General William Booth enters into heaven and other poems / Vachel Lindsay [electronic text]

A GOSPEL OF BEAUTY

I recited these three poems more than any others in my late mendicant preaching tour through the West. Taken as a triad, they hold in solution my theory of American civilization.

THE PROUD FARMER

[In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana]

INTO the acres of the newborn state He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name, And, when the traders followed him, he stood Towering above their furtive souls and tame.

That brow without a stain, that fearless eye Oft left the passing stranger wondering

To find such knighthood in the sprawling land, To see a democrat well-nigh a king.

He lived with liberal hand, with guests from far, With talk and joke and fellowship to spare, — Watching the wide world's life from sun to sun, Lining his walls with books from everywhere. He read by night, he 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.

His plowmen-neighbors were as lords to him. His was an ironside, democratic pride. He served a rigid Christ, but served him well — And, for a lifetime, saved the countryside.

Here lie the dead, who gave the church their best Under his fiery preaching of the word. They sleep with him beneath the ragged grass... The village withers, by his voice unstirred.

And tho' his tribe be scattered to the wind From the Atlantic to the China sea, Yet do they think of that bright lamp he burned Of family worth and proud integrity.

And many a sturdy grandchild hears his name In reverence spoken, till he feels akin To all the lion-eyed who built the world — And lion-dreams begin to burn within.

THE ILLINOIS VILLAGE

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, Turn to the little prairie towns, Your higher hope shall yet begin. On every side awaits you there Some gate where glory enters in.

Yet when I see the flocks of girls, Watching the Sunday train go thro' (As tho' the whole wide world went by) With eyes that long to travel too, I sigh, despite my soul made glad By cloudy dresses and brown hair, Sigh for the sweet life wrenched and torn By thundering commerce, fierce and bare. Nymphs of the wheat these girls should be: Kings of the grove, their lovers strong. Why are they not inspired, aflame? This beauty calls for valiant song —

For men to carve these fairy-forms And faces in a fountain-frieze; 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.

Who can pass a village church By night in these clean prairie lands Without a touch of Spirit-power? So white and fixed and cool it stands — A thing from some strange fairy-town, A pious amaranthine flower, Unsullied by the winds, as pure As jade or marble, wrought this hour: — Rural in form, foursquare and plain, And yet our sister, the new moon, Makes it a praying wizard's dream. The trees that watch at dusty noon Breaking its sharpest lines, veil not The whiteness it reflects from God, Flashing like Spring on many an eye, Making clean flesh, that once was clod.

Who can pass a district school Without the hope that there may wait

Some baby-heart the books shall flame With zeal to make his playmates great, To make the whole wide village gleam A strangely carved celestial gem, Eternal in its beauty-light, The Artist's town of Bethlehem!

ON THE BUILDING OF SPRINGFIELD

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 a day: Our little town cannot complete her soul Till countless generations pass away.

Now let each child be joined as to a church To her perpetual hopes, each man ordained: Let every street be made a reverent aisle Where Music grows and Beauty is unchained.

Let Science and Machinery and Trade Be slaves of her, and make her all in all, Building against our blatant, restless time An unseen, skilful, medieval wall.

Let every citizen be rich toward God. Let Christ the beggar, teach divinity.

Let no man rule who holds his money dear. Let this, our city, be our luxury.

We should build parks that students from afar Would choose to starve in, rather than go home, Fair little squares, with Phidian ornament, Food for the spirit, milk and honeycomb.

Songs shall be sung by us in that good day, Songs we have written, blood within the rhyme Beating, as when Old England still was glad, — The purple, rich Elizabethan time.

. . . . . .

Say, is my prophecy too fair and far? I only know, unless her faith be high, The soul of this, our Nineveh, is doomed, Our little Babylon will surely die.

Some city on the breast of Illinois No wiser and no better at the start By faith shall rise redeemed, by faith shall rise Bearing the western glory in her heart.

The genius of the Maple, Elm and Oak, The secret hidden in each grain of corn,

The glory that the prairie angels sing At night when sons of Life and Love are born,

Born but to struggle, squalid and alone, Broken and wandering in their early years. When will they make our dusty streets their goal, Within our attics hide their sacred tears?

When will they start our vulgar blood athrill With living language, words that set us free? When will they make a path of beauty clear Between our riches and our liberty?

We must have many Lincoln-hearted men. A city is not builded in a day. And they must do their work, and come and go While countless generations pass away.