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@@ -0,0 +1,3464 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chinese Nightingale, by Vachel Lindsay + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Chinese Nightingale + +Author: Vachel Lindsay + +Posting Date: September 13, 2008 [EBook #592] +Release Date: July, 1996 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHINESE NIGHTINGALE *** + + + + +Produced by A. Light. + + + + + + + + + +The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems, + + +by + +Vachel Lindsay. + + +[Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Illinois Poet. 1879-1931.] + + + + + + +[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases capitalized. +Italicized stanzas are indented 5 spaces. Some errors have been +corrected. Lines longer than 78 characters are broken according +to metre, and the continuation is indented two spaces.] + + + + + +The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems + + +By + +Vachel Lindsay + +Author of "The Congo", "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven", +"Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty", etc. + + + + + + +This Book is Dedicated to Sara Teasdale, Poet + + + + + + Harriet Monroe awarded the Levinson Prize to "The Chinese Nightingale", + as the best contribution to "Poetry: A Magazine of Verse", + for the year 1915. + + + + + +Table of Contents + + + + First Section + + The Chinese Nightingale + + + Second Section + + America Watching the War, August, 1914, to April, 1917 + + Where Is the Real Non-resistant? + Here's to the Mice! + When Bryan Speaks + To Jane Addams at the Hague + I. Speak Now for Peace + II. Tolstoi Is Plowing Yet + The Tale of the Tiger Tree + The Merciful Hand + + + Third Section + + America at War with Germany, Beginning April, 1917 + + Our Mother Pocahontas + Concerning Emperors + Niagara + Mark Twain and Joan of Arc + The Bankrupt Peace Maker + "This, My Song, is made for Kerensky" + + + Fourth Section + + Tragedies, Comedies, and Dreams + + Our Guardian Angels and Their Children + Epitaphs for Two Players + I. Edwin Booth + II. John Bunny, Motion Picture Comedian + Mae Marsh, Motion Picture Actress + Two Old Crows + The Drunkard's Funeral + The Raft + The Ghosts of the Buffaloes + The Broncho that Would Not Be Broken + The Prairie Battlements + The Flower of Mending + Alone in the Wind, on the Prairie + To Lady Jane + How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven + + + Fifth Section + + The Poem Games + + An Account of the Poem Games + The King of Yellow Butterflies + The Potatoes' Dance + The Booker Washington Trilogy + I. Simon Legree + II. John Brown + III. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba + How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza + + + + +The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems + + + + + First Section + + + + + The Chinese Nightingale + + A Song in Chinese Tapestries + + + + "How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said, + "San Francisco sleeps as the dead-- + Ended license, lust and play: + Why do you iron the night away? + Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound, + With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round. + While the monster shadows glower and creep, + What can be better for man than sleep?" + + "I will tell you a secret," Chang replied; + "My breast with vision is satisfied, + And I see green trees and fluttering wings, + And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings." + Then he lit five fire-crackers in a pan. + "Pop, pop," said the fire-crackers, "cra-cra-crack." + He lit a joss stick long and black. + Then the proud gray joss in the corner stirred; + On his wrist appeared a gray small bird, + And this was the song of the gray small bird: + "Where is the princess, loved forever, + Who made Chang first of the kings of men?" + + And the joss in the corner stirred again; + And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, + Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. + It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, + And there on the snowy table wide + Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, + With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face.... + Yet she put away all form and pride, + And laid her glimmering veil aside + With a childlike smile for Chang and for me. + + The walls fell back, night was aflower, + The table gleamed in a moonlit bower, + While Chang, with a countenance carved of stone, + Ironed and ironed, all alone. + And thus she sang to the busy man Chang: + "Have you forgotten.... + Deep in the ages, long, long ago, + I was your sweetheart, there on the sand-- + Storm-worn beach of the Chinese land? + We sold our grain in the peacock town + Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown-- + Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown.... + + "When all the world was drinking blood + From the skulls of men and bulls + And all the world had swords and clubs of stone, + We drank our tea in China beneath the sacred spice-trees, + And heard the curled waves of the harbor moan. + And this gray bird, in Love's first spring, + With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing, + Captured the world with his carolling. + Do you remember, ages after, + At last the world we were born to own? + You were the heir of the yellow throne-- + The world was the field of the Chinese man + And we were the pride of the Sons of Han? + We copied deep books and we carved in jade, + And wove blue silks in the mulberry shade...." + + "I remember, I remember + That Spring came on forever, + That Spring came on forever," + Said the Chinese nightingale. + + My heart was filled with marvel and dream, + Though I saw the western street-lamps gleam, + Though dawn was bringing the western day, + Though Chang was a laundryman ironing away.... + Mingled there with the streets and alleys, + The railroad-yard and the clock-tower bright, + Demon clouds crossed ancient valleys; + Across wide lotus-ponds of light + I marked a giant firefly's flight. + + And the lady, rosy-red, + Flourished her fan, her shimmering fan, + Stretched her hand toward Chang, and said: + "Do you remember, + Ages after, + Our palace of heart-red stone? + Do you remember + The little doll-faced children + With their lanterns full of moon-fire, + That came from all the empire + Honoring the throne?-- + The loveliest fete and carnival + Our world had ever known? + The sages sat about us + With their heads bowed in their beards, + With proper meditation on the sight. + Confucius was not born; + We lived in those great days + Confucius later said were lived aright.... + And this gray bird, on that day of spring, + With a bright bronze breast, and a bronze-brown wing, + Captured the world with his carolling. + Late at night his tune was spent. + Peasants, + Sages, + Children, + Homeward went, + And then the bronze bird sang for you and me. + We walked alone. Our hearts were high and free. + I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name, + I had a silvery name--do you remember + The name you cried beside the tumbling sea?" + + Chang turned not to the lady slim-- + He bent to his work, ironing away; + But she was arch, and knowing and glowing, + And the bird on his shoulder spoke for him. + + "Darling ... darling ... darling ... darling ..." + Said the Chinese nightingale. + + The great gray joss on a rustic shelf, + Rakish and shrewd, with his collar awry, + Sang impolitely, as though by himself, + Drowning with his bellowing the nightingale's cry: + "Back through a hundred, hundred years + Hear the waves as they climb the piers, + Hear the howl of the silver seas, + Hear the thunder. + Hear the gongs of holy China + How the waves and tunes combine + In a rhythmic clashing wonder, + Incantation old and fine: + 'Dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons, + Red fire-crackers, and green fire-crackers, + And dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons.'" + + Then the lady, rosy-red, + Turned to her lover Chang and said: + "Dare you forget that turquoise dawn + When we stood in our mist-hung velvet lawn, + And worked a spell this great joss taught + Till a God of the Dragons was charmed and caught? + From the flag high over our palace home + He flew to our feet in rainbow-foam-- + A king of beauty and tempest and thunder + Panting to tear our sorrows asunder. + A dragon of fair adventure and wonder. + We mounted the back of that royal slave + With thoughts of desire that were noble and grave. + We swam down the shore to the dragon-mountains, + We whirled to the peaks and the fiery fountains. + To our secret ivory house we were bourne. + We looked down the wonderful wing-filled regions + Where the dragons darted in glimmering legions. + Right by my breast the nightingale sang; + The old rhymes rang in the sunlit mist + That we this hour regain-- + Song-fire for the brain. + When my hands and my hair and my feet you kissed, + When you cried for your heart's new pain, + What was my name in the dragon-mist, + In the rings of rainbowed rain?" + + "Sorrow and love, glory and love," + Said the Chinese nightingale. + "Sorrow and love, glory and love," + Said the Chinese nightingale. + + And now the joss broke in with his song: + "Dying ember, bird of Chang, + Soul of Chang, do you remember?-- + Ere you returned to the shining harbor + There were pirates by ten thousand + Descended on the town + In vessels mountain-high and red and brown, + Moon-ships that climbed the storms and cut the skies. + On their prows were painted terrible bright eyes. + But I was then a wizard and a scholar and a priest; + I stood upon the sand; + With lifted hand I looked upon them + And sunk their vessels with my wizard eyes, + And the stately lacquer-gate made safe again. + Deep, deep below the bay, the sea-weed and the spray, + Embalmed in amber every pirate lies, + Embalmed in amber every pirate lies." + + Then this did the noble lady say: + "Bird, do you dream of our home-coming day + When you flew like a courier on before + From the dragon-peak to our palace-door, + And we drove the steed in your singing path-- + The ramping dragon of laughter and wrath: + And found our city all aglow, + And knighted this joss that decked it so? + There were golden fishes in the purple river + And silver fishes and rainbow fishes. + There were golden junks in the laughing river, + And silver junks and rainbow junks: + There were golden lilies by the bay and river, + And silver lilies and tiger-lilies, + And tinkling wind-bells in the gardens of the town + By the black-lacquer gate + Where walked in state + The kind king Chang + And his sweet-heart mate.... + With his flag-born dragon + And his crown of pearl ... and ... jade, + And his nightingale reigning in the mulberry shade, + And sailors and soldiers on the sea-sands brown, + And priests who bowed them down to your song-- + By the city called Han, the peacock town, + By the city called Han, the nightingale town, + The nightingale town." + + Then sang the bird, so strangely gay, + Fluttering, fluttering, ghostly and gray, + A vague, unravelling, final tune, + Like a long unwinding silk cocoon; + Sang as though for the soul of him + Who ironed away in that bower dim:-- + "I have forgotten + Your dragons great, + Merry and mad and friendly and bold. + Dim is your proud lost palace-gate. + I vaguely know + There were heroes of old, + Troubles more than the heart could hold, + There were wolves in the woods + Yet lambs in the fold, + Nests in the top of the almond tree.... + The evergreen tree ... and the mulberry tree ... + Life and hurry and joy forgotten, + Years on years I but half-remember ... + Man is a torch, then ashes soon, + May and June, then dead December, + Dead December, then again June. + Who shall end my dream's confusion? + Life is a loom, weaving illusion... + I remember, I remember + There were ghostly veils and laces... + In the shadowy bowery places... + With lovers' ardent faces + Bending to one another, + Speaking each his part. + They infinitely echo + In the red cave of my heart. + 'Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart.' + They said to one another. + They spoke, I think, of perils past. + They spoke, I think, of peace at last. + One thing I remember: + Spring came on forever, + Spring came on forever," + Said the Chinese nightingale. + + + + + + + Second Section + + America Watching the War, August, 1914, to April, 1917 + + + + Where Is the Real Non-resistant? + + (Matthew 5:38-48) + + Who can surrender to Christ, dividing his best with the stranger, + Giving to each what he asks, braving the uttermost danger + All for the enemy, MAN? Who can surrender till death + His words and his works, his house and his lands, + His eyes and his heart and his breath? + + Who can surrender to Christ? Many have yearned toward it daily. + Yet they surrender to passion, wildly or grimly or gaily; + Yet they surrender to pride, counting her precious and queenly; + Yet they surrender to knowledge, preening their feathers serenely. + + Who can surrender to Christ? Where is the man so transcendent, + So heated with love of his kind, so filled with the spirit resplendent + That all of the hours of his day his song is thrilling and tender, + And all of his thoughts to our white cause of peace + Surrender, surrender, surrender? + + + + Here's to the Mice! + + (Written with the hope that the socialists might yet + dethrone Kaiser and Czar.) + + + Here's to the mice that scare the lions, + Creeping into their cages. + Here's to the fairy mice that bite + The elephants fat and wise: + Hidden in the hay-pile while the elephant thunder rages. + Here's to the scurrying, timid mice + Through whom the proud cause dies. + + Here's to the seeming accident + When all is planned and working, + All the flywheels turning, + Not a vassal shirking. + Here's to the hidden tunneling thing + That brings the mountain's groans. + Here's to the midnight scamps that gnaw, + Gnawing away the thrones. + + + + When Bryan Speaks + + When Bryan speaks, the town's a hive. + From miles around, the autos drive. + The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows. + The place is kicking and alive. + + When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows. + The raw procession onward flows. + The small dogs bark. The children laugh + A wind of springtime fancy blows. + + When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes. + The corporation magnate quakes. + The pre-convention plot is smashed. + The valiant pleb full-armed awakes. + + When Bryan speaks, the sky is ours, + The wheat, the forests, and the flowers. + And who is here to say us nay? + Fled are the ancient tyrant powers. + + When Bryan speaks, then I rejoice. + His is the strange composite voice + Of many million singing souls + Who make world-brotherhood their choice. + + Written in Washington, D.C. + February, 1915. + + + + To Jane Addams at the Hague + + Two Poems, written on the Sinking of the Lusitania. + Appearing in the Chicago 'Herald', May 11, 1915. + + + I. Speak Now for Peace + + Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen, + Stand now for peace, (though anger breaks your heart), + Though naught but smoke and flame and drowning is seen. + + Lady of Light, speak, though you speak alone, + Though your voice may seem as a dove's in this howling flood, + It is heard to-night by every senate and throne. + + Though the widening battle of millions and millions of men + Threatens to-night to sweep the whole of the earth, + Back of the smoke is the promise of kindness again. + + + II. Tolstoi Is Plowing Yet + + Tolstoi is plowing yet. When the smoke-clouds break, + High in the sky shines a field as wide as the world. + There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. + + Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth. + Only the congress of planets is over him, + And the arching path where new sweet stars have birth. + + Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low, + Tolstoi, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet; + Forward, across the field, his horses go. + + + + The Tale of the Tiger Tree + + A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten + years old. + + The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages. + It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies + of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace + is unconquerable and eternal. + + + I + + Peace-of-the-Heart, my own for long, + Whose shining hair the May-winds fan, + Making it tangled as they can, + A mystery still, star-shining yet, + Through ancient ages known to me + And now once more reborn with me:-- + + This is the tale of the Tiger Tree + A hundred times the height of a man, + Lord of the race since the world began. + + This is my city Springfield, + My home on the breast of the plain. + The state house towers to heaven, + By an arsenal gray as the rain ... + And suddenly all is mist, + And I walk in a world apart, + In the forest-age when I first knelt down + At your feet, O Peace-of-the-Heart. + + This is the wonder of twilight: + Three times as high as the dome + Tiger-striped trees encircle the town, + Golden geysers of foam. + While giant white parrots sail past in their pride. + The roofs now are clouds and storms that they ride. + And there with the huntsmen of mound-builder days + Through jungle and meadow I stride. + And the Tiger Tree leaf is falling around + As it fell when the world began: + Like a monstrous tiger-skin, stretched on the ground, + Or the cloak of a medicine man. + A deep-crumpled gossamer web, + Fringed with the fangs of a snake. + The wind swirls it down from the leperous boughs. + It shimmers on clay-hill and lake, + With the gleam of great bubbles of blood, + Or coiled like a rainbow shell.... + I feast on the stem of the Leaf as I march. + I am burning with Heaven and Hell. + + + II + + The gray king died in his hour. + Then we crowned you, the prophetess wise: + Peace-of-the-Heart we deeply adored + For the witchcraft hid in your eyes. + Gift from the sky, overmastering all, + You sent forth your magical parrots to call + The plot-hatching prince of the tigers, + To your throne by the red-clay wall. + + Thus came that genius insane: + Spitting and slinking, + Sneering and vain, + He sprawled to your grassy throne, drunk on The Leaf, + The drug that was cunning and splendor and grief. + He had fled from the mammoth by day, + He had blasted the mammoth by night, + War was his drunkenness, + War was his dreaming, + War was his love and his play. + And he hissed at your heavenly glory + While his councillors snarled in delight, + Asking in irony: "What shall we learn + From this whisperer, fragile and white?" + + And had you not been an enchantress + They would not have loitered to mock + Nor spared your white parrots who walked by their paws + With bantering venturesome talk. + + You made a white fire of The Leaf. + You sang while the tiger-chiefs hissed. + You chanted of "Peace to the wonderful world." + And they saw you in dazzling mist. + And their steps were no longer insane, + Kindness came down like the rain, + They dreamed that like fleet young ponies they feasted + On succulent grasses and grain. + + . . . . . + + Then came the black-mammoth chief: + Long-haired and shaggy and great, + Proud and sagacious he marshalled his court: + (You had sent him your parrots of state.) + His trunk in rebellion upcurled, + A curse at the tiger he hurled. + Huge elephants trumpeted there by his side, + And mastodon-chiefs of the world. + But higher magic began. + For the turbulent vassals of man. + You harnessed their fever, you conquered their ire, + Their hearts turned to flowers through holy desire, + For their darling and star you were crowned, + And their raging demons were bound. + You rode on the back of the yellow-streaked king, + His loose neck was wreathed with a mistletoe ring. + Primordial elephants loomed by your side, + And our clay-painted children danced by your path, + Chanting the death of the kingdoms of wrath. + You wrought until night with us all. + The fierce brutes fawned at your call, + Then slipped to their lairs, song-chained. + And thus you sang sweetly, and reigned: + "Immortal is the inner peace, free to beasts and men. + Beginning in the darkness, the mystery will conquer, + And now it comforts every heart that seeks for love again. + And now the mammoth bows the knee, + We hew down every Tiger Tree, + We send each tiger bound in love and glory to his den, + Bound in love ... and wisdom ... and glory, ... to his den." + + + III + + "Beware of the trumpeting swine," + Came the howl from the northward that night. + Twice-rebel tigers warning was still + If we held not beside them it boded us ill. + From the parrots translating the cry, + And the apes in the trees came the whine: + "Beware of the trumpeting swine. + Beware of the faith of a mammoth." + + "Beware of the faith of a tiger," + Came the roar from the southward that night. + Trumpeting mammoths warning us still + If we held not beside them it boded us ill. + The frail apes wailed to us all, + The parrots reechoed the call: + "Beware of the faith of a tiger." + From the heights of the forest the watchers could see + The tiger-cats crunching the Leaf of the Tree + Lashing themselves, and scattering foam, + Killing our huntsmen, hurrying home. + The chiefs of the mammoths our mastery spurned, + And eastward restlessly fumed and burned. + The peacocks squalled out the news of their drilling + And told how they trampled, maneuvered, and turned. + Ten thousand man-hating tigers + Whirling down from the north, like a flood! + Ten thousand mammoths oncoming + From the south as avengers of blood! + Our child-queen was mourning, her magic was dead, + The roots of the Tiger Tree reeking with red. + + + IV + + This is the tale of the Tiger Tree + A hundred times the height of a man, + Lord of the race since the world began. + + We marched to the mammoths, + We pledged them our steel, + And scorning you, sang:-- + "We are men, + We are men." + We mounted their necks, + And they stamped a wide reel. + We sang: + "We are fighting the hell-cats again, + We are mound-builder men, + We are elephant men." + We left you there, lonely, + Beauty your power, + Wisdom your watchman, + To hold the clay tower. + While the black-mammoths boomed-- + "You are elephant men, + Men, + Men, + Elephant men." + The dawn-winds prophesied battles untold. + While the Tiger Trees roared of the glories of old, + Of the masterful spirits and hard. + + The drunken cats came in their joy + In the sunrise, a glittering wave. + "We are tigers, are tigers," they yowled. + "Down, + Down, + Go the swine to the grave." + But we tramp + Tramp + Trampled them there, + Then charged with our sabres and spears. + The swish of the sabre, + The swish of the sabre, + Was a marvellous tune in our ears. + We yelled "We are men, + We are men." + As we bled to death in the sun.... + Then staunched our horrible wounds + With the cry that the battle was won.... + And at last, + When the black-mammoth legion + Split the night with their song:-- + "Right is braver than wrong, + Right is stronger than wrong," + The buzzards came taunting: + "Down from the north + Tiger-nations are sweeping along." + + . . . . . + + Then we ate of the ravening Leaf + As our savage fathers of old. + No longer our wounds made us weak, + No longer our pulses were cold. + Though half of my troops were afoot, + (For the great who had borne them were slain) + We dreamed we were tigers, and leaped + And foamed with that vision insane. + We cried "We are soldiers of doom, + Doom, + Sabres of glory and doom." + We wreathed the king of the mammoths + In the tiger-leaves' terrible bloom. + We flattered the king of the mammoths, + Loud-rattling sabres and spears. + The swish of the sabre, + The swish of the sabre, + Was a marvellous tune in his ears. + + + V + + This was the end of the battle. + The tigers poured by in a tide + Over us all with their caterwaul call, + "We are the tigers," + They cried. + "We are the sabres," + They cried. + But we laughed while our blades swept wide, + While the dawn-rays stabbed through the gloom. + "We are suns on fire" was our yell-- + "Suns on fire." ... + But man-child and mastodon fell, + Mammoth and elephant fell. + The fangs of the devil-cats closed on the world, + Plunged it to blackness and doom. + The desolate red-clay wall + Echoed the parrots' call:-- + "Immortal is the inner peace, free to beasts and men. + Beginning in the darkness, the mystery will conquer, + And now it comforts every heart that seeks for love again. + And now the mammoth bows the knee, + We hew down every Tiger Tree, + We send each tiger bound in love and glory to his den, + Bound in love ... and wisdom ... and glory, ... to his den." + + A peacock screamed of his beauty + On that broken wall by the trees, + Chiding his little mate, + Spreading his fans in the breeze ... + And you, with eyes of a bride, + Knelt on the wall at my side, + The deathless song in your mouth ... + A million new tigers swept south ... + As we laughed at the peacock, and died. + + This is my vision in Springfield: + Three times as high as the dome, + Tiger-striped trees encircle the town, + Golden geysers of foam;-- + Though giant white parrots sail past, giving voice, + Though I walk with Peace-of-the-Heart and rejoice. + + + + + The Merciful Hand + + Written to Miss Alice L. F. Fitzgerald, Edith Cavell memorial nurse, + going to the front. + + + Your fine white hand is Heaven's gift + To cure the wide world, stricken sore, + Bleeding at the breast and head, + Tearing at its wounds once more. + + Your white hand is a prophecy, + A living hope that Christ shall come + And make the nations merciful, + Hating the bayonet and drum. + + Each desperate burning brain you soothe, + Or ghastly broken frame you bind, + Brings one day nearer our bright goal, + The love-alliance of mankind. + + Wellesley. + February, 1916. + + + + + Third Section + + America at War with Germany, Beginning April, 1917 + + + + + Our Mother Pocahontas + + (Note:--Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.) + + "Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November + or a pawpaw in May--did she wonder? does she remember--in + the dust--in the cool tombs?" + + Carl Sandburg. + + + + I + + Powhatan was conqueror, + Powhatan was emperor. + He was akin to wolf and bee, + Brother of the hickory tree. + Son of the red lightning stroke + And the lightning-shivered oak. + His panther-grace bloomed in the maid + Who laughed among the winds and played + In excellence of savage pride, + Wooing the forest, open-eyed, + In the springtime, + In Virginia, + Our Mother, Pocahontas. + + Her skin was rosy copper-red. + And high she held her beauteous head. + Her step was like a rustling leaf: + Her heart a nest, untouched of grief. + She dreamed of sons like Powhatan, + And through her blood the lightning ran. + Love-cries with the birds she sung, + Birdlike + In the grape-vine swung. + The Forest, arching low and wide + Gloried in its Indian bride. + Rolfe, that dim adventurer + Had not come a courtier. + John Rolfe is not our ancestor. + We rise from out the soul of her + Held in native wonderland, + While the sun's rays kissed her hand, + In the springtime, + In Virginia, + Our Mother, Pocahontas. + + + II + + She heard the forest talking, + Across the sea came walking, + And traced the paths of Daniel Boone, + Then westward chased the painted moon. + She passed with wild young feet + On to Kansas wheat, + On to the miners' west, + The echoing canons' guest, + Then the Pacific sand, + Waking, + Thrilling, + The midnight land.... + + On Adams street and Jefferson-- + Flames coming up from the ground! + On Jackson street and Washington-- + Flames coming up from the ground! + And why, until the dawning sun + Are flames coming up from the ground? + Because, through drowsy Springfield sped + This red-skin queen, with feathered head, + With winds and stars, that pay her court + And leaping beasts, that make her sport; + Because, gray Europe's rags august + She tramples in the dust; + Because we are her fields of corn; + Because our fires are all reborn + From her bosom's deathless embers, + Flaming + As she remembers + The springtime + And Virginia, + Our Mother, Pocahontas. + + + III + + We here renounce our Saxon blood. + Tomorrow's hopes, an April flood + Come roaring in. The newest race + Is born of her resilient grace. + We here renounce our Teuton pride: + Our Norse and Slavic boasts have died: + Italian dreams are swept away, + And Celtic feuds are lost today.... + + She sings of lilacs, maples, wheat, + Her own soil sings beneath her feet, + Of springtime + And Virginia, + Our Mother, Pocahontas. + + + + + Concerning Emperors + + + + I. God Send the Regicide + + Would that the lying rulers of the world + Were brought to block for tyrannies abhorred. + Would that the sword of Cromwell and the Lord, + The sword of Joshua and Gideon, + Hewed hip and thigh the hosts of Midian. + God send that ironside ere tomorrow's sun; + Let Gabriel and Michael with him ride. + God send the Regicide. + + + II. A Colloquial Reply: To Any Newsboy + + If you lay for Iago at the stage door with a brick + You have missed the moral of the play. + He will have a midnight supper with Othello and his wife. + They will chirp together and be gay. + But the things Iago stands for must go down into the dust: + Lying and suspicion and conspiracy and lust. + And I cannot hate the Kaiser (I hope you understand.) + Yet I chase the thing he stands for with a brickbat in my hand. + + + + + Niagara + + + + I + + Within the town of Buffalo + Are prosy men with leaden eyes. + Like ants they worry to and fro, + (Important men, in Buffalo.) + But only twenty miles away + A deathless glory is at play: + Niagara, Niagara. + + The women buy their lace and cry:-- + "O such a delicate design," + And over ostrich feathers sigh, + By counters there, in Buffalo. + The children haunt the trinket shops, + They buy false-faces, bells, and tops, + Forgetting great Niagara. + + Within the town of Buffalo + Are stores with garnets, sapphires, pearls, + Rubies, emeralds aglow,-- + Opal chains in Buffalo, + Cherished symbols of success. + They value not your rainbow dress:-- + Niagara, Niagara. + + The shaggy meaning of her name + This Buffalo, this recreant town, + Sharps and lawyers prune and tame: + Few pioneers in Buffalo; + Except young lovers flushed and fleet + And winds hallooing down the street: + "Niagara, Niagara." + + The journalists are sick of ink: + Boy prodigals are lost in wine, + By night where white and red lights blink, + The eyes of Death, in Buffalo. + And only twenty miles away + Are starlit rocks and healing spray:-- + Niagara, Niagara. + + Above the town a tiny bird, + A shining speck at sleepy dawn, + Forgets the ant-hill so absurd, + This self-important Buffalo. + Descending twenty miles away + He bathes his wings at break of day-- + Niagara, Niagara. + + + II + + What marching men of Buffalo + Flood the streets in rash crusade? + Fools-to-free-the-world, they go, + Primeval hearts from Buffalo. + Red cataracts of France today + Awake, three thousand miles away + An echo of Niagara, + The cataract Niagara. + + + + + Mark Twain and Joan of Arc + + + + When Yankee soldiers reach the barricade + Then Joan of Arc gives each the accolade. + + For she is there in armor clad, today, + All the young poets of the wide world say. + + Which of our freemen did she greet the first, + Seeing him come against the fires accurst? + + Mark Twain, our Chief, with neither smile nor jest, + Leading to war our youngest and our best. + + The Yankee to King Arthur's court returns. + The sacred flag of Joan above him burns. + + For she has called his soul from out the tomb. + And where she stands, there he will stand till doom. + + . . . . . + + But I, I can but mourn, and mourn again + At bloodshed caused by angels, saints, and men. + + + + + The Bankrupt Peace Maker + + + + I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room. + The smoke formed the giant frog-cat of my doom. + His web feet left dreadful slime tracks on the floor. + He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door. + He sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair. + He looked through my heart to the mud that was there. + Like a black-mailer hating his victim he spoke: + "When I see all your squirming I laugh till I choke + Singing of peace. Railing at battle. + Soothing a handful with saccharine prattle. + All the millions of earth have voted for fight. + You are voting for talk, with hands lily white." + He leaped to the floor, then grew seven feet high, + Beautiful, terrible, scorn in his eye: + The Devil Eternal, Apollo grown old, + With beard of bright silver and garments of gold. + "What will you do to end war for good? + Will you stand by the book-case, be nailed to the wood?" + I stretched out my arms. He drove the nails deep, + Silently, coolly. The house was asleep, + I hung for three years, forbidden to die. + I seemed but a shadow the servants passed by. + At the end of the time with hot irons he returned. + "The Quitter Sublime" on my bosom he burned. + As he seared me he hissed: "You are wearing away. + The good angels tell me you leave them today. + You want to come down from the nails in the door. + The victor must hang there three hundred years more. + If any prig-saint would outvote all mankind + He must use an immortally resolute mind. + Think what the saints of Benares endure, + Through infinite birthpangs their courage is sure. + Self-tortured, self-ruled, they build their powers high, + Until they are gods, overmaster the sky." + Then he pulled out the nails. He shouted "Come in." + To heal me there stepped in a lady of sin. + Her hand was in mine. We walked in the sun. + She said: "Now forget them, the Saxon and Hun. + You are dreary and aged and silly and weak. + Let us smell the sweet groves. Let the summertime speak." + We walked to the river. We swam there in state. + I was a serpent. She was my mate. + I forgot in the marsh, as I tumbled about, + That trial in my room, where I did not hold out. + Since I was a serpent, my mate seemed to me + As a mermaiden seems to a fisher at sea, + Or a whisky soaked girl to a whisky soaked king. + I woke. She had turned to a ravening thing + On the table--a buzzard with leperous head. + She tore up my rhymes and my drawings. She said: + "I am your own cheap bankrupt soul. + Will you die for the nations, making them whole? + We joy in the swamp and here we are gay. + WILL YOU BRING YOUR FINE PEACE TO THE NATIONS TODAY?" + + + + + "This, My Song, Is Made for Kerensky" + + (Being a Chant of the American Soap-Box and the Russian Revolution.) + + + + O market square, O slattern place, + Is glory in your slack disgrace? + Plump quack doctors sell their pills, + Gentle grafters sell brass watches, + Silly anarchists yell their ills. + Shall we be as weird as these? + In the breezes nod and wheeze? + + Heaven's mass is sung, + Tomorrow's mass is sung + In a spirit tongue + By wind and dust and birds, + The high mass of liberty, + While wave the banners red: + Sung round the soap-box, + A mass for soldiers dead. + + When you leave your faction in the once-loved hall, + Like a true American tongue-lash them all, + Stand then on the corner under starry skies + And get you a gang of the worn and the wise. + The soldiers of the Lord may be squeaky when they rally, + The soldiers of the Lord are a queer little army, + But the soldiers of the Lord, before the year is through, + Will gather the whole nation, recruit all creation, + To smite the hosts abhorred, and all the heavens renew-- + Enforcing with the bayonet the thing the ages teach-- + Free speech! + Free speech! + + Down with the Prussians, and all their works. + Down with the Turks. + Down with every army that fights against the soap-box, + The Pericles, Socrates, Diogenes soap-box, + The old Elijah, Jeremiah, John-the-Baptist soap-box, + The Rousseau, Mirabeau, Danton soap-box, + The Karl Marx, Henry George, Woodrow Wilson soap-box. + We will make the wide earth safe for the soap-box, + The everlasting foe of beastliness and tyranny, + Platform of liberty:-- Magna Charta liberty, + Andrew Jackson liberty, bleeding Kansas liberty, + New-born Russian liberty:-- + Battleship of thought, + The round world over, + Loved by the red-hearted, + Loved by the broken-hearted, + Fair young Amazon or proud tough rover, + Loved by the lion, + Loved by the lion, + Loved by the lion, + Feared by the fox. + + The Russian Revolution is the world revolution. + Death at the bedstead of every Kaiser knocks. + The Hohenzollern army shall be felled like the ox. + The fatal hour is striking in all the doomsday clocks. + The while, by freedom's alchemy + Beauty is born. + Ring every sleigh-bell, ring every church bell, + Blow the clear trumpet, and listen for the answer:-- + The blast from the sky of the Gabriel horn. + + Hail the Russian picture around the little box:-- + Exiles, + Troops in files, + Generals in uniform, + Mujiks in their smocks, + And holy maiden soldiers who have cut away their locks. + All the peoples and the nations in processions mad and great, + Are rolling through the Russian Soul as through a city gate:-- + As though it were a street of stars that paves the shadowy deep. + And mighty Tolstoi leads the van along the stairway steep. + + But now the people shout: + "Hail to Kerensky, + He hurled the tyrants out." + And this my song is made for Kerensky, + Prophet of the world-wide intolerable hope, + There on the soap-box, seasoned, dauntless, + There amid the Russian celestial kaleidoscope, + Flags of liberty, rags and battlesmoke. + + Moscow and Chicago! + Come let us praise battling Kerensky, + Bravo! Bravo! + Comrade Kerensky the thunderstorm and rainbow! + Comrade Kerensky, Bravo, Bravo! + + August, 1917. + + + + + + + Fourth Section + Tragedies, Comedies, and Dreams + + + + + + + Our Guardian Angels and Their Children + + + + Where a river roars in rapids + And doves in maples fret, + Where peace has decked the pastures + Our guardian angels met. + + Long they had sought each other + In God's mysterious name, + Had climbed the solemn chaos tides + Alone, with hope aflame: + + Amid the demon deeps had wound + By many a fearful way. + As they beheld each other + Their shout made glad the day. + + No need of purse delayed them, + No hand of friend or kin-- + Nor menace of the bell and book, + Nor fear of mortal sin. + + You did not speak, my girl, + At this, our parting hour. + Long we held each other + And watched their deeds of power. + + They made a curious Eden. + We saw that it was good. + We thought with them in unison. + We proudly understood + + Their amaranth eternal, + Their roses strange and fair, + The asphodels they scattered + Upon the living air. + + They built a house of clouds + With skilled immortal hands. + They entered through the silver doors. + Their wings were wedded brands. + + I labored up the valley + To granite mountains free. + You hurried down the river + To Zidon by the sea. + + But at their place of meeting + They keep a home and shrine. + Your angel twists a purple flax, + Then weaves a mantle fine. + + My angel, her defender + Upstanding, spreads the light + On painted clouds of fancy + And mists that touch the height. + + Their sturdy babes speak kindly + And fly and run with joy, + Shepherding the helpless lambs-- + A Grecian girl and boy. + + These children visit Heaven + Each year and make of worth + All we planned and wrought in youth + And all our tears on earth. + + From books our God has written + They sing of high desire. + They turn the leaves in gentleness. + Their wings are folded fire. + + + + + Epitaphs for Two Players + + + + I. Edwin Booth + + An old actor at the Player's Club told me that Edwin Booth + first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California. + There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided + with crude assembly rooms for strolling players. + + + The youth played in the blear hotel. + The rafters gleamed with glories strange. + And winds of mourning Elsinore + Howling at chance and fate and change; + Voices of old Europe's dead + Disturbed the new-built cattle-shed, + The street, the high and solemn range. + + The while the coyote barked afar + All shadowy was the battlement. + The ranch-boys huddled and grew pale, + Youths who had come on riot bent. + Forgot were pranks well-planned to sting. + Behold there rose a ghostly king, + And veils of smoking Hell were rent. + + When Edwin Booth played Hamlet, then + The camp-drab's tears could not but flow. + Then Romance lived and breathed and burned. + She felt the frail queen-mother's woe, + Thrilled for Ophelia, fond and blind, + And Hamlet, cruel, yet so kind, + And moaned, his proud words hurt her so. + + A haunted place, though new and harsh! + The Indian and the Chinaman + And Mexican were fain to learn + What had subdued the Saxon clan. + Why did they mumble, brood, and stare + When the court-players curtsied fair + And the Gonzago scene began? + + And ah, the duel scene at last! + They cheered their prince with stamping feet. + A death-fight in a palace! Yea, + With velvet hangings incomplete, + A pasteboard throne, a pasteboard crown, + And yet a monarch tumbled down, + A brave lad fought in splendor meet. + + Was it a palace or a barn? + Immortal as the gods he flamed. + There in his last great hour of rage + His foil avenged a mother shamed. + In duty stern, in purpose deep + He drove that king to his black sleep + And died, all godlike and untamed. + + . . . . . + + I was not born in that far day. + I hear the tale from heads grown white. + And then I walk that earlier street, + The mining camp at candle-light. + I meet him wrapped in musings fine + Upon some whispering silvery line + He yet resolves to speak aright. + + + + II. John Bunny, Motion Picture Comedian + + In which he is remembered in similitude, by reference to Yorick, + the king's jester, who died when Hamlet and Ophelia were children. + + + Yorick is dead. Boy Hamlet walks forlorn + Beneath the battlements of Elsinore. + Where are those oddities and capers now + That used to "set the table on a roar"? + + And do his bauble-bells beyond the clouds + Ring out, and shake with mirth the planets bright? + No doubt he brings the blessed dead good cheer, + But silence broods on Elsinore tonight. + + That little elf, Ophelia, eight years old, + Upon her battered doll's staunch bosom weeps. + ("O best of men, that wove glad fairy-tales.") + With tear-burned face, at last the darling sleeps. + + Hamlet himself could not give cheer or help, + Though firm and brave, with his boy-face controlled. + For every game they started out to play + Yorick invented, in the days of old. + + The times are out of joint! O cursed spite! + The noble jester Yorick comes no more. + And Hamlet hides his tears in boyish pride + By some lone turret-stair of Elsinore. + + + + + Mae Marsh, Motion Picture Actress + + In "Man's Genesis", "The Wild Girl of the Sierras", "The Wharf Rat", + "A Girl of the Paris Streets", etc. + + + + I + + The arts are old, old as the stones + From which man carved the sphinx austere. + Deep are the days the old arts bring: + Ten thousand years of yesteryear. + + + II + + She is madonna in an art + As wild and young as her sweet eyes: + A frail dew flower from this hot lamp + That is today's divine surprise. + + Despite raw lights and gloating mobs + She is not seared: a picture still: + Rare silk the fine director's hand + May weave for magic if he will. + + When ancient films have crumbled like + Papyrus rolls of Egypt's day, + Let the dust speak: "Her pride was high, + All but the artist hid away: + + "Kin to the myriad artist clan + Since time began, whose work is dear." + The deep new ages come with her, + Tomorrow's years of yesteryear. + + + + + Two Old Crows + + + + Two old crows sat on a fence rail, + Two old crows sat on a fence rail, + Thinking of effect and cause, + Of weeds and flowers, + And nature's laws. + One of them muttered, one of them stuttered, + One of them stuttered, one of them muttered. + Each of them thought far more than he uttered. + One crow asked the other crow a riddle. + One crow asked the other crow a riddle: + The muttering crow + Asked the stuttering crow, + "Why does a bee have a sword to his fiddle? + Why does a bee have a sword to his fiddle?" + "Bee-cause," said the other crow, + "Bee-cause, + B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B-cause." + + Just then a bee flew close to their rail:-- + "Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZ." + And those two black crows + Turned pale, + And away those crows did sail. + Why? + B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B-cause. + B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B-cause. + "Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZ." + + + + + The Drunkard's Funeral + + + + "Yes," said the sister with the little pinched face, + The busy little sister with the funny little tract:-- + "This is the climax, the grand fifth act. + There rides the proud, at the finish of his race. + There goes the hearse, the mourners cry, + The respectable hearse goes slowly by. + The wife of the dead has money in her purse, + The children are in health, so it might have been worse. + That fellow in the coffin led a life most foul. + A fierce defender of the red bar-tender, + At the church he would rail, + At the preacher he would howl. + He planted every deviltry to see it grow. + He wasted half his income on the lewd and the low. + He would trade engender for the red bar-tender, + He would homage render to the red bar-tender, + And in ultimate surrender to the red bar-tender, + He died of the tremens, as crazy as a loon, + And his friends were glad, when the end came soon. + There goes the hearse, the mourners cry, + The respectable hearse goes slowly by. + And now, good friends, since you see how it ends, + Let each nation-mender flay the red bar-tender,-- + Abhor + The transgression + Of the red bar-tender,-- + Ruin + The profession + Of the red bar-tender: + Force him into business where his work does good. + Let him learn how to plough, let him learn to chop wood, + Let him learn how to plough, let him learn to chop wood. + + "The moral, + The conclusion, + The verdict now you know:-- + 'The saloon must go, + The saloon must go, + The saloon, + The saloon, + The saloon, + Must go.'" + + "You are right, little sister," I said to myself, + "You are right, good sister," I said. + "Though you wear a mussy bonnet + On your little gray head, + You are right, little sister," I said. + + + + + The Raft + + + + The whole world on a raft! A King is here, + The record of his grandeur but a smear. + Is it his deacon-beard, or old bald pate + That makes the band upon his whims to wait? + Loot and mud-honey have his soul defiled. + Quack, pig, and priest, he drives camp-meetings wild + Until they shower their pennies like spring rain + That he may preach upon the Spanish main. + What landlord, lawyer, voodoo-man has yet + A better native right to make men sweat? + + The whole world on a raft! A Duke is here + At sight of whose lank jaw the muses leer. + Journeyman-printer, lamb with ferret eyes, + In life's skullduggery he takes the prize-- + Yet stands at twilight wrapped in Hamlet dreams. + Into his eyes the Mississippi gleams. + The sandbar sings in moonlit veils of foam. + A candle shines from one lone cabin home. + The waves reflect it like a drunken star. + A banjo and a hymn are heard afar. + No solace on the lazy shore excels + The Duke's blue castle with its steamer-bells. + The floor is running water, and the roof + The stars' brocade with cloudy warp and woof. + + And on past sorghum fields the current swings. + To Christian Jim the Mississippi sings. + This prankish wave-swept barque has won its place, + A ship of jesting for the human race. + But do you laugh when Jim bows down forlorn + His babe, his deaf Elizabeth to mourn? + And do you laugh, when Jim, from Huck apart + Gropes through the rain and night with breaking heart? + + But now that imp is here and we can smile, + Jim's child and guardian this long-drawn while. + With knife and heavy gun, a hunter keen, + He stops for squirrel-meat in islands green. + The eternal gamin, sleeping half the day, + Then stripped and sleek, a river-fish at play. + And then well-dressed, ashore, he sees life spilt. + The river-bank is one bright crazy-quilt + Of patch-work dream, of wrath more red than lust, + Where long-haired feudist Hotspurs bite the dust ... + This Huckleberry Finn is but the race, + America, still lovely in disgrace, + New childhood of the world, that blunders on + And wonders at the darkness and the dawn, + The poor damned human race, still unimpressed + With its damnation, all its gamin breast + Chorteling at dukes and kings with nigger Jim, + Then plotting for their fall, with jestings grim. + + Behold a Republic + Where a river speaks to men + And cries to those that love its ways, + Answering again + When in the heart's extravagance + The rascals bend to say + "O singing Mississippi + Shine, sing for us today." + + But who is this in sweeping Oxford gown + Who steers the raft, or ambles up and down, + Or throws his gown aside, and there in white + Stands gleaming like a pillar of the night? + The lion of high courts, with hoary mane, + Fierce jester that this boyish court will gain-- + Mark Twain! + The bad world's idol: + Old Mark Twain! + + He takes his turn as watchman with the rest, + With secret transports to the stars addressed, + With nightlong broodings upon cosmic law, + With daylong laughter at this world so raw. + + All praise to Emerson and Whitman, yet + The best they have to say, their sons forget. + But who can dodge this genius of the stream, + The Mississippi Valley's laughing dream? + He is the artery that finds the sea + In this the land of slaves, and boys still free. + He is the river, and they one and all + Sail on his breast, and to each other call. + + Come let us disgrace ourselves, + Knock the stuffed gods from their shelves, + And cinders at the schoolhouse fling. + Come let us disgrace ourselves, + And live on a raft with gray Mark Twain + And Huck and Jim + And the Duke and the King. + + + + + The Ghosts of the Buffaloes + + + + Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry, + The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high, + The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar, + White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar. + I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone. + My home was a hut without orchard or lawn. + It was mud-smear and logs near a whispering stream, + Nothing else built by man could I see in my dream ... + Then ... + Ghost-kings came headlong, row upon row, + Gods of the Indians, torches aglow. + + They mounted the bear and the elk and the deer, + And eagles gigantic, aged and sere, + They rode long-horn cattle, they cried "A-la-la." + They lifted the knife, the bow, and the spear, + They lifted ghost-torches from dead fires below, + The midnight made grand with the cry "A-la-la." + The midnight made grand with a red-god charge, + A red-god show, + A red-god show, + "A-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la." + + With bodies like bronze, and terrible eyes + Came the rank and the file, with catamount cries, + Gibbering, yipping, with hollow-skull clacks, + Riding white bronchos with skeleton backs, + Scalp-hunters, beaded and spangled and bad, + Naked and lustful and foaming and mad, + Flashing primeval demoniac scorn, + Blood-thirst and pomp amid darkness reborn, + Power and glory that sleep in the grass + While the winds and the snows and the great rains pass. + They crossed the gray river, thousands abreast, + They rode in infinite lines to the west, + Tide upon tide of strange fury and foam, + Spirits and wraiths, the blue was their home, + The sky was their goal where the star-flags are furled, + And on past those far golden splendors they whirled. + They burned to dim meteors, lost in the deep. + And I turned in dazed wonder, thinking of sleep. + + And the wind crept by + Alone, unkempt, unsatisfied, + The wind cried and cried-- + Muttered of massacres long past, + Buffaloes in shambles vast ... + An owl said: "Hark, what is a-wing?" + I heard a cricket carolling, + I heard a cricket carolling, + I heard a cricket carolling. + + Then ... + Snuffing the lightning that crashed from on high + Rose royal old buffaloes, row upon row. + The lords of the prairie came galloping by. + And I cried in my heart "A-la-la, a-la-la, + A red-god show, + A red-god show, + A-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la." + + Buffaloes, buffaloes, thousands abreast, + A scourge and amazement, they swept to the west. + With black bobbing noses, with red rolling tongues, + Coughing forth steam from their leather-wrapped lungs, + Cows with their calves, bulls big and vain, + Goring the laggards, shaking the mane, + Stamping flint feet, flashing moon eyes, + Pompous and owlish, shaggy and wise. + Like sea-cliffs and caves resounded their ranks + With shoulders like waves, and undulant flanks. + Tide upon tide of strange fury and foam, + Spirits and wraiths, the blue was their home, + The sky was their goal where the star-flags are furled, + And on past those far golden splendors they whirled. + They burned to dim meteors, lost in the deep, + And I turned in dazed wonder, thinking of sleep. + + I heard a cricket's cymbals play, + A scarecrow lightly flapped his rags, + And a pan that hung by his shoulder rang, + Rattled and thumped in a listless way, + And now the wind in the chimney sang, + The wind in the chimney, + The wind in the chimney, + The wind in the chimney, + Seemed to say:-- + "Dream, boy, dream, + If you anywise can. + To dream is the work + Of beast or man. + Life is the west-going dream-storm's breath, + Life is a dream, the sigh of the skies, + The breath of the stars, that nod on their pillows + With their golden hair mussed over their eyes." + The locust played on his musical wing, + Sang to his mate of love's delight. + I heard the whippoorwill's soft fret. + I heard a cricket carolling, + I heard a cricket carolling, + I heard a cricket say: "Good-night, good-night, + Good-night, good-night, ... good-night." + + + + + The Broncho that Would Not Be Broken + + + + A little colt--broncho, loaned to the farm + To be broken in time without fury or harm, + Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm, + Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing ... + The butterflies there in the bush were romancing, + The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance, + So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces, + O broncho that would not be broken of dancing? + + You were born with the pride of the lords great and olden + Who danced, through the ages, in corridors golden. + In all the wide farm-place the person most human. + You spoke out so plainly with squealing and capering, + With whinnying, snorting, contorting and prancing, + As you dodged your pursuers, looking askance, + With Greek-footed figures, and Parthenon paces, + O broncho that would not be broken of dancing. + + The grasshoppers cheered. "Keep whirling," they said. + The insolent sparrows called from the shed + "If men will not laugh, make them wish they were dead." + But arch were your thoughts, all malice displacing, + Though the horse-killers came, with snake-whips advancing. + You bantered and cantered away your last chance. + And they scourged you, with Hell in their speech and their faces, + O broncho that would not be broken of dancing. + + "Nobody cares for you," rattled the crows, + As you dragged the whole reaper, next day, down the rows. + The three mules held back, yet you danced on your toes. + You pulled like a racer, and kept the mules chasing. + You tangled the harness with bright eyes side-glancing, + While the drunk driver bled you--a pole for a lance-- + And the giant mules bit at you--keeping their places. + O broncho that would not be broken of dancing. + + In that last afternoon your boyish heart broke. + The hot wind came down like a sledge-hammer stroke. + The blood-sucking flies to a rare feast awoke. + And they searched out your wounds, your death-warrant tracing. + And the merciful men, their religion enhancing, + Stopped the red reaper, to give you a chance. + Then you died on the prairie, and scorned all disgraces, + O broncho that would not be broken of dancing. + + Souvenir of Great Bend, Kansas. + + + + + The Prairie Battlements + + (To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect.) + + + + Here upon the prairie + Is our ancestral hall. + Agate is the dome, + Cornelian the wall. + Ghouls are in the cellar, + But fays upon the stairs. + And here lived old King Silver Dreams, + Always at his prayers. + + Here lived grey Queen Silver Dreams, + Always singing psalms, + And haughty Grandma Silver Dreams, + Throned with folded palms. + Here played cousin Alice. + Her soul was best of all. + And every fairy loved her, + In our ancestral hall. + + Alice has a prairie grave. + The King and Queen lie low, + And aged Grandma Silver Dreams, + Four tombstones in a row. + But still in snow and sunshine + Stands our ancestral hall. + Agate is the dome, + Cornelian the wall. + And legends walk about, + And proverbs, with proud airs. + Ghouls are in the cellar, + But fays upon the stairs. + + + + + The Flower of Mending + + (To Eudora, after I had had certain dire adventures.) + + + + When Dragon-fly would fix his wings, + When Snail would patch his house, + When moths have marred the overcoat + Of tender Mister Mouse, + + The pretty creatures go with haste + To the sunlit blue-grass hills + Where the Flower of Mending yields the wax + And webs to help their ills. + + The hour the coats are waxed and webbed + They fall into a dream, + And when they wake the ragged robes + Are joined without a seam. + + My heart is but a dragon-fly, + My heart is but a mouse, + My heart is but a haughty snail + In a little stony house. + + Your hand was honey-comb to heal, + Your voice a web to bind. + You were a Mending Flower to me + To cure my heart and mind. + + + + + Alone in the Wind, on the Prairie + + + + I know a seraph who has golden eyes, + And hair of gold, and body like the snow. + Here in the wind I dream her unbound hair + Is blowing round me, that desire's sweet glow + Has touched her pale keen face, and willful mien. + And though she steps as one in manner born + To tread the forests of fair Paradise, + Dark memory's wood she chooses to adorn. + Here with bowed head, bashful with half-desire + She glides into my yesterday's deep dream, + All glowing by the misty ferny cliff + Beside the far forbidden thundering stream. + Within my dream I shake with the old flood. + I fear its going, ere the spring days go. + Yet pray the glory may have deathless years, + And kiss her hair, and sweet throat like the snow. + + + + + To Lady Jane + + + + Romance was always young. + You come today + Just eight years old + With marvellous dark hair. + Younger than Dante found you + When you turned + His heart into the way + That found the heavenly stair. + + Perhaps we must be strangers. + I confess + My soul this hour is Dante's, + And your care + Should be for dolls + Whose painted hands caress + Your marvellous dark hair. + + Romance, with moonflower face + And morning eyes, + And lips whose thread of scarlet prophesies + The canticles of a coming king unknown, + Remember, when you join him + On his throne, + Even me, your far off troubadour, + And wear + For me some trifling rose + Beneath your veil, + Dying a royal death, + Happy and pale, + Choked by the passion, + The wonder and the snare, + The glory and despair + That still will haunt and own + Your marvellous dark hair. + + + + + How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven + + + + Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone + Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky. + God and the angels, and the gleaming saints + Had journeyed out into the stars to die. + + They had gone forth to win far citizens, + Bought at great price, bring happiness for all: + By such a harvest make a holier town + And put new life within old Zion's wall. + + Each chose a far-off planet for his home, + Speaking of love and mercy, truth and right, + Envied and cursed, thorn-crowned and scourged in time, + Each tasted death on his appointed night. + + Then resurrection day from sphere to sphere + Sped on, with all the POWERS arisen again, + While with them came in clouds recruited hosts + Of sun-born strangers and of earth-born men. + + And on that day gray prophet saints went down + And poured atoning blood upon the deep, + Till every warrior of old Hell flew free + And all the torture fires were laid asleep. + + And Hell's lost company I saw return + Clear-eyed, with plumes of white, the demons bold + Climbed with the angels now on Jacob's stair, + And built a better Zion than the old. + + . . . . . + + And yet I walked alone on azure cliffs + A lifetime long, and loved each untrimmed vine: + The rotted harps, the swords of rusted gold, + The jungles of all Heaven then were mine. + + Oh mesas and throne-mountains that I found! + Oh strange and shaking thoughts that touched me there, + Ere I beheld the bright returning wings + That came to spoil my secret, silent lair! + + + + + Fifth Section + + + + The Poem Games + + + + +An Account of the Poem Games + + +In the summer of 1916 in the parlor of Mrs. William Vaughn Moody; +and in the following winter in the Chicago Little Theatre, +under the auspices of Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; and in Mandel Hall, +the University of Chicago, under the auspices of the Senior Class,--these +Poem Games were presented. Miss Eleanor Dougherty was the dancer +throughout.The entire undertaking developed through the generous +cooeperation and advice of Mrs. William Vaughn Moody. The writer is +exceedingly grateful to Mrs. Moody and all concerned for making place +for the idea. Now comes the test of its vitality. Can it go on in the +absence of its initiators? + +Mr. Lewellyn Jones, of the Chicago Evening Post, announced the affair +as a "rhythmic picnic". Mr. Maurice Browne of the Chicago Little Theatre +said Miss Dougherty was at the beginning of the old Greek Tragic Dance. +Somewhere between lies the accomplishment. + +In the Congo volume, as is indicated in the margins, +the meaning of a few of the verses is aided by chanting. +In the Poem Games the English word is still first in importance, +the dancer comes second, the chanter third. The marginal directions +of King Solomon indicate the spirit in which all the pantomime was +developed. Miss Dougherty designed her own costumes, and worked out +her own stage business for King Solomon, The Potatoes' Dance, +The King of Yellow Butterflies and Aladdin and the Jinn (The Congo, +page 140). In the last, "'I am your slave,' said the Jinn" was repeated +four times at the end of each stanza. + +The Poem Game idea was first indorsed in the Wellesley kindergarten, +by the children. They improvised pantomime and dance for the Potatoes' +Dance, while the writer chanted it, and while Professor Hamilton C. +Macdougall of the Wellesley musical department followed on the piano +the outline of the jingle. Later Professor Macdougall very kindly wrote +down his piano rendition. A study of this transcript helps to confirm +the idea that when the cadences of a bit of verse are a little +exaggerated, they are tunes, yet of a truth they are tunes which can be +but vaguely recorded by notation or expressed by an instrument. +The author of this book is now against instrumental music +in this type of work. It blurs the English. + +Professor Macdougall has in various conversations helped the author +toward a Poem Game theory. He agrees that neither the dancing +nor the chanting nor any other thing should be allowed to run away +with the original intention of the words. The chanting should not be +carried to the point where it seeks to rival conventional musical +composition. The dancer should be subordinated to the natural rhythms +of English speech, and not attempt to incorporate bodily all the +precedents of professional dancing. + +Speaking generally, poetic ideas can be conveyed word by word, faster +than musical feeling. The repetitions in the Poem Games are to keep +the singing, the dancing and the ideas at one pace. The repetitions may +be varied according to the necessities of the individual dancer. +Dancing is slower than poetry and faster than music in developing the +same thoughts. In folk dances and vaudeville, the verse, music, and +dancing are on so simple a basis the time elements can be easily +combined. Likewise the rhythms and the other elements. + +Miss Dougherty is particularly illustrative in her pantomime, +but there were many verses she looked over and rejected because +they could not be rendered without blurring the original intent. +Possibly every poem in the world has its dancer somewhere waiting, +who can dance but that one poem. Certainly those poems would be +most successful in games, where the tone color is so close to the +meaning that any exaggeration of that color by dancing and chanting +only makes the story clearer. The writer would like to see some one +try Dryden's Alexander's Feast, or Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon. +Certainly in those poems the decorative rhythm and the meaning +are absolutely one. + +With no dancing evolutions, the author of this book +has chanted John Brown and King Solomon for the last two years +for many audiences. It took but a minute to teach the people the +responses. As a rule they had no advance notice they were going to sing. +The versifier sang the parts of the King and Queen in turn, +and found each audience perfectly willing to be the oxen, the +sweethearts, the swans, the sons, the shepherds, etc. + +A year ago the writer had the honor of chanting for the Florence +Fleming Noyes school of dancers. In one short evening they made the +first section of the Congo into an incantation, the King Solomon into +an extraordinarily graceful series of tableaus, and the Potatoes' +Dance into a veritable whirlwind. Later came the more elaborately +prepared Chicago experiment. + +In the King of Yellow Butterflies and the Potatoes' Dance Miss +Dougherty occupied the entire eye of the audience and interpreted, +while the versifier chanted the poems as a semi-invisible orchestra, +by the side of the curtain. For Aladdin and for King Solomon +Miss Dougherty and the writer divided the stage between them, +but the author was little more than the orchestra. The main intention +was carried out, which was to combine the work of the dancer +with the words of the production and the responses of the audience. + +The present rhymer has no ambitions as a stage manager. The Poem Game +idea, in its rhythmic picnic stage, is recommended to amateurs, its +further development to be on their own initiative. Informal parties +might divide into groups of dancers and groups of chanters. The whole +might be worked out in the spirit in which children play King William +was King James' Son, London Bridge, or As We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. +And the author of this book would certainly welcome the tragic dance, +if Miss Dougherty will gather a company about her and go forward, using +any acceptable poems, new or old. Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon is +perhaps the most literal and rhythmic example of the idea we have in +English, though it may not be available when tried out. + +The main revolution necessary for dancing improvisers, who would go a +longer way with the Poem Game idea, is to shake off the Isadora Duncan +and the Russian precedents for a while, and abolish the orchestra and +piano, replacing all these with the natural meaning and cadences of +English speech. The work would come closer to acting, than dancing is +now conceived. + + + + + The King of Yellow Butterflies + + (A Poem Game.) + + + + The King of Yellow Butterflies, + The King of Yellow Butterflies, + The King of Yellow Butterflies, + Now orders forth his men. + He says "The time is almost here + When violets bloom again." + Adown the road the fickle rout + Goes flashing proud and bold, + Adown the road the fickle rout + Goes flashing proud and bold, + Adown the road the fickle rout + Goes flashing proud and bold, + They shiver by the shallow pools, + They shiver by the shallow pools, + They shiver by the shallow pools, + And whimper of the cold. + They drink and drink. A frail pretense! + They love to pose and preen. + Each pool is but a looking glass, + Where their sweet wings are seen. + Each pool is but a looking glass, + Where their sweet wings are seen. + Each pool is but a looking glass, + Where their sweet wings are seen. + Gentlemen adventurers! Gypsies every whit! + They live on what they steal. Their wings + By briars are frayed a bit. + Their loves are light. They have no house. + And if it rains today, + They'll climb into your cattle-shed, + They'll climb into your cattle-shed, + They'll climb into your cattle-shed, + And hide them in the hay, + And hide them in the hay, + And hide them in the hay, + And hide them in the hay. + + + + + The Potatoes' Dance + + (A Poem Game.) + + + + I + + "Down cellar," said the cricket, + "Down cellar," said the cricket, + "Down cellar," said the cricket, + "I saw a ball last night, + In honor of a lady, + In honor of a lady, + In honor of a lady, + Whose wings were pearly-white. + The breath of bitter weather, + The breath of bitter weather, + The breath of bitter weather, + Had smashed the cellar pane. + We entertained a drift of leaves, + We entertained a drift of leaves, + We entertained a drift of leaves, + And then of snow and rain. + But we were dressed for winter, + But we were dressed for winter, + But we were dressed for winter, + And loved to hear it blow + In honor of the lady, + In honor of the lady, + In honor of the lady, + Who makes potatoes grow, + Our guest the Irish lady, + The tiny Irish lady, + The airy Irish lady, + Who makes potatoes grow. + + + II + + "Potatoes were the waiters, + Potatoes were the waiters, + Potatoes were the waiters, + Potatoes were the band, + Potatoes were the dancers + Kicking up the sand, + Kicking up the sand, + Kicking up the sand, + Potatoes were the dancers + Kicking up the sand. + Their legs were old burnt matches, + Their legs were old burnt matches, + Their legs were old burnt matches, + Their arms were just the same. + They jigged and whirled and scrambled, + Jigged and whirled and scrambled, + 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. + + + III + + "There was just one sweet potato. + He was golden brown and slim. + The lady loved his dancing, + The lady loved his dancing, + The lady loved his dancing, + She danced all night with him, + 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 today, + Where they cannot hear his sighs + And his weeping for the lady, + The glorious Irish lady, + The beauteous Irish lady, + Who + Gives + Potatoes + Eyes." + + + + + The Booker Washington Trilogy + + A Memorial to Booker T. Washington + + + + I. Simon Legree + + A Negro Sermon. (To be read in your own variety of negro dialect.) + + + Legree's big house was white and green. + His cotton-fields were the best to be seen. + He had strong horses and opulent cattle, + And bloodhounds bold, with chains that would rattle. + His garret was full of curious things: + Books of magic, bags of gold, + And rabbits' feet on long twine strings. + BUT HE WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL. + + Legree he sported a brass-buttoned coat, + A snake-skin necktie, a blood-red shirt. + Legree he had a beard like a goat, + And a thick hairy neck, and eyes like dirt. + His puffed-out cheeks were fish-belly white, + He had great long teeth, and an appetite. + He ate raw meat, 'most every meal, + And rolled his eyes till the cat would squeal. + His fist was an enormous size + To mash poor niggers that told him lies: + He was surely a witch-man in disguise. + BUT HE WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL. + + He wore hip-boots, and would wade all day + To capture his slaves that had fled away. + BUT HE WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL. + + He beat poor Uncle Tom to death + Who prayed for Legree with his last breath. + Then Uncle Tom to Eva flew, + To the high sanctoriums bright and new; + And Simon Legree stared up beneath, + And cracked his heels, and ground his teeth: + AND WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL. + + He crossed the yard in the storm and gloom; + He went into his grand front room. + He said, "I killed him, and I don't care." + He kicked a hound, he gave a swear; + He tightened his belt, he took a lamp, + Went down cellar to the webs and damp. + There in the middle of the mouldy floor + He heaved up a slab, he found a door-- + AND WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL. + + His lamp blew out, but his eyes burned bright. + Simon Legree stepped down all night-- + DOWN, DOWN TO THE DEVIL. + Simon Legree he reached the place, + He saw one half of the human race, + He saw the Devil on a wide green throne, + Gnawing the meat from a big ham-bone, + And he said to Mister Devil: + + "I see that you have much to eat-- + A red ham-bone is surely sweet. + I see that you have lion's feet; + I see your frame is fat and fine, + I see you drink your poison wine-- + Blood and burning turpentine." + + And the Devil said to Simon Legree: + "I like your style, so wicked and free. + Come sit and share my throne with me, + And let us bark and revel." + And there they sit and gnash their teeth, + And each one wears a hop-vine wreath. + They are matching pennies and shooting craps, + They are playing poker and taking naps. + And old Legree is fat and fine: + He eats the fire, he drinks the wine-- + Blood and burning turpentine-- + DOWN, DOWN WITH THE DEVIL; + DOWN, DOWN WITH THE DEVIL; + DOWN, DOWN WITH THE DEVIL. + + + + II. John Brown + + (To be sung by a leader and chorus, the leader singing the body of the + poem, while the chorus interrupts with the question.) + + + I've been to Palestine. + WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE? + I saw the ark of Noah-- + It was made of pitch and pine. + I saw old Father Noah + Asleep beneath his vine. + I saw Shem, Ham and Japhet + Standing in a line. + I saw the tower of Babel + In the gorgeous sunrise shine-- + By a weeping willow tree + Beside the Dead Sea. + + I've been to Palestine. + WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE? + I saw abominations + And Gadarene swine. + I saw the sinful Canaanites + Upon the shewbread dine, + And spoil the temple vessels + And drink the temple wine. + I saw Lot's wife, a pillar of salt + Standing in the brine-- + By a weeping willow tree + Beside the Dead Sea. + + I've been to Palestine. + WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE? + Cedars on Mount Lebanon, + Gold in Ophir's mine, + And a wicked generation + Seeking for a sign + And Baal's howling worshippers + Their god with leaves entwine. + And ... + I saw the war-horse ramping + And shake his forelock fine-- + By a weeping willow tree + Beside the Dead Sea. + + I've been to Palestine. + WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE? + Old John Brown. + Old John Brown. + I saw his gracious wife + Dressed in a homespun gown. + I saw his seven sons + Before his feet bow down. + And he marched with his seven sons, + His wagons and goods and guns, + To his campfire by the sea, + By the waves of Galilee. + + I've been to Palestine. + WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE? + I saw the harp and psalt'ry + Played for Old John Brown. + I heard the ram's horn blow, + Blow for Old John Brown. + I saw the Bulls of Bashan-- + They cheered for Old John Brown. + I saw the big Behemoth-- + He cheered for Old John Brown. + I saw the big Leviathan-- + He cheered for Old John Brown. + I saw the Angel Gabriel + Great power to him assign. + I saw him fight the Canaanites + And set God's Israel free. + I saw him when the war was done + In his rustic chair recline-- + By his campfire by the sea, + By the waves of Galilee. + + I've been to Palestine. + WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE? + Old John Brown. + Old John Brown. + And there he sits + To judge the world. + His hunting-dogs + At his feet are curled. + His eyes half-closed, + But John Brown sees + The ends of the earth, + The Day of Doom. + And his shot-gun lies + Across his knees-- + Old John Brown, + Old John Brown. + + + + III. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba + + (A Poem Game.) + + "And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, ... + she came to prove him with hard questions." + + + <The men's leader rises as he sees the Queen unveiling + and approaching a position that gives her half of the stage.> + + Men's Leader: The Queen of Sheba came to see King Solomon. + <He bows three times.> + I was King Solomon, + I was King Solomon, + I was King Solomon. + + <She bows three times.> + Women's Leader: I was the Queen, + I was the Queen, + I was the Queen. + + Both Leaders: We will be king and queen, + <They stand together stretching their hands over the land.> + Reigning on mountains green, + Happy and free + For ten thousand years. + + <They stagger forward as though carrying a yoke together.> + Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four hundred oxen. + + Congregation: We were the oxen. + + <Here King and Queen pause at the footlights.> + Both Leaders: You shall feel goads no more. + <They walk backward, throwing off the yoke and rejoicing.> + Walk dreadful roads no more, + Free from your loads + For ten thousand years. + + <The men's leader goes forward, the women's leader dances round him.> + Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four hundred sweethearts. + + <Here he pauses at the footlights.> + Congregation: We were the sweethearts. + + <He walks backward. Both clap their hands to the measure.> + Both Leaders: You shall dance round again, + You shall dance round again, + Cymbals shall sound again, + Cymbals shall sound again, + <The Queen appears to gather wildflowers.> + Wildflowers be found + For ten thousand years, + Wildflowers be found + For ten thousand years. + + <He continues to command the congregation, the woman to dance. + He goes forward to the footlights.> + Both Leaders: And every sweetheart had four hundred swans. + + Congregation: We were the swans. + + <The King walks backward.> + Both Leaders: You shall spread wings again, + You shall spread wings again, + <Here a special dance, by the Queen: swans flying in circles.> + Fly in soft rings again, + Fly in soft rings again, + Swim by cool springs + For ten thousand years, + Swim by cool springs, + For ten thousand years. + + <The refrain "King Solomon" may be intoned by the men's leader + whenever it is needed to enable the women's leader to get to + her starting point. All the refrains may be likewise used.> + + Men's Leader: King Solomon, + King Solomon. + + Women's Leader: The Queen of Sheba asked him like a lady, + <They bow to each other--then give a pantomime + indicating a great rose garden.> + Bowing most politely: + "What makes the roses bloom + Over the mossy tomb, + Driving away the gloom + Ten thousand years?" + + Men's Leader: King Solomon made answer to the lady, + <They bow and confer. The Queen reserved, but taking cognizance. + The King wooing with ornate gestures of respect, and courtly animation.> + Bowing most politely: + "They bloom forever thinking of your beauty, + Your step so queenly and your eyes so lovely. + These keep the roses fair, + Young and without a care, + Making so sweet the air, + Ten thousand years." + + <The two, with a manner almost a cake walk, go forward.> + Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four hundred sons. + + <On this line, King and Queen pause before the footlights.> + Congregation: We were the sons. + + <Pantomime of crowning the audience.> + Both Leaders: Crowned by the throngs again, + <On this line they walk backward, playing great imaginary harps.> + You shall make songs again, + Singing along + For ten thousand years. + + <They go forward in a pony gallop, then stand pawing.> + Both Leaders: He gave each son four hundred prancing ponies. + + Congregation: We were the ponies. + + <They nod their heads, starting to walk backward.> + Both Leaders: You shall eat hay again, + <A pony dance by both, in circles.> + In forests play again, + Rampage and neigh + For ten thousand years. + + Men's Leader: King Solomon he asked the Queen of Sheba, + <They bow to each other, standing so that + each one commands half of the stage.> + Bowing most politely: + "What makes the oak-tree grow + Hardy in sun and snow, + Never by wind brought low + Ten thousand years?" + + Women's Leader: The Queen of Sheba answered like a lady, + <They bow to each other, again, with pantomime indicating a forest.> + Bowing most politely: + "It blooms forever thinking of your wisdom, + Your brave heart and the way you rule your kingdom. + These keep the oak secure, + Weaving its leafy lure, + Dreaming by fountains pure + Ten thousand years." + + <They go to the footlights with a sailor's lurch and hitch.> + Both Leaders: The Queen of Sheba had four hundred sailors. + + <The King and Queen pause.> + Congregation: We were the sailors. + + Both Leaders: You shall bring spice and ore + <They walk backward with slow long-armed gestures + indicating the entire horizon line.> + Over the ocean's floor, + Shipmates once more, + For ten thousand years. + + Women's Leader: The Queen of Sheba asked him like a lady, + <They bow to each other, the Queen indicating the depths of the sea.> + Bowing most politely: + "Why is the sea so deep, + What secret does it keep + While tides a-roaring leap + Ten thousand years?" + + Men's Leader: King Solomon made answer to the lady, + <They bow to each other, then confer; the Queen reserved, + but taking cognizance, the King wooing with ornate gestures + of respect and courtly admiration.> + Bowing most politely: + "My love for you is like the stormy ocean-- + Too deep to understand, + Bending to your command, + Bringing your ships to land + Ten thousand years." + King Solomon, + King Solomon. + + <They go to the footlights with the greatest possible strut.> + Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four hundred chieftains. + + Congregation: We were the chieftains. + + <The leaders stand with arms proudly folded.> + Both Leaders: You shall be proud again, + <They walk backward haughtily, laughing on the last lines.> + Dazzle the crowd again, + Laughing aloud + For ten thousand years. + + <From here on the whole production to be + much more solemn, elevated, religious.> + + <The leaders go forward to the footlights carrying imaginary torches.> + Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four hundred shepherds. + + <The man and woman pause at the footlights.> + Congregation: We were the shepherds. + + <They wander over the stage as though looking for lost lambs, + with torches held high.> + Both Leaders: You shall have torches bright, + Watching the folds by night, + Guarding the lambs aright, + Ten thousand years. + + Men's Leader: King Solomon he asked the Queen of Sheba, + <The King kneels, and indicates the entire sky with one long slow + gesture.> + Bowing most politely: + "Why are the stars so high, + There in the velvet sky, + Rolling in rivers by, + Ten thousand years?" + + Women's Leader: The Queen of Sheba answered like a lady, + <The Queen kneels opposite the King, + and gives the same gesture as she answers.> + Bowing most politely: + "They're singing of your kingdom to the angels, + They guide your chariot with their lamps and candles, + Therefore they burn so far-- + So you can drive your car + Up where the prophets are, + Ten thousand years." + + Men's Leader: King Solomon, + King Solomon. + + Both Leaders: King Solomon he kept the Sabbath holy. + <The two stand, commanding the audience.> + And spoke with tongues in prophet words so mighty + <The man and woman stamp and whirl with great noise and solemnity.> + We stamped and whirled and wept and shouted:-- + + Congregation Rises and Joins the Song: + .... "Glory." + We were his people. + + <On these two lines, man and woman stamp and whirl again, + gravely, magnificently.> + Both Leaders: You shall be wild and gay, + Green trees shall deck your way, + <On these two lines they kneel, commanding the audience.> + Sunday be every day, + Ten thousand years. + + <Now they rise and bow to each other and the audience, + maintaining a certain intention of benediction.> + King Solomon, + King Solomon. + + + + + How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza + + (A Negro Sermon.) + + + + Once, in a night as black as ink, + She drove him out when he would not drink. + Round the house there were men in wait + Asleep in rows by the Gaza gate. + But the Holy Spirit was in this man. + Like a gentle wind he crept and ran. + ("It is midnight," said the big town clock.) + + He lifted the gates up, post and lock. + The hole in the wall was high and wide + When he bore away old Gaza's pride + Into the deep of the night:-- + The bold Jack Johnson Israelite,-- + Samson-- + The Judge, + The Nazarite. + + The air was black, like the smoke of a dragon. + Samson's heart was as big as a wagon. + He sang like a shining golden fountain. + He sweated up to the top of the mountain. + He threw down the gates with a noise like judgment. + And the quails all ran with the big arousement. + + But he wept--"I must not love tough queens, + And spend on them my hard earned means. + I told that girl I would drink no more. + Therefore she drove me from her door. + Oh sorrow! + Sorrow! + I cannot hide. + Oh Lord look down from your chariot side. + You made me Judge, and I am not wise. + I am weak as a sheep for all my size." + + Let Samson + Be coming + Into your mind. + + The moon shone out, the stars were gay. + He saw the foxes run and play. + He rent his garments, he rolled around + In deep repentance on the ground. + + Then he felt a honey in his soul. + Grace abounding made him whole. + Then he saw the Lord in a chariot blue. + The gorgeous stallions whinnied and flew. + The iron wheels hummed an old hymn-tune + And crunched in thunder over the moon. + And Samson shouted to the sky: + "My Lord, my Lord is riding high." + + Like a steed, he pawed the gates with his hoof. + He rattled the gates like rocks on the roof, + And danced in the night + On the mountain-top, + Danced in the deep of the night: + The Judge, the holy Nazarite, + Whom ropes and chains could never bind. + + Let Samson + Be coming + Into your mind. + + Whirling his arms, like a top he sped. + His long black hair flew round his head + Like an outstretched net of silky cord, + Like a wheel of the chariot of the Lord. + + Let Samson + Be coming + Into your mind. + + Samson saw the sun anew. + He left the gates in the grass and dew. + He went to a county-seat a-nigh. + Found a harlot proud and high: + Philistine that no man could tame-- + Delilah was her lady-name. + Oh sorrow, + Sorrow, + She was too wise. + She cut off his hair, + She put out his eyes. + + Let Samson + Be coming + Into your mind. + + + + + + + + ---------------------------------------------- + | The following pages contain advertisements | + | of other books by the same author | + | which appeared in the 1918 copy. | + ---------------------------------------------- + + + + + + +By the Same Author + + + +A Handy Guide for Beggars + New Edition. Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 + +"The Handy Guide for Beggars" is an introduction to all Vachel Lindsay's +work. It gives his first adventures afoot. He walked through Florida, +Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, in the spring of 1906. +He walked through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and on to Hiram, Ohio, +in the spring of 1908. He carried on these trips his poems: +"The Tree of Laughing Bells", "The Heroes of Time", etc. +He recited them in exchange for food and lodging. He left copies +for those who appeared interested. The book is a record of these +journeys, and of many pleasing discoveries about American Democracy. + +This book serves to introduce the next, "Adventures While Preaching +the Gospel of Beauty". In the spring and summer of 1912, +Mr. Lindsay walked from Springfield, Illinois, west to Colorado, +and into New Mexico. He was much more experienced in the road. +He carried "Rhymes to Be Traded for Bread", "The Village Improvement +Parade", etc. As is indicated in the title, he wrestled with a theory +of American aesthetics. "Christmas, 1915", the third book in the series, +appeared, applying the "Gospel of Beauty to the Photoplay". +The ideas of Art and Democracy that develop in the first two books +are used as the basic principles in "The Art of the Moving Picture". +Those who desire a close view of the Lindsay idea will do well +to read the three works in the order named. Further particulars +in the pages following. + + + +The Congo and Other Poems + With a preface by Harriet Monroe, Editor of the 'Poetry Magazine'. + Cloth, 12mo, $1.25; leather, $1.60 + +In the readings which Vachel Lindsay has given for colleges, +universities, etc., throughout the country, he has won the approbation +of the critics and of his audiences in general for the new verse-form +which he is employing, as well as the manner of his chanting and +singing, which is peculiarly his own. He carries in memory all the poems +in his books, and recites the program made out for him; the wonderful +effect of sound produced by his lines, their relation to the idea which +the author seeks to convey, and their marvelous lyrical quality are quite +beyond the ordinary, and suggest new possibilities and new meanings in +poetry. It is his main object to give his already established friends +a deeper sense of the musical intention of his pieces. + +The book contains the much discussed "War Poem", "Abraham Lincoln Walks +at Midnight"; it contains among its familiar pieces: "The Santa Fe +Trail", "The Firemen's Ball", "The Dirge for a Righteous Kitten", +"The Griffin's Egg", "The Spice Tree", "Blanche Sweet", "Mary Pickford", +"The Soul of the City", etc. + +Mr. Lindsay received the Levinson Prize for the best poem contributed +to 'Poetry', a magazine of verse, (Chicago) for 1915. + +"We do not know a young man of any more promise than Mr. Vachel Lindsay +for the task which he seems to have set himself."--'The Dial'. + + + +General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems + Price, $1.25; leather, $1.60 + +This book contains among other verses: "On Reading Omar Khayyam +during an Anti-Saloon Campaign in Illinois"; "The Wizard Wind"; +"The Eagle Forgotten", a Memorial to John P. Altgeld; +"The Knight in Disguise", a Memorial to O. Henry; "The Rose and the +Lotus"; "Michaelangelo"; "Titian"; "What the Hyena Said"; "What Grandpa +Mouse Said"; "A Net to Snare the Moonlight"; "Springfield Magical"; +"The Proud Farmer"; "The Illinois Village"; "The Building of +Springfield". + +-------- + +Comments on the Title Poem: + +"This poem, at once so glorious, so touching and poignant +in its conception and expression ... is perhaps the most remarkable poem +of a decade--one that defies imitation."--'Review of Reviews'. + +"A sweeping and penetrating vision that works with a naive charm.... +No American poet of to-day is more a people's poet."--'Boston +Transcript'. + +"One could hardly overpraise 'General Booth'."--'New York Times'. + +"Something new in verse, spontaneous, passionate, unmindful of +conventions in form and theme."--'The Living Age'. + + + +Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty + Price, $1.00 + +This is a series of happening afoot while reciting at back-doors in the +west, and includes some experiences while harvesting in Kansas. +It includes several proclamations which apply the Gospel of Beauty +to agricultural conditions. There are, among other rhymed interludes: +"The Shield of Faith", "The Flute of the Lonely", "The Rose of Midnight", +"Kansas", "The Kallyope Yell". + + Something to Read + +Vachel Lindsay took a walk from his home in Springfield, Ill., +over the prairies to New Mexico. He was in Kansas in wheat-harvest +time and he worked as a farmhand, and he tells all about that. +He tells about his walks and the people he met in a little book, +"Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty". + +For the conditions of his tramps were that he should keep away +from cities, money, baggage, and pay his way by reciting his own poems. +And he did it. People liked his pieces, and tramp farmhands +with rough necks and rougher hands left off singing smutty limericks +and took to "Atalanta in Calydon" apparently because they preferred it. +Of motor cars, which gave him a lift, he says: "I still maintain +that the auto is a carnal institution, to be shunned by the truly +spiritual, but there are times when I, for one, get tired of being +spiritual." His story of the "Five Little Children Eating Mush" (that +was one night in Colorado, and he recited to them while they ate supper) +has more beauty and tenderness and jolly tears than all the expensive +sob stuff theatrical managers ever dreamed of. Mr. Lindsay doesn't need +to write verse to be a poet. His prose is poetry--poetry straight from +the soil, of America that is, and of a nobler America that is to be. +You cannot afford--both for your entertainment and for the REAL IDEA +that this young man has (of which we have said nothing)--to miss this +book.--Editorial from 'Collier's Weekly'. + + + +The Art of the Moving Picture + Price, $1.25 + +An effort to apply the Gospel of Beauty to a new art. + +The first section has an outline which is proposed as a basis +for photoplay criticism in America; chapters on: "The Photoplay of +Action", "The Intimate Photoplay", "The Picture of Fairy Splendor", +"The Picture of Crowd Splendor", "The Picture of Patriotic Splendor", +"The Picture of Religious Splendor", "Sculpture in Motion", +"Painting in Motion", "Furniture", "Trappings and Inventions in Motion", +"Architecture in Motion", "Thirty Differences between the Photoplays +and the Stage", "Hieroglyphics". The second section is avowedly +more discursive, being more personal speculations and afterthoughts, +not brought forward so dogmatically; chapters on: "The Orchestra +Conversation and the Censorship", "The Substitute for the Saloon", +"California and America", "Progress and Endowment", +"Architects as Crusaders", "On Coming Forth by Day", +"The Prophet Wizard", "The Acceptable Year of the Lord". + + For Late Reviews of Mr. Lindsay and his contemporaries read: + +'The New Republic': Articles by Randolph S. Bourne, December 5, 1914, +on the "Adventures While Preaching"; and Francis Hackett, December 25, +1915, on "The Art of the Moving Picture". + +'The Dial': Unsigned article by Lucien Carey, October 16, 1914, +on "The Congo", etc. + +'The Yale Review': Article by H. M. Luquiens, July, 1916, +on "The Art of the Moving Picture". + + General Articles on the Poetry Situation + +'The Century Magazine': "America's Golden Age in Poetry", March, 1916. + +'Harper's Monthly Magazine': "The Easy Chair", William Dean Howells, +September, 1915. + +'The Craftsman': "Has America a National Poetry?" Amy Lowell, July, +1916. + + + + + + +[End of original text.] + + + +Biographical Note: + +Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931): + (Vachel is pronounced Vay-chul, that is, it rhymes with 'Rachel'). + +"The Eagle that is Forgotten" and "The Congo" are two of 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 +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. + +---- + +From an anthology of verse by Jessie B. Rittenhouse (1913, 1917): + +"Lindsay, Vachel. Born November 10, 1879. Educated at Hiram College, +Ohio. He took up the study of art and studied at the Art Institute, +Chicago, 1900-03 and at the New York School of Art, 1904-05. For a time +after his technical study, he lectured upon art in its practical relation +to the community, and returning to his home in Springfield, Illinois, +issued what one might term his manifesto in the shape of "The Village +Magazine", divided about equally between prose articles, pertaining to +beautifying his native city, and poems, illustrated by his own drawings. +Soon after this, Mr. Lindsay, taking as scrip for the journey, "Rhymes +to be Traded for Bread", made a pilgrimage on foot through several +Western States going as far afield as New Mexico. The story of this +journey is given in his volume, "Adventures while Preaching the Gospel +of Beauty". Mr. Lindsay first attracted attention in poetry by "General +William Booth Enters into Heaven", a poem which became the title of his +first volume, in 1913. His second volume was "The Congo", published in +1914. He is attempting to restore to poetry its early appeal as a spoken +art, and his later work differs greatly from the selections contained +in this anthology." + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chinese Nightingale, by Vachel Lindsay + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHINESE NIGHTINGALE *** + +***** This file should be named 592.txt or 592.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/9/592/ + +Produced by A. 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