Vachel Lindsay

“ Across a world grown very old.
Vachel Lindsay (Nicholas) Vachel Lindsay was born in the house where he still lives in Springfield, Illinois, November 10, 1879. His home is next door to the Executive mansion of the State of Illinois; from the window where Lindsay does most of his writing, he saw many Governors come and go, including the martyred John P. Altgeld, whom he has celebrated in one of his finest poems. He graduated from the Springfield High School, attended Hiram College (1897-1900) , studied at the Art Institute at Chicago (1900-3) and at the New York School of Art (1904) . ”

“ As regards the American poets, I should say that it was particularly marked in the case of Vachel Lindsay.”
“I am on record,” declares Clement Wood, “that he is the greatest poet of his generation. I well remember when ‘Lepanto’ was recited to Vachel Lindsay by Floyd Dell; but Lindsay missed the rhythm which was ballad measure—seven beats to the line. Lindsay was influenced by Chesterton’s ballad measure which he re-used in the ‘Congo’ and other poems—but as four beats to the line. ”

“ Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879- ) , born in Springfield, Illinois, of which he is the most devoted and distinguished citizen since Lincoln, studied for three years at Hiram College and then for five years as an art student in Chicago and New York. Unfortunately his drawings are accessible only in a quarto pamphlet—“A Letter to Program Managers”—which is not for sale. They show the same vigor and the same antic play of fancy inherent in his verse. In 1906 he took his first long tramp through Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and in 1908 a second through the northeastern states. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My scalp must dangle at her belt.
“I begin to be almost reconciled to living in Springfield,” she muses, “Springfield is all society, you know, and it is hopeless to try to make it anything else. Of course there are some places where it pays to have ideas, but here a girl must conceal ideas if she has them.”
Then, in an instant, another Avanel seems to flash forth. “You think I am a snob and a fool, you silly art student, but I would die for the International Flag far sooner than people like your idol Sparrow Short.” ”

“ John A. Lomax has published two volumes of cowboy songs—most of them anonymous—full of tang, wild fancy and robust humor. The tradition of Harte and Hay is being carried on by such racy interpreters as Harry Herbert Knibbs, Badger Clark and Edwin Ford Piper. But, of all contemporaries who approximate the spirit of folk-poetry, none has made more striking or more indubitably American contributions than Vachel Lindsay of Springfield, Illinois.
LINDSAY, OPPENHEIM AND OTHERS Lindsay is essentially a people’s poet. He does not hesitate to express himself in terms of the lowest common denominator ”

“ Of all living Americans who have contributed to the advance of English poetry in the twentieth century, no one has given more both as prophet and priest than Vachel Lindsay. His poems are notable for originality, pictorial beauty, and thrilling music. He belongs to no modern school, but is doing his best to found one ”

“ I suppose, because of that faith, he also, Vachel Lindsay, the poet, is a flamboyant genius.
The higher we rose in the mountains the more serious became our conversation. We were silent only when we lost our breath. Upon occasion, in this grand and lonely scene, the poet would lift his voice so high that it could have been heard on the mountain on the other side of the valley. ”

“ The Devil was in my host. By his coaxing hospitality he made it seem natural that a woman deadly sick should serve us. The rest of the family could wait. It did not matter if the tiny one cried and pulled the mother’s skirt. She smote it into silence and fear, then carried it to the black corner where the potato planter herded the rest of the babies, helped by King Log, the walrus-headed.
The Gnome said, “I quit drinking ever since I had that fight I told you about. I don’t dare drink. So I take coffee.” ”

“ Her face was sodden as any in the slums of Chicago. She ran to the house a ragged girl, and came back a homespun girl, a quick change. It must not be counted against her that she did not wash her face.
The Gnome talked to me meanwhile. He had made up his mind about me. “I guess you want to stay all night?”
“Yes.”
“The next house is fifteen miles away. You are welcome if what we have is good enough for you. My wife is sick, but she will not let you be any bother.”
I wanted to be noble and walk on. But I persuaded myself my feet were as sick as the woman. I accepted the Gnome’s invitation. ”

“ I never wanted to run away again.” He shook his pipe at me. “You [56] are just a runaway boy, that’s what you are.”
He said something favorable about me to his wife, in the gnome language. She stood up. She shrilled back a caution. She showed her dirty teeth at him. But there was something he was bursting to tell me. He was essentially too reckless to conceal a secret long, even a life-and-death secret. He began: “I still raise a little corn.”
The Walrus gave a sort of watch-dog bark. The Gnome reluctantly accepted the caution. ”

“ He lowered his voice and pointed with his pipe stem: “Them people that live in the next house are supposed to be Cawcasians, but they haven’t a marriage license. They let their little girl go for beer this afternoon, for them fellows explodin’ powder over there. ’Taint no way to raise a child. That child’s mother was a well-behaved Methodist till she married a Polack, and had four children, and he died, and they died, and some say she poisoned them all. Now she’s got this child by this no-account white man. They live without a license, like birds. ”

“ It sheds an ineffable white light, it is almost as impalpable as a comet in the sky, yet a substance that comes flying through the walls as though they were but gleaming shadows. The air is filled with music from all the high heavens. ”

“ The Eagle that is Forgotten By Vachel Lindsay
(Poet and minstrel of Springfield, Illinois, born 1879; has tramped over many parts of the United States with his leaflet of “Rhymes to be Traded for Bread.” He has rediscovered the Homeric chant, and poured into it the life of the Middle West. The following poem is addressed to John P. Altgeld, once Governor of Illinois, who, having convinced himself that the so-called Chicago Anarchists were innocent of the crime charged against them, pardoned them, and thereby sacrificed his political career)
Sleep softly ... ”

“ I ENTER INTO THE NEW SPRINGFIELD OF 2018. I AM SNUBBED BY AVANEL, SHE RELENTS, SHOWING ME MANY PANORAMAS OF NEW SPRINGFIELD. WE CONFESS TO HAVING THE SAME DREAM OF DEVIL’S GOLD. But it is not after the noble manner of these others that I enter at last into the vision of 2018.
There is deep darkness, and time passing by without end, and shade. There is the fear of the moles that will not leave me alone, who make nests of alien dust, beneath my ribs. And my bones crumble through the century, like last year’s autumn leaves. ”

“ Yet there shall be no wavering there in that deep trial— And no false fire or stranger hand or traitor vile— We'll fight the gloom and fight the world with strong sword-play, Entrenched within our block-house small, ever at bay— As fellow-warriors, underpaid, wounded and wild, True to their battered flag, their faith still undefiled! ”

“ 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. ”

“ But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. ”

“ Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass:
There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass.
Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that soul might ride
And climb the glorious mysteries of Heaven's silent tide
In voyages that change the very metes and bounds of Fate—
O empty boats, we all refuse, that by our windows wait! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their children shall rise up to call them blessed. Their children shall be a world-conquering city all about them, before the relentless sun looks down upon their ruins, before that blazing lion of time shall have eaten their bones of steel. ”

“ That in the name of Jesus
The world shall be reborn!
Star of My Heart
Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are. ”

“ In a fever and a fret and in unutterable, earthly weariness, we shuffle amid heaps of old shields of blackened silver, amid helmets of brass and iron, amid ivory chariots and rotted harps and broken crowns and swords of rusted gold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 maggoty 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. ”

“ Our breath and our moods Were in tune with her own, Tremendous her presence, Eternal her throne. The ostracized child Our white foreheads kissed, Our bodies and souls Became lighter than mist. Sweet dresses like snow Our small lady-loves wore, Like moonlight the thoughts That our bosoms upbore. Like a lily the touch Of each cold little hand. The loves of the stars We could now understand. ”

“ California is a gilded state. It has not the sordidness of gold, as has Wall Street, but it is the embodiment of the natural ore that the ragged prospector finds. The gold of California is the color of the orange, the glitter of dawn in the Yosemite, the hue of the golden gate that opens the sunset way to mystic and terrible Cathay and Hindustan. ”

“ Gather the praying millions to its side,
And flow past halls with statues in white stone
To saints unborn to-day, whose lives of grace
Shall make one shining, universal church
Where all Faiths kneel, as brothers, in one place. ”

“ I see the years to come as armies vast, Stalking tremendous through the fields of time. MAN is unborn. To-morrow he is born, Flame-like to hover o'er the moil and grime, Striving, aspiring till the shame is gone, Sowing a million flowers, where now we mourn— Laying new, precious pavements with a song, Founding new shrines, the good streets to adorn. I have seen lovers by those new-built walls Clothed like the dawn in orange, gold and red. Eyes flashing forth the glory-light of love Under the wreaths that crowned each royal head. Life was made greater by their sweetheart prayers. ”

“ These lions have crept and ramped through the dark valleys of Heaven and they have the seeds of sweet flowers clinging to their feet and these singing birds of paradise have flown through the dark trees of heaven, and have the seeds of rare trees clinging to their pinions. ”

“ In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
The world will never see his kingdom bright.
Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night
Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
To that far sky where mystic births begin,
Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win.
Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there,
And each shall find his brother fair,
Like a little child within:
All hearts of the earth shall find new birth
And wake, no more to sin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ho for Kansas, land that restores us When houses choke us, and great books bore us! While I watch the highroad And look at the sky, While I watch the clouds in amazing grandeur Roll their legions without rain Over the blistering Kansas plain— While I sit by the milestone And watch the sky, The United States Goes by. ”