Nicholas Vachel Lindsay

“ The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.)
Every banner that the wide world flies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes.
Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang,
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang:—
"Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
Hallelujah! It was queer to see
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.
Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
On, on upward thro' the golden air! ”

“ Angels before the throne:
Kiss me and comfort my heart,
For love can never be mine:
Passion, hunger and pain,
These are the only wine
Of the pilgrim bound to the road.
He would rob no man of his own. ”

“ His songs were understood!
The doors of the poor were open,
The poor who had wandered too,
Who had slept with ne'er a roof-tree
Under the wind and dew.
The minds of the poor were open,
Their dark mistrust was dead. ”

“ BEYOND THE MOON
[Written to the Most Beautiful Woman in the World]
MY Sweetheart is the truth beyond the moon,
And never have I been in love with Woman,
Always aspiring to be set in tune
With one who is invisible, inhuman. ”

“ All prove our Father's mind.
The dew, the rain and moonlight
Descend to bless mankind.
Come, let us see that all men
Have land to catch the rain,
Have grass to snare the spheres of dew,
And fields spread for the grain. ”

“ We heard the dawn-wind sing,
I made from ocean-wonders,
Her bridal wreath and ring.
All mortal girls were shadows,
All earth-life but a mist,
When deep beneath the maelstrom,
The mermaid's heart I kissed. ”

“ Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends
pale—
Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail:—
Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death—
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) ”

“ Her gliding hands were fire,
Her lilac breath upon our cheeks
Consumed us with desire.
By her our God began to build,
Began to sow and till.
He laid foundations in our loves
For every good and ill. ”

“ STAR of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manager-bed. ”

“ The rose is as a dart.
The lotos is Nirvana:
The rose is Mary's heart.
The rose is deathless, restless,
The splendor of our pain:
The flush and fire of labor
That builds, not all in vain. . . . ”

“ Loves foemen brisk and game,
Tho', just to please the angels,
He may send down his flame.
God loves the golden leopard
Tho' he may spoil her lair.
God smites, yet loves the lion.
God makes the panther fair. ”

“ Upon its panels written,
"Judgment is no more."
The bolt flew back with thunder,
I saw within that place
A mermaid wrapped in seaweed
With Mab's immortal face,
Yet grown now to a woman,
A woman to the knee. ”

“ Bordered in gold and blue,
And I read each line to the wind
And read to the roses too:
And they nodded their womanly heads
And told to the wall just why
For wine of the earth men bleed,
Kingdoms and empires die. ”

“ Seek to be as others are,
Stultify the soul.
Reapings now confront them,
Glut them, or destroy,
Curious seeds, grain or weeds
Sown with awful joy.
Hurried is their harvest,
They make soft peace with men. ”

“ He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer.
He comes with megaphone and specious cheer.
His troupe, too fat or short or long or lean,
Step from the pages of the magazine
With slapstick or sombrero or with cane:
The tube, the cowboy or the masher vain.
They over-act each part. But at the height
Of banter and of canter and delight
The masks fall off for one queer instant there
And show real faces: faces full of care
And desperate longing: love that's hot or cold ”

“ Dancers that own immortal hours;
Painters that work upon their knees;
Maids, lovers, friends, so deep in life,
So deep in love and poet's deeds,
The railroad is a thing disowned,
The city but a field of weeds. ”

“ Only the farthest star
Is cool for willow wings.
"There's a sky within the west—
There's a sky beyond the skies
Where only one star shines—
The Star of Laughing Bells—
In Chaos-land it lies ”

“ Such as comes if we have jail release.
Cards are puzzles, tho' the prize be gold,
Cards help not the bread that tastes of mold,
Cards dye not your hair to black more deep,
Cards make not the children cease to weep. ”

“ Lining his walls with books from everywhere.
He read by night, be built his world by day.
The farm and house of God to him were one.
For forty years he preached and plowed and wrought—
A statesman in the fields, who bent to none. ”

“ BOOTH led boldly with his big bass drum—
(Are you washed in the blood of the
Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said:
"He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) ”

“ Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."
What will you trading frogs do on a day
When Armageddon thunders thro' the land;
When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame,
His ballot or his musket in his hand? ”

“ The tiger with velvet feet,
The lion, crept to the light
Whining for bullock meat.
We fed them and stroked their necks . . .
They took their way to the fen
Where they hunted or hid all night;
No enemies, they, of men. ”

“ In Illinois.
Where ragged ditches ran
Now springs of Heaven began
Celestial drink for man
In Illinois.
There stood beside the town
Beneath its incense-crown
An angel and a clown
In Illinois. ”

“ To the end in a strong fond life.
Her captor, by chance was one
Of those whose passion was done,
A cold fierce worm of the sea
Enslaving for you and me.
The wages the poor must take
Have forced them to serve this snake. ”

“ When all the smothering by-streets weep and wail;
When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best sons;
When kingly men, voting for truth, may fail :—
These are a portent and a call to arms.
Our protest turns into a battle cry:
"Our shame must end, our States be free and clean ”

“ We had not learned to speak,
I was to you a strange
Wolfing or wounded fawn,
Lost from his forest-range.
Thirsting for bloody meat,
Out at the dawn we went.
Weighted with our prey at eve,
Home-came we all forespent. ”

“ These caverns are their dwelling-place.
The Moon-Worms, serpents of the skies,
From the great hollows of her eyes
Behold all souls, and they are wise:
With tiny, keen and icy eyes,
Behold how each man sins and dies. ”

“ For half a hundred years:
Men hurry so they have no griefs,
Nor even idle tears:
They hurry so they have no loves:
They cannot curse nor laugh—
Their hearts die in their youth with neither
Grave nor epitaph. ”

“ Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own.
Sleep on, O brave hearted, O wise man, that
kindled the flame—
To live in mankind is far more than to live in
a name,
To live in mankind, far, far more * * * than
to live in a name. ”

“ Shaking the hills with power,
Slaying the hidden demons,
The lions that devour.
No bloodshed in the wrestling,—
But souls new-born arise—
The nations growing kinder,
The child-hearts growing wise. ”

“ The road is calling. With the winds you go,
Forgetting her imperious disdain—
Quenching all memory in the sun and rain."
"Excellent Lord, I come. But first," I said,
"Grand that I bring her these twelve roses red. ”

“ Layout 2
EDEN IN WINTER
[Supposed to be chanted to some rude instrument at a modern fireplace]
CHANT we the story now
Tho' in a house we sleep;
Tho' by a hearth of coals
Vigil to-night we keep. ”

“ But we were dressed for winters
And loved to hear it blow
In honor of the lady
Who makes potatoes grow—
Our guest, the Irish lady,
The tiny Irish lady,
The fairy Irish lady
That makes potatoes grow. ”

“ Toil is never ceasing.—We will play until we near it.
Tears are never ending.—When once real tears have come;
"When we see our people as they are—
Our fathers—broken, dumb—
Our mothers—broken, dumb—
The weariest of women and of men ”

“ In an hour, in an hour it was done!
The wings in their morning flight
Were a thousand times ten thousand times
More swift than beams of light.
He Gives What He Won to the Indian Girl
I panted in the grassy wood ”

“ They live and hate and go.
I wonder if the gardener heard
The rose that told him so?
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1928.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1931, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 91 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”

“ Psalms that cannot pass away.
"David waits," the prophet answers,
"In a black notorious den,
In a cave upon the border
With four hundred outlaw men.
"He is fair, and loved of women,
Mighty-hearted, born to sing ”