Vachel Lindsay

[Written while a field-worker
in the Anti-Saloon League of Illinois]King Arthur’s men have come again.
They challenge everywhere
The foes of Christ’s Eternal Church.…

THE moon's a steaming chalice,
Of honey and venom-wine.
A little of it sipped by night
Makes the long hours divine.…

The wide Pacific waters
And the Atlantic meet.
With cries of joy they mingle,
In tides of love they greet.…

Climbing the heights of Berkeley
Nightly I watch the West.
There lies new San Francisco,
Sea-maid in purple dressed,…

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.

Think not that incense-smoke has had its day.
My friends, the incense-time has but begun.
Creed upon creed, cult upon cult shall bloom,
Shrine after shrine grow gray beneath the sun.And mountain-boulders in our aged West…

(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.…

O you who lose the art of hope,
Whose temples seem to shrine a lie,
Whose sidewalks are but stones of fear,
Who weep that Liberty must die,…

The moon’s a little prairie-dog.
He shivers through the night.
He sits upon his hill and cries
For fear that I will bite.The sun’s a broncho. He’s afraid…

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.Man is a curious brute — he pets his fancies —…

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.IPeace-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,…

And must the Senator from Illinois
Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes?
This brazen gutter idol, reared to power
Upon a leering pyramid of lies?And must the Senator from Illinois…

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,
A singer all men else forget.

(Matthew V, 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,…

WRITTEN FOR LORADO TAFT’S STATUE OF BLACK HAWK AT OREGON, ILLINOIS

[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]”He could not forget that he was a Sidney.”Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?This is that dubious hero of the press
Whose slangy tongue and insolent address
Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon…

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

’Tis not too late to build our young land right,
Cleaner than Holland, courtlier than Japan,
Devout like early Rome, with hearths like hers,
Hearths that will recreate the breed called man.

Awake again in Asia, Lord of Peace,
Awake and preach, for her far swordsmen rise.
And would they sheathe the sword before you, friend,
Or scorn your way, while looking in your eyes?Good comrade and philosopher and prince,…

The Drunkards in the street are calling one another,
Heeding not the night-wind, great of heart and gay, —
Publicans and wantons —
Calling, laughing, calling,…

The cornfields rise above mankind,
Lifting white torches to the blue,
Each season not ashamed to be
Magnificently decked for you.What right have you to call them yours,…

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
That which is gendered in the wilderness
From lonely prairies and God’s tenderness.
Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,…

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…