The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems
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Vachel Lindsay >> The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems
The Broncho that Would Not Be Broken
A little colt -- broncho, loaned to the farm
To be broken in time without fury or harm,
Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,
Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing . . .
The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,
The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,
So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,
O broncho that would not be broken of dancing?
You were born with the pride of the lords great and olden
Who danced, through the ages, in corridors golden.
In all the wide farm-place the person most human.
You spoke out so plainly with squealing and capering,
With whinnying, snorting, contorting and prancing,
As you dodged your pursuers, looking askance,
With Greek-footed figures, and Parthenon paces,
O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.
The grasshoppers cheered. "Keep whirling," they said.
The insolent sparrows called from the shed
"If men will not laugh, make them wish they were dead."
But arch were your thoughts, all malice displacing,
Though the horse-killers came, with snake-whips advancing.
You bantered and cantered away your last chance.
And they scourged you, with Hell in their speech and their faces,
O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.
"Nobody cares for you," rattled the crows,
As you dragged the whole reaper, next day, down the rows.
The three mules held back, yet you danced on your toes.
You pulled like a racer, and kept the mules chasing.
You tangled the harness with bright eyes side-glancing,
While the drunk driver bled you -- a pole for a lance --
And the giant mules bit at you -- keeping their places.
O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.
In that last afternoon your boyish heart broke.
The hot wind came down like a sledge-hammer stroke.
The blood-sucking flies to a rare feast awoke.
And they searched out your wounds, your death-warrant tracing.
And the merciful men, their religion enhancing,
Stopped the red reaper, to give you a chance.
Then you died on the prairie, and scorned all disgraces,
O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.
Souvenir of Great Bend, Kansas.
The Prairie Battlements
(To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect.)
Here upon the prairie
Is our ancestral hall.
Agate is the dome,
Cornelian the wall.
Ghouls are in the cellar,
But fays upon the stairs.
And here lived old King Silver Dreams,
Always at his prayers.
Here lived grey Queen Silver Dreams,
Always singing psalms,
And haughty Grandma Silver Dreams,
Throned with folded palms.
Here played cousin Alice.
Her soul was best of all.
And every fairy loved her,
In our ancestral hall.
Alice has a prairie grave.
The King and Queen lie low,
And aged Grandma Silver Dreams,
Four tombstones in a row.
But still in snow and sunshine
Stands our ancestral hall.
Agate is the dome,
Cornelian the wall.
And legends walk about,
And proverbs, with proud airs.
Ghouls are in the cellar,
But fays upon the stairs.
The Flower of Mending
(To Eudora, after I had had certain dire adventures.)
When Dragon-fly would fix his wings,
When Snail would patch his house,
When moths have marred the overcoat
Of tender Mister Mouse,
The pretty creatures go with haste
To the sunlit blue-grass hills
Where the Flower of Mending yields the wax
And webs to help their ills.
The hour the coats are waxed and webbed
They fall into a dream,
And when they wake the ragged robes
Are joined without a seam.
My heart is but a dragon-fly,
My heart is but a mouse,
My heart is but a haughty snail
In a little stony house.
Your hand was honey-comb to heal,
Your voice a web to bind.
You were a Mending Flower to me
To cure my heart and mind.
Alone in the Wind, on the Prairie
I know a seraph who has golden eyes,
And hair of gold, and body like the snow.
Here in the wind I dream her unbound hair
Is blowing round me, that desire's sweet glow
Has touched her pale keen face, and willful mien.
And though she steps as one in manner born
To tread the forests of fair Paradise,
Dark memory's wood she chooses to adorn.
Here with bowed head, bashful with half-desire
She glides into my yesterday's deep dream,
All glowing by the misty ferny cliff
Beside the far forbidden thundering stream.
Within my dream I shake with the old flood.
I fear its going, ere the spring days go.
Yet pray the glory may have deathless years,
And kiss her hair, and sweet throat like the snow.
To Lady Jane
Romance was always young.
You come today
Just eight years old
With marvellous dark hair.
Younger than Dante found you
When you turned
His heart into the way
That found the heavenly stair.
Perhaps we must be strangers.
I confess
My soul this hour is Dante's,
And your care
Should be for dolls
Whose painted hands caress
Your marvellous dark hair.
Romance, with moonflower face
And morning eyes,
And lips whose thread of scarlet prophesies
The canticles of a coming king unknown,
Remember, when you join him
On his throne,
Even me, your far off troubadour,
And wear
For me some trifling rose
Beneath your veil,
Dying a royal death,
Happy and pale,
Choked by the passion,
The wonder and the snare,
The glory and despair
That still will haunt and own
Your marvellous dark hair.
How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven
Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone
Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky.
God and the angels, and the gleaming saints
Had journeyed out into the stars to die.
They had gone forth to win far citizens,
Bought at great price, bring happiness for all:
By such a harvest make a holier town
And put new life within old Zion's wall.
Each chose a far-off planet for his home,
Speaking of love and mercy, truth and right,
Envied and cursed, thorn-crowned and scourged in time,
Each tasted death on his appointed night.
Then resurrection day from sphere to sphere
Sped on, with all the POWERS arisen again,
While with them came in clouds recruited hosts
Of sun-born strangers and of earth-born men.
And on that day gray prophet saints went down
And poured atoning blood upon the deep,
Till every warrior of old Hell flew free
And all the torture fires were laid asleep.
And Hell's lost company I saw return
Clear-eyed, with plumes of white, the demons bold
Climbed with the angels now on Jacob's stair,
And built a better Zion than the old.
. . . . .
And yet I walked alone on azure cliffs
A lifetime long, and loved each untrimmed vine:
The rotted harps, the swords of rusted gold,
The jungles of all Heaven then were mine.
Oh mesas and throne-mountains that I found!
Oh strange and shaking thoughts that touched me there,
Ere I beheld the bright returning wings
That came to spoil my secret, silent lair!
Fifth Section
The Poem Games
An Account of the Poem Games
In the summer of 1916 in the parlor of Mrs. William Vaughn Moody;
and in the following winter in the Chicago Little Theatre,
under the auspices of Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; and in Mandel Hall,
the University of Chicago, under the auspices of the Senior Class, --
these Poem Games were presented. Miss Eleanor Dougherty
was the dancer throughout. The entire undertaking developed
through the generous cooperation and advice of Mrs. William Vaughn Moody.
The writer is exceedingly grateful to Mrs. Moody and all concerned
for making place for the idea. Now comes the test of its vitality.
Can it go on in the absence of its initiators?
Mr. Lewellyn Jones, of the Chicago Evening Post, announced the affair
as a "rhythmic picnic". Mr. Maurice Browne of the Chicago Little Theatre
said Miss Dougherty was at the beginning of the old Greek Tragic Dance.
Somewhere between lies the accomplishment.
In the Congo volume, as is indicated in the margins,
the meaning of a few of the verses is aided by chanting.
In the Poem Games the English word is still first in importance,
the dancer comes second, the chanter third. The marginal directions
of King Solomon indicate the spirit in which all the pantomime was developed.
Miss Dougherty designed her own costumes, and worked out
her own stage business for King Solomon, The Potatoes' Dance,
The King of Yellow Butterflies and Aladdin and the Jinn (The Congo, page 140).
In the last, "`I am your slave,' said the Jinn" was repeated four times
at the end of each stanza.
The Poem Game idea was first indorsed in the Wellesley kindergarten,
by the children. They improvised pantomime and dance for the Potatoes' Dance,
while the writer chanted it, and while Professor Hamilton C. Macdougall
of the Wellesley musical department followed on the piano
the outline of the jingle. Later Professor Macdougall very kindly wrote down
his piano rendition. A study of this transcript helps to confirm the idea
that when the cadences of a bit of verse are a little exaggerated,
they are tunes, yet of a truth they are tunes which can be
but vaguely recorded by notation or expressed by an instrument.
The author of this book is now against instrumental music
in this type of work. It blurs the English.
Professor Macdougall has in various conversations helped the author
toward a Poem Game theory. He agrees that neither the dancing
nor the chanting nor any other thing should be allowed to run away
with the original intention of the words. The chanting should not be carried
to the point where it seeks to rival conventional musical composition.
The dancer should be subordinated to the natural rhythms of English speech,
and not attempt to incorporate bodily all the precedents
of professional dancing.
Speaking generally, poetic ideas can be conveyed word by word,
faster than musical feeling. The repetitions in the Poem Games
are to keep the singing, the dancing and the ideas at one pace.
The repetitions may be varied according to the necessities
of the individual dancer. Dancing is slower than poetry and faster than music
in developing the same thoughts. In folk dances and vaudeville,
the verse, music, and dancing are on so simple a basis the time elements
can be easily combined. Likewise the rhythms and the other elements.
Miss Dougherty is particularly illustrative in her pantomime,
but there were many verses she looked over and rejected
because they could not be rendered without blurring the original intent.
Possibly every poem in the world has its dancer somewhere waiting,
who can dance but that one poem. Certainly those poems would be
most successful in games, where the tone color is so close to the meaning
that any exaggeration of that color by dancing and chanting
only makes the story clearer. The writer would like to see some one try
Dryden's Alexander's Feast, or Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon.
Certainly in those poems the decorative rhythm and the meaning
are absolutely one.
With no dancing evolutions, the author of this book
has chanted John Brown and King Solomon for the last two years
for many audiences. It took but a minute to teach the people the responses.
As a rule they had no advance notice they were going to sing.
The versifier sang the parts of the King and Queen in turn,
and found each audience perfectly willing to be the oxen, the sweethearts,
the swans, the sons, the shepherds, etc.
A year ago the writer had the honor of chanting for
the Florence Fleming Noyes school of dancers. In one short evening
they made the first section of the Congo into an incantation,
the King Solomon into an extraordinarily graceful series of tableaus,
and the Potatoes' Dance into a veritable whirlwind.
Later came the more elaborately prepared Chicago experiment.
In the King of Yellow Butterflies and the Potatoes' Dance
Miss Dougherty occupied the entire eye of the audience and interpreted,
while the versifier chanted the poems as a semi-invisible orchestra,
by the side of the curtain. For Aladdin and for King Solomon
Miss Dougherty and the writer divided the stage between them,
but the author was little more than the orchestra. The main intention
was carried out, which was to combine the work of the dancer
with the words of the production and the responses of the audience.
The present rhymer has no ambitions as a stage manager.
The Poem Game idea, in its rhythmic picnic stage, is recommended to amateurs,
its further development to be on their own initiative.
Informal parties might divide into groups of dancers and groups of chanters.
The whole might be worked out in the spirit in which
children play King William was King James' Son, London Bridge,
or As We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. And the author of this book
would certainly welcome the tragic dance, if Miss Dougherty
will gather a company about her and go forward, using any acceptable poems,
new or old. Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon is perhaps
the most literal and rhythmic example of the idea we have in English,
though it may not be available when tried out.
The main revolution necessary for dancing improvisers,
who would go a longer way with the Poem Game idea,
is to shake off the Isadora Duncan and the Russian precedents for a while,
and abolish the orchestra and piano, replacing all these
with the natural meaning and cadences of English speech.
The work would come closer to acting, than dancing is now conceived.
The King of Yellow Butterflies
(A Poem Game.)
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
Now orders forth his men.
He says "The time is almost here
When violets bloom again."
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
They shiver by the shallow pools,
They shiver by the shallow pools,
They shiver by the shallow pools,
And whimper of the cold.
They drink and drink. A frail pretense!
They love to pose and preen.
Each pool is but a looking glass,
Where their sweet wings are seen.
Each pool is but a looking glass,
Where their sweet wings are seen.
Each pool is but a looking glass,
Where their sweet wings are seen.
Gentlemen adventurers! Gypsies every whit!
They live on what they steal. Their wings
By briars are frayed a bit.
Their loves are light. They have no house.
And if it rains today,
They'll climb into your cattle-shed,
They'll climb into your cattle-shed,
They'll climb into your cattle-shed,
And hide them in the hay,
And hide them in the hay,
And hide them in the hay,
And hide them in the hay.
The Potatoes' Dance
(A Poem Game.)
I
"Down cellar," said the cricket,
"Down cellar," said the cricket,
"Down cellar," said the cricket,
"I saw a ball last night,
In honor of a lady,
In honor of a lady,
In honor of a lady,
Whose wings were pearly-white.
The breath of bitter weather,
The breath of bitter weather,
The breath of bitter weather,
Had smashed the cellar pane.
We entertained a drift of leaves,
We entertained a drift of leaves,
We entertained a drift of leaves,
And then of snow and rain.
But we were dressed for winter,
But we were dressed for winter,
But we were dressed for winter,
And loved to hear it blow
In honor of the lady,
In honor of the lady,
In honor of the lady,
Who makes potatoes grow,
Our guest the Irish lady,
The tiny Irish lady,
The airy Irish lady,
Who makes potatoes grow.
II
"Potatoes were the waiters,
Potatoes were the waiters,
Potatoes were the waiters,
Potatoes were the band,
Potatoes were the dancers
Kicking up the sand,
Kicking up the sand,
Kicking up the sand,
Potatoes were the dancers
Kicking up the sand.
Their legs were old burnt matches,
Their legs were old burnt matches,
Their legs were old burnt matches,
Their arms were just the same.
They jigged and whirled and scrambled,
Jigged and whirled and scrambled,
Jigged and whirled and scrambled,
In honor of the dame,
The noble Irish lady
Who makes potatoes dance,
The witty Irish lady,
The saucy Irish lady,
The laughing Irish lady
Who makes potatoes prance.
III
"There was just one sweet potato.
He was golden brown and slim.
The lady loved his dancing,
The lady loved his dancing,
The lady loved his dancing,
She danced all night with him,
She danced all night with him.
Alas, he wasn't Irish.
So when she flew away,
They threw him in the coal-bin,
And there he is today,
Where they cannot hear his sighs
And his weeping for the lady,
The glorious Irish lady,
The beauteous Irish lady,
Who
Gives
Potatoes
Eyes."
The Booker Washington Trilogy
A Memorial to Booker T. Washington
I. Simon Legree
A Negro Sermon. (To be read in your own variety of negro dialect.)
Legree's big house was white and green.
His cotton-fields were the best to be seen.
He had strong horses and opulent cattle,
And bloodhounds bold, with chains that would rattle.
His garret was full of curious things:
Books of magic, bags of gold,
And rabbits' feet on long twine strings.
BUT HE WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL.
Legree he sported a brass-buttoned coat,
A snake-skin necktie, a blood-red shirt.
Legree he had a beard like a goat,
And a thick hairy neck, and eyes like dirt.
His puffed-out cheeks were fish-belly white,
He had great long teeth, and an appetite.
He ate raw meat, 'most every meal,
And rolled his eyes till the cat would squeal.
His fist was an enormous size
To mash poor niggers that told him lies:
He was surely a witch-man in disguise.
BUT HE WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL.
He wore hip-boots, and would wade all day
To capture his slaves that had fled away.
BUT HE WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL.
He beat poor Uncle Tom to death
Who prayed for Legree with his last breath.
Then Uncle Tom to Eva flew,
To the high sanctoriums bright and new;
And Simon Legree stared up beneath,
And cracked his heels, and ground his teeth:
AND WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL.
He crossed the yard in the storm and gloom;
He went into his grand front room.
He said, "I killed him, and I don't care."
He kicked a hound, he gave a swear;
He tightened his belt, he took a lamp,
Went down cellar to the webs and damp.
There in the middle of the mouldy floor
He heaved up a slab, he found a door --
AND WENT DOWN TO THE DEVIL.
His lamp blew out, but his eyes burned bright.
Simon Legree stepped down all night --
DOWN, DOWN TO THE DEVIL.
Simon Legree he reached the place,
He saw one half of the human race,
He saw the Devil on a wide green throne,
Gnawing the meat from a big ham-bone,
And he said to Mister Devil:
"I see that you have much to eat --
A red ham-bone is surely sweet.
I see that you have lion's feet;
I see your frame is fat and fine,
I see you drink your poison wine --
Blood and burning turpentine."
And the Devil said to Simon Legree:
"I like your style, so wicked and free.
Come sit and share my throne with me,
And let us bark and revel."
And there they sit and gnash their teeth,
And each one wears a hop-vine wreath.
They are matching pennies and shooting craps,
They are playing poker and taking naps.
And old Legree is fat and fine:
He eats the fire, he drinks the wine --
Blood and burning turpentine --
DOWN, DOWN WITH THE DEVIL;
DOWN, DOWN WITH THE DEVIL;
DOWN, DOWN WITH THE DEVIL.
II. John Brown
(To be sung by a leader and chorus, the leader singing the body of the poem,
while the chorus interrupts with the question.)
I've been to Palestine.
WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE?
I saw the ark of Noah --
It was made of pitch and pine.
I saw old Father Noah
Asleep beneath his vine.
I saw Shem, Ham and Japhet
Standing in a line.
I saw the tower of Babel
In the gorgeous sunrise shine --
By a weeping willow tree
Beside the Dead Sea.
I've been to Palestine.
WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE?
I saw abominations
And Gadarene swine.
I saw the sinful Canaanites
Upon the shewbread dine,
And spoil the temple vessels
And drink the temple wine.
I saw Lot's wife, a pillar of salt
Standing in the brine --
By a weeping willow tree
Beside the Dead Sea.
I've been to Palestine.
WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE?
Cedars on Mount Lebanon,
Gold in Ophir's mine,
And a wicked generation
Seeking for a sign
And Baal's howling worshippers
Their god with leaves entwine.
And . . .
I saw the war-horse ramping
And shake his forelock fine --
By a weeping willow tree
Beside the Dead Sea.
I've been to Palestine.
WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE?
Old John Brown.
Old John Brown.
I saw his gracious wife
Dressed in a homespun gown.
I saw his seven sons
Before his feet bow down.
And he marched with his seven sons,
His wagons and goods and guns,
To his campfire by the sea,
By the waves of Galilee.
I've been to Palestine.
WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE?
I saw the harp and psalt'ry
Played for Old John Brown.
I heard the ram's horn blow,
Blow for Old John Brown.
I saw the Bulls of Bashan --
They cheered for Old John Brown.
I saw the big Behemoth --
He cheered for Old John Brown.
I saw the big Leviathan --
He cheered for Old John Brown.
I saw the Angel Gabriel
Great power to him assign.
I saw him fight the Canaanites
And set God's Israel free.
I saw him when the war was done
In his rustic chair recline --
By his campfire by the sea,
By the waves of Galilee.
I've been to Palestine.
WHAT DID YOU SEE IN PALESTINE?
Old John Brown.
Old John Brown.
And there he sits
To judge the world.
His hunting-dogs
At his feet are curled.
His eyes half-closed,
But John Brown sees
The ends of the earth,
The Day of Doom.
And his shot-gun lies
Across his knees --
Old John Brown,
Old John Brown.
III. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
(A Poem Game.)
"And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, . . .
she came to prove him with hard questions."
and approaching a position that gives her half of the stage.>
Men's Leader: The Queen of Sheba came to see King Solomon.
I was King Solomon,
I was King Solomon,
I was King Solomon.
Women's Leader: I was the Queen,
I was the Queen,
I was the Queen.
Both Leaders: We will be king and queen,
Reigning on mountains green,
Happy and free
For ten thousand years.
Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four hundred oxen.
Congregation: We were the oxen.
Both Leaders: You shall feel goads no more.
Walk dreadful roads no more,
Free from your loads
For ten thousand years.
Both Leaders: King Solomon he had four hundred sweethearts.
Congregation: We were the sweethearts.
Both Leaders: You shall dance round again,
You shall dance round again,
Cymbals shall sound again,
Cymbals shall sound again,
Wildflowers be found
For ten thousand years,
Wildflowers be found
For ten thousand years.
He goes forward to the footlights.>
Both Leaders: And every sweetheart had four hundred swans.
Congregation: We were the swans.
Both Leaders: You shall spread wings again,
You shall spread wings again,
Fly in soft rings again,
Fly in soft rings again,
Swim by cool springs
For ten thousand years,
Swim by cool springs,
For ten thousand years.
whenever it is needed to enable the women's leader to get to
her starting point. All the refrains may be likewise used.>
Men's Leader: King Solomon,
King Solomon.
Women's Leader: The Queen of Sheba asked him like a lady,
indicating a great rose garden.>
Bowing most politely:
"What makes the roses bloom
Over the mossy tomb,
Driving away the gloom
Ten thousand years?"
Men's Leader: King Solomon made answer to the lady,
The King wooing with ornate gestures of respect, and courtly animation.>
Bowing most politely:
"They bloom forever thinking of your beauty,
Your step so queenly and your eyes so lovely.
These keep the roses fair,
Young and without a care,
Making so sweet the air,
Ten thousand years."