by whispering.
+
+This is a song to the white-armed one
+Whose breast shall burn as a Summer field,
+Whose wings shall rise to the doors of gold,
+Whose poppy lips to the God shall yield.
+
+This is a song to the white-armed one
+When the closing rose shall bind her fast,
+And a song of the song their blood shall sing,
+When the Rose-God drinks her soul at last.
+
+
+
+
+   The Potato's Dance
+
+
+
+"Down cellar," said the cricket,
+"I saw a ball last night
+In honor of a lady
+Whose wings were pearly-white.
+The breath of bitter weather
+Had smashed the cellar pane:
+We entertained a drift of leaves
+And then of snow and rain.
+But we were dressed for winter,
+And loved to hear it blow
+In honor of the lady
+Who makes potatoes grow --
+Our guest, the Irish lady,
+The tiny Irish lady,
+The fairy Irish lady
+That makes potatoes grow.
+
+"Potatoes were the waiters,
+Potatoes were the band,
+Potatoes were the dancers
+Kicking up the sand:
+Their legs were old burnt matches,
+Their arms were just the same,
+They jigged and whirled and scrambled
+In honor of the dame:
+The noble Irish lady
+Who makes potatoes dance,
+The witty Irish lady,
+The saucy Irish lady,
+The laughing Irish lady
+Who makes potatoes prance.
+
+"There was just one sweet potato.
+He was golden-brown and slim:
+The lady loved his figure.
+She danced all night with him.
+Alas, he wasn't Irish.
+So when she flew away,
+They threw him in the coal-bin
+And there he is to-day,
+Where they cannot hear his sighs --
+His weeping for the lady,
+The beauteous Irish lady,
+The radiant Irish lady
+Who gives potatoes eyes."
+
+
+
+
+   How a Little Girl Sang
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+   Ghosts in Love
+
+
+
+"Tell me, where do ghosts in love
+Find their bridal veils?"
+
+"If you and I were ghosts in love
+We'd climb the cliffs of Mystery,
+Above the sea of Wails.
+I'd trim your gray and streaming hair
+With veils of Fantasy
+From the tree of Memory.
+'Tis there the ghosts that fall in love
+Find their bridal veils."
+
+
+
+
+   The Queen of Bubbles
+
+[Written for a picture]
+
+
+
+The Youth speaks: --
+ "Why do you seek the sun
+ In your bubble-crown ascending?
+ Your chariot will melt to mist.
+ Your crown will have an ending."
+
+The Goddess replies: --
+ "Nay, sun is but a bubble,
+ Earth is a whiff of foam --
+ To my caves on the coast of Thule
+ Each night I call them home.
+ Thence Faiths blow forth to angels
+ And loves blow forth to men --
+ They break and turn to nothing
+ And I make them whole again.
+ On the crested waves of chaos
+ I ride them back reborn:
+ New stars I bring at evening
+ For those that burst at morn:
+ My soul is the wind of Thule
+ And evening is the sign --
+ The sun is but a bubble,
+ A fragile child of mine."
+
+
+
+
+   The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings of the Morning
+
+[A Poem for Aviators]
+
+
+
+    How the Wings Were Made
+
+From many morning-glories
+That in an hour will fade,
+From many pansy buds
+Gathered in the shade,
+From lily of the valley
+And dandelion buds,
+From fiery poppy-buds
+ Are the Wings of the Morning made.
+
+
+    The Indian Girl Who Made Them
+
+These, the Wings of the Morning,
+An Indian Maiden wove,
+Intertwining subtilely
+Wands from a willow grove
+Beside the Sangamon --
+Rude stream of Dreamland Town.
+She bound them to my shoulders
+With fingers golden-brown.
+The wings were part of me;
+The willow-wands were hot.
+Pulses from my heart
+Healed each bruise and spot
+Of the morning-glory buds,
+Beginning to unfold
+Beneath her burning song of suns untold.
+
+
+    The Indian Girl Tells the Hero Where to Go to Get the Laughing Bell
+
+"To the farthest star of all,
+Go, make a moment's raid.
+To the west -- escape the earth
+Before your pennons fade!
+West! west! o'ertake the night
+That flees the morning sun.
+There's a path between the stars --
+A black and silent one.
+O tremble when you near
+The smallest star that sings:
+Only the farthest star
+Is cool for willow wings.
+
+"There's a sky within the west --
+There's a sky beyond the skies
+Where only one star shines --
+The Star of Laughing Bells --
+In Chaos-land it lies;
+Cold as morning-dew,
+A gray and tiny boat
+Moored on Chaos-shore,
+Where nothing else can float
+But the Wings of the Morning strong
+And the lilt of laughing song
+From many a ruddy throat:
+
+"For the Tree of Laughing Bells
+Grew from a bleeding seed
+Planted mid enchantment
+Played on a harp and reed:
+Darkness was the harp --
+Chaos-wind the reed;
+The fruit of the tree is a bell, blood-red --
+The seed was the heart of a fairy, dead.
+Part of the bells of the Laughing Tree
+Fell to-day at a blast from the reed.
+Bring a fallen bell to me.
+Go!" the maiden said.
+"For the bell will quench our memory,
+Our hope,
+Our borrowed sorrow;
+We will have no thirst for yesterday,
+No thought for to-morrow."
+
+
+    The Journey Starts Swiftly
+
+A thousand times ten thousand times
+More swift than the sun's swift light
+Were the Morning Wings in their flight
+On --  On --
+West of the Universe,
+Thro' the West
+To Chaos-night.
+
+
+    He Nears the Goal
+
+How the red bells rang
+As I neared the Chaos-shore!
+As I flew across to the end of the West
+The young bells rang and rang
+Above the Chaos roar,
+And the Wings of the Morning
+Beat in tune
+And bore me like a bird along --
+And the nearing star turned to a moon --
+Gray moon, with a brow of red --
+Gray moon with a golden song.
+Like a diver after pearls
+I plunged to that stifling floor.
+It was wide as a giant's wheat-field
+An icy, wind-washed shore.
+O laughing, proud, but trembling star!
+O wind that wounded sore!
+
+
+    He Climbs the Hill Where the Tree Grows
+
+On --
+Thro' the gleaming gray
+I ran to the storm and clang --
+To the red, red hill where the great tree swayed --
+And scattered bells like autumn leaves.
+How the red bells rang!
+My breath within my breast
+Was held like a diver's breath --
+The leaves were tangled locks of gray --
+The boughs of the tree were white and gray,
+Shaped like scythes of Death.
+The boughs of the tree would sweep and sway --
+Sway like scythes of Death.
+But it was beautiful!
+I knew that all was well.
+A thousand bells from a thousand boughs
+Each moment bloomed and fell.
+On the hill of the wind-swept tree
+There were no bells asleep;
+They sang beneath my trailing wings
+Like rivers sweet and steep.
+Deep rock-clefts before my feet
+Mighty chimes did keep
+And little choirs did keep.
+
+
+    He Receives the Bells
+
+     Honeyed, small and fair,
+     Like flowers, in flowery lands --
+     Like little maidens' hands --
+     Two bells fell in my hair,
+     Two bells caressed my hair.
+     I pressed them to my purple lips
+     In the strangling Chaos-air.
+
+
+    He Starts on the Return Journey
+
+On desperate wings and strong,
+Two bells within my breast,
+I breathed again, I breathed again --
+West of the Universe --
+West of the skies of the West.
+Into the black toward home,
+And never a star in sight,
+By Faith that is blind I took my way
+With my two bosomed blossoms gay
+Till a speck in the East was the Milky way:
+Till starlit was the night.
+And the bells had quenched all memory --
+All hope --
+All borrowed sorrow:
+I had no thirst for yesterday,
+No thought for to-morrow.
+Like hearts within my breast
+The bells would throb to me
+And drown the siren stars
+That sang enticingly;
+My heart became a bell --
+Three bells were in my breast,
+Three hearts to comfort me.
+We reached the daytime happily --
+We reached the earth with glee.
+In an hour, in an hour it was done!
+The wings in their morning flight
+Were a thousand times ten thousand times
+More swift than beams of light.
+
+
+    He Gives What He Won to the Indian Girl
+
+I panted in the grassy wood;
+I kissed the Indian Maid
+As she took my wings from me:
+With all the grace I could
+I gave two throbbing bells to her
+From the foot of the Laughing Tree.
+And one she pressed to her golden breast
+And one, gave back to me.
+
+From Lilies of the valley --
+See them fade.
+From poppy-blooms all frayed,
+From dandelions gray with care,
+From pansy-faces, worn and torn,
+From morning-glories --
+See them fade --
+From all things fragile, faint and fair
+Are the Wings of the Morning made!
+
+
+
+
+   Sweethearts of the Year
+
+
+
+    Sweetheart Spring
+
+Our Sweetheart, Spring, came softly,
+Her gliding hands were fire,
+Her lilac breath upon our cheeks
+Consumed us with desire.
+
+By her our God began to build,
+Began to sow and till.
+He laid foundations in our loves
+For every good and ill.
+We asked Him not for blessing,
+We asked Him not for pain --
+Still, to the just and unjust
+He sent His fire and rain.
+
+
+    Sweetheart Summer
+
+We prayed not, yet she came to us,
+The silken, shining one,
+On Jacob's noble ladder
+Descended from the sun.
+She reached our town of Every Day,
+Our dry and dusty sod --
+We prayed not, yet she brought to us
+The misty wine of God.
+
+
+    Sweetheart Autumn
+
+The woods were black and crimson,
+The frost-bit flowers were dead,
+But Sweetheart Indian Summer came
+With love-winds round her head.
+While fruits God-given and splendid
+Belonged to her domain:
+Baskets of corn in perfect ear
+And grapes with purple stain,
+The treacherous winds persuaded her
+Spring Love was in the wood
+Altho' the end of love was hers --
+Fruition, Motherhood.
+
+
+    Sweetheart Winter
+
+We had done naught of service
+To win our Maker's praise.
+Yet Sweetheart Winter came to us
+To gild our waning days.
+Down Jacob's winding ladder
+She came from Sunshine Town,
+Bearing the sparkling mornings
+And clouds of silver-brown;
+Bearing the seeds of Springtime.
+Upon her snowy seas
+Bearing the fairy star-flowers
+For baby Christmas trees.
+
+
+
+
+   The Sorceress!
+
+
+
+I asked her, "Is Aladdin's lamp
+Hidden anywhere?"
+"Look into your heart," she said,
+"Aladdin's lamp is there."
+
+She took my heart with glowing hands.
+It burned to dust and air
+And smoke and rolling thistledown
+Blowing everywhere.
+
+"Follow the thistledown," she said,
+"Till doomsday, if you dare,
+Over the hills and far away.
+Aladdin's lamp is there."
+
+
+
+
+   Caught in a Net
+
+
+
+Upon her breast her hands and hair
+ Were tangled all together.
+The moon of June forbade me not --
+ The golden night time weather
+In balmy sighs commanded me
+ To kiss them like a feather.
+
+Her looming hair, her burning hands,
+ Were tangled black and white.
+My face I buried there.  I pray --
+ So far from her to-night --
+For grace, to dream I kiss her soul
+ Amid the black and white.
+
+
+
+
+   Eden in Winter
+
+[Supposed to be chanted to some rude instrument at a modern fireplace]
+
+
+
+Chant we the story now
+Tho' in a house we sleep;
+Tho' by a hearth of coals
+Vigil to-night we keep.
+Chant we the story now,
+Of the vague love we knew
+When I from out the sea
+Rose to the feet of you.
+
+Bird from the cliffs you came,
+Flew thro' the snow to me,
+Facing the icy blast
+There by the icy sea.
+How did I reach your feet?
+Why should I -- at the end
+Hold out half-frozen hands
+Dumbly 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 near
+Came to his eye so bright.
+Then with a will you fed
+Wood 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 forget
+All the night's bitter chill.
+We had not learned to speak,
+I was to you a strange
+Wolfling 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 tried
+Ere we were maid and man --
+Not till the spring awoke
+Laughter 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 kiss
+Until 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 length
+With knives and maces of stone.
+And so your feet were torn,
+Your lean arms bruised to the bone.
+
+Perhaps 'twas the slain beast's blood
+We drank, or a root we ate,
+Or our reveling evening bath
+In 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 hair
+By the light of the leaping fire:
+Your fierce eyes blinked with smoke,
+Pine-fumes, that enhanced desire.
+I helped to unbraid your hair
+In wonder and fear profound:
+You were humming your hunting tune
+As it swept to the grassy ground.
+
+Our comrades, the shaggy bear,
+The tiger with velvet feet,
+The lion, crept to the light
+Whining for bullock meat.
+We fed them and stroked their necks . . .
+They took their way to the fen
+Where they hunted or hid all night;
+No enemies, they, of men.
+
+Evil had entered not
+The cobra, since defiled.
+He watched, when the beasts had gone
+Our kissing and singing wild.
+Beautiful friend he was,
+Sage, not a tempter grim.
+Many a year should pass
+Ere Satan should enter him.
+
+He danced while the evening dove
+And the nightingale kept in tune.
+I sang of the angel sun:
+You sang of the angel-moon:
+We sang of the ANGEL-CHIEF
+Who blew thro' the trees strange breath,
+Who helped in the hunt all day
+And granted the bullock's death.
+
+O Eve with the fire-lit breast
+And 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 voice
+Was like a little Fountain
+That 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 me
+Or walk the hills of air,
+Awakened love's deep pulses
+And boyhood's first despair;
+A passion like a sword-blade
+That pierced me thro' and thro':
+Her fingers healed the sorrow
+Her whisper would renew.
+We sighed and reigned and feasted
+Within a hollow tree,
+We vowed our love was boundless,
+Eternal as the sea.
+
+She banished from her kingdom
+The mortal boy I grew --
+So tall and crude and noisy,
+I killed grasshoppers too.
+I threw big rocks at pigeons,
+I plucked and tore apart
+The weeping, wailing daisies,
+And broke my lady's heart.
+At length I grew to manhood,
+I scarcely could believe
+I 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 blossoms
+Rolled in o'er everything,
+While rain and sleet and snowbanks
+Were still a-vexing men,
+Ere robin and his comrades
+Were 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 covers
+Her wrath against me slept.
+And deeply I repented
+Of brash and boyish crime,
+Of murder of things lovely
+Now 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-side
+Upon 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 place
+A mermaid wrapped in seaweed
+With 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-door
+Of our small inland town,
+Bowing to a maiden
+In a pansy-velvet gown,
+Who had not heard of fairies,
+Yet seemed of love to dream.
+We planned an earthly cottage
+Beside 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 troop
+To beat the blue-grass spears,
+To scorn the lawn-mower that would be
+Like fate's triumphant shears.
+Your yellow heads are cut away,
+It seems your reign is o'er.
+By noon you raise a sea of stars
+More 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 lies
+Heaped up for me to eat.
+I wish that I might climb the path
+And taste that supper sweet.
+
+Men feed me straw and scanty grain
+And beat me till I'm sore.
+Some day I'll break the halter-rope
+And smash the stable-door,
+
+Run down the street and mount the hill
+Just as the corn appears.
+I've seen it rise at certain times
+For 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-Worms
+Are 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 eyes
+Behold all souls, and they are wise:
+With tiny, keen and icy eyes,
+Behold how each man sins and dies.
+
+When Earth in gold-corruption lies
+Long dead, the moon-worm butterflies
+On 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 drifts
+Of white that cross the sphere.
+The Moon's a snowball, melted down
+A dozen times a year.
+
+Yet rolled again in hot July
+When all my days are done
+And cool to greet the weary eye
+After the scorching sun.
+
+The moon's a piece of winter fair
+Renewed the year around,
+Behold it, deathless and unstained,
+Above the grimy ground!
+
+It rolls on high so brave and white
+Where the clear air-rivers flow,
+Proclaiming Christmas all the time
+And the glory of the snow!
+
+
+    What the Scare-crow Said
+
+The dim-winged spirits of the night
+Do fear and serve me well.
+They creep from out the hedges of
+The garden where I dwell.
+
+I wave my arms across the walk.
+The troops obey the sign,
+And bring me shimmering shadow-robes
+And cups of cowslip-wine.
+
+Then dig a treasure called the moon,
+A very precious thing,
+And keep it in the air for me
+Because I am a King.
+
+
+    What Grandpa Mouse Said
+
+The moon's a holy owl-queen.
+She keeps them in a jar
+Under her arm till evening,
+Then sallies forth to war.
+
+She pours the owls upon us.
+They hoot with horrid noise
+And eat the naughty mousie-girls
+And wicked mousie-boys.
+
+So climb the moonvine every night
+And to the owl-queen pray:
+Leave good green cheese by moonlit trees
+For her to take away.
+
+And never squeak, my children,
+Nor gnaw the smoke-house door:
+The owl-queen then will love us
+And 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 sought
+For 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 neither
+Grave 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 ofidleness,
+Said Mister Moon to me.
+
+
+    What the Forester Said
+
+The moon is but a candle-glow
+That flickers thro' the gloom:
+The starry space, a castle hall:
+And Earth, the children's room,
+Where all night long the old trees stand
+To 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 moonlight
+All prove our Father's mind.
+The dew, the rain and moonlight
+Descend to bless mankind.
+
+Come, let us see that all men
+Have 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 man
+Ripe wheat and poppies red, --
+A peaceful place at evening
+With 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 tune
+With 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-path
+They're blind amid the rain.
+Can murmurs of the worms arise
+To higher hearts than mine?
+I wonder if that gardener hears
+Who made the mold all fine
+And packed each gentle seedling down
+So carefully in line?
+
+I watched the red rose reaching up
+To ask him if he heard
+Those cries that stung the evening earth
+Till all the rose-roots stirred.
+She asked him if he felt the hate
+That burned beneath them there.
+She asked him if he heard the curse
+Of worms in black despair.
+He kissed the rose.  What did it mean?
+What of the rose's prayer?
+
+Down, down where rain has never come
+They fight in burning graves,
+Bleeding and drinking blood
+Within those venom-caves.
+Blaspheming still the gardener's name,
+They live and hate and go.
+I wonder if the gardener heard
+The 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 state
+He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name,
+And, when the traders followed him, he stood
+Towering above their furtive souls and tame.
+
+That brow without a stain, that fearless eye
+Oft left the passing stranger wondering
+To 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 best
+Under 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 wind
+From the Atlantic to the China sea,
+Yet do they think of that bright lamp he burned
+Of family worth and proud integrity.
+
+And many a sturdy grandchild hears his name
+In reverence spoken, till he feels akin
+To 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 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, aflame?
+This beauty calls for valiant song --
+For men to carve these fairy-forms
+And 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 church
+By night in these clean prairie lands
+Without 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 pure
+As 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 noon
+Breaking its sharpest lines, veil not
+The whiteness it reflects from God,
+Flashing like Spring on many an eye,
+Making clean flesh, that once was clod.
+
+Who can pass a district school
+Without the hope that there may wait
+Some baby-heart the books shall flame
+With zeal to make his playmates great,
+To make the whole wide village gleam
+A 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, remembering
+That 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 soul
+Till countless generations pass away.
+
+Now let each child be joined as to a church
+To her perpetual hopes, each man ordained:
+Let every street be made a reverent aisle
+Where Music grows and Beauty is unchained.
+
+Let Science and Machinery and Trade
+Be slaves of her, and make her all in all,
+Building against our blatant, restless time
+An 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 afar
+Would 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 rhyme
+Beating, 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 Illinois
+No wiser and no better at the start
+By faith shall rise redeemed, by faith shall rise
+Bearing 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 sing
+At 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 athrill
+With living language, words that set us free?
+When will they make a path of beauty clear
+Between 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 go
+While 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of
+  General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems
+