Vachel Lindsay

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

Even the shrewd and bitter,
Gnarled by the old world's greed,
Cherished the stranger softly Seeing his utter need
Shelter and patient hearing,

[Written for a picture]The Youth speaks: —:"Why do you seek the sun In your bubble-crown ascending
Your chariot will melt to mist
Your crown will have an ending
" The Goddess replies: — :"Nay, sun is but a bubble,

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,

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

Where now the huts are empty,
Where never a camp-fire glows,
In an abandoned cañon,
A Gambler's Ghost arose

What the Carpenter
The moon's a cottage with a door
Some folks can see it plain
Look, you may catch a glint of light,

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...

Let not young souls be smothered out
They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride
It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull,
Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed

Let not our town be large, remembering That little Athens was the Muses' home,
That Oxford rules the heart of London still,
That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome
Record it for the grandson of your son — A city is not builded in...

Would that by Hindu magic we became Dark monks of jeweled India long ago,
Sitting at Prince Siddartha's feet to know The foolishness of gold and love and station,
The gospel of the Great Renunciation,
The ragged cloak, the staff, th...

The North Star whispers: "You are one Of those whose course no chance can change
You blunder, but are not undone,
Your spirit-task is fixed and strange
"When here you walk, a bloodless shade,