Poets' Corner - Vachel Lindsay

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The Flower-Fed Buffaloes

THE flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prarie flowers lie low:
The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass
Is swept away by wheat,
Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by
In the spring that still is sweet.
But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
Left us long ago,
They gore no more, they bellow no more:--
With the Blackfeet lying low,
With the Pawnee lying low.: Vachel Lindsay

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

IT is portentious, and a thing of state: That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,: Near the old court-house, pacing up and down.
Or by his homestead, or by shadowed yards: He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones: He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,: A famous high top-hat, and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint, great figure that men love,: The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.: He is among us:--as in times before!
And we who toss or lie awake for long: Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.: Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,: Too many homesteads in black terror weep.
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.: He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now: The bitterness, the folly and the pain.
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn: Shall come:--the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,: Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,: That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace: That he may sleep upon his hill again?; Vachel Lindsay

An Indian Summer Day on the Prarie

(IN THE BEGINING)
THE sun is a huntress young,
The sun is a red, red joy,
The sun is an indian girl,
Of the tribe of the Illinois.: (MID-MORNING)
The sun is a smouldering fire,
That creeps through the high gray plain,
And leaves not a bush of cloud
To blossom with flowers of rain.: (NOON)
The sun is a wounded deer,
That treads pale grass in the skies,
Shaking his golden horns,
Flashing his baleful eyes.: (SUNSET)
The sun is an eagle old,
There in the windless west.
Atop of the spirit-cliffs
He builds him a crimson nest.: Vachel Lindsay

Love and Law

TRUE Love is founded in rocks of Remembrance
In stones of Forbearance and mortar of pain.
The workman lays wearily granite on granite,
And bleeds for his castle, 'mid sunshine and rain.
Love is not velvet, not all of it velvet,
Not all of it banners, not gold-leaf alone.
'Tis stern as the ages and old as Religion.
With Patience its watchword and Law for its throne.: Vachel Lindsay

Factory Windows are Always Broken

FACTORY windows are always broken.
Somebody's always throwing bricks,
Somebody's always heaving cinders,
Playing ugly Yahoo tricks.
Factory windows are always broken.
Other windows are let alone.
No one throws through the chapel-window
The bitter, snarling, derisive stone.
Factory windows are always broken.
Something or other is going wrong.
Something is rotten--I think, in Denmark.
End of factory-window song.: Vachel Lindsay

Euclid

OLD Euclid drew a circle
On a sand-beach long ago.
He bounded and enclosed it
With angles thus and so.
His set of solemn greybeards
Nodded and argued much
Of arc and circumference,
Diameter and such.
A silent child stood by them
From morning until noon
Because they drew such charming
Round pictures of the moon.: Vachel Lindsay

To Gloriana

GIRL with the burning golden eyes,
And red-bird song, and snowy throat:
I bring you gold and silver moons,
And diamond stars, and mists that float.
I bring you moons and snowy clouds,
I bring you prarie skies to-night
To feebly praise your golden eyes
And red-bird song, and throat so white.: Vachel Lindsay

Drying Their Wings

THE moon's a cottage with a door.
Some folks can see it plain.
Look, you may catch a glint of light,
A sparkle through the pane,
Showing the place is brighter still
Within, though bright without.
There, at a cosy open fire
Strange babes are grouped about.
The children of the wind and tide--
The urchins of the sky,
Drying their wings from storms and things
So they again can fly.: Vachel Lindsay

A Sense of Humor

NO man should stand before the moon
To make sweet song thereon,
With dandified importance,
His sense of humor gone.
Nay, let us don the motley cap,
The jester's chastened mien,
If we would woo that looking-glass
And see what should be seen.
O mirror on fair Heaven's wall,
We find there what we bring.
So, let us smile in honest part
And deck our souls and sing.
Yea, by the chastened jest alone
Will ghosts and terrors pass,
And fays, or suchlike friendly things,
Throw kisses through the glass.: Vachel Lindsay

On the Garden Wall

OH, once I walked a garden
In dreams. 'Twas yellow grass.
And many orange-trees grew there
In sand as white as glass.
The curving, wide wall-border
Was marble, like the snow.
I walked that wall a fairy-prince
And, pacing quaint and slow,
Beside me were my pages,
Two giant, friendly birds.
Half swan they were, half peacock.
They spake in courtier-words.
Their inner wings a charriot,
Their outer wings for flight,
They lifted me from dreamland.
We bade those trees good-night.
Swiftly above the stars we rode.
I looked below me soon.
The white-walled garden I had ruled
Was one lone flower--the moon.: Vachel Lindsay

Written for a Musician

HUNGRY for music with a desperate hunger
I prowled abroad, I threaded through the town;
The evening crowd was clamoring and drinking,
Vulgar and pitiful--my heart bowed down--
Till I remembered duller hours made noble
By strangers clad in some suprising grace.
Wait, wait my soul, your music comes ere midnight
Appearing in some unexpected place
With quivering lips, and gleaming, moonlit face.: Vachel Lindsay

What Semiramis Said

THE moon's a steaming chalice,: Of honey and venom-wine.
A little of it sipped by night: Makes the long hours divine.
But oh, my reckless lovers,: They drain the cup and wail,
Die at my feet with shaking limbs: And tender lips all pale.
Above them in the sky it bends: Empty and gray and dead.
To-morrow night 'tis full again,: Golden, and foaming red.; Vachel Lindsay

What the Ghost of the Gambler Said

WHERE now the huts are empty,
Where never a camp-fire glows,
In an abandoned cañon,
A Gambler's Ghost arose.
He muttered there, "The moon's a sack
Of dust." His voice rose thin:
"I wish I knew the miner-man.
I'd play, and play to win.
In every game in Cripple-creek
Of old, when stakes were high,
I held my own. Now I would play
For that sack in the sky.
The sport would not be ended there.
'Twould rather be begun.
I'd bet my moon against his stars,
And gamble for the sun.: Vachel Lindsay

This Section is a Christmas Tree

THIS section is a Christmas tree:
Loaded with pretty toys for you.
Behold the blocks, the Noah's arks,
The popguns painted red and blue.
No solemn pine-cone forest-fruit,
But silver horns and candy sacks
And many little tinsel hearts
And cherubs pink, and jumping-jacks.
For every child a gift, I hope.
The doll upon the topmost bough
Is mine. But all the rest are yours.
And I will light the candles now.: Vachel Lindsay

Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread"

EVEN the shrewd and bitter,
Gnarled by the old world's greed,
Cherished the stranger softly
Seeing his utter need.
Shelter and patient hearing,
These were their gifts to him,
To the minstrel chanting, begging,
As the sunset-fire grew dim.
The rich said "you are welcome."
Yea, even the rich were good.
How strange that in their feasting
His songs were understood!
The doors of the poor were open,
The poor who had wandered too,
Who slept with never a roof-tree
Under the wind and dew.
The minds of the poor were open,
There dark mistrust was dead:
They loved his wizard stories,
They bought his rhymes with bread.
Those were his days of glory,
Of faith in his fellow-men.
Therefore to-day the singer
Turns beggar once again.: Vachel Lindsay

The Dandelion

O DANDELION, rich and haughty,
King of village flowers!
Each day is coronation time,
You have no humble hours.
I like to see you bring a troop
To beat the blue-grass spears,
To scorn the lawn-mower that would be
Like fate's triumphant shears,
Your yellow heads are cut away,
It seems your reign is o'er.
By noon you raise a sea of stars
More golden than before.: Vachel Lindsay

A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign

I LOOK on the specious electrical light
Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white,
Wickedly red or malignantly green
Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen.
Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,
The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn,
By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl,
Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl,
By maggotry motions in sickening line
Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine,
While there far above the steep cliffs of the street
The stars sing a message elusive and sweet.
Now man cannot rest in his pleasure and toil
His clumsy contraptions of coil upon coil
Till the thing he invents, in its use and its range,
Leads on to the marvelous CHANGE BEYOND CHANGE
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies,
As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise.
And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night,
Till we join with the planets who choir their delight.
The signs in the street and the signs in the skies
Shall make me a Zodiac, guiding and wise,
And Broadway make one with that marvelous stair
That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.: Vachel Lindsay

The Rose of Midnight

THE moon is now an opening flower,: The sky a cliff of blue.
The moon is now a silver rose;: Her pollen is the dew.
Her pollen is the mist that swings: Across her face of dreams:
Her pollen is the April rain,: Filling the April streams.
Her pollen is eternal life,: Endless ambrosial foam.
It feeds the swarming stars and fills: Their hearts with honeycomb.
The earth is but a passion-flower: With blood upon his crown.
And what shall fill his failing veins: And lift his head, bowed down?
This cup of peace, this silver rose: Bending with fairy breath
Shall lift that passion-flower, the earth: A million times from Death!; Vachel Lindsay

The Prarie Battlements

HERE upon the prarie
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 gray Queen Silver Dreams,
Always signing 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 prarie grave.
The King and Queen lie low,
And aged Grandma Silver Dreams,
Four toombstones 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.: Vachel Lindsay