Children poems
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The Tale of the Tiger-Tree
© Vachel Lindsay
Peace-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,
Through ancient ages known to me
And now once more reborn with me:
The Crisis
© John Greenleaf Whittier
ACROSS the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's drouth and sand,
The circles of our empire touch the western ocean's strand;
From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and free,
Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California's sea;
Our Guardian Angels and Their Children
© Vachel Lindsay
Where a river roars in rapids
And doves in maples fret,
Where peace has decked the pastures
Our guardian angels met.
When Bryan Speaks
© Vachel Lindsay
When Bryan speaks, the town's a hive.
From miles around, the autos drive.
The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows.
The place is kicking and alive.
The Drunkard's Funeral
© Vachel Lindsay
"You are right, little sister," I said to myself,
"You are right, good sister," I said.
"Though you wear a mussy bonnet
On your little gray head,
You are right, little sister," I said.
The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)
© Vachel Lindsay
This is the order of the music of the morning:
First, from the far East comes but a crooning.
The crooning turns to a sunrise singing.
Hark to the calm -horn, balm -horn, psalm -horn.
Hark to the faint -horn, quaint -horn, saint -horn. . . .
An Argument
© Vachel Lindsay
I. THE VOICE OF THE MAN IMPATIENT WITH VISIONS AND UTOPIASWe find your soft Utopias as white
As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells,
O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are
How human breasts adore alarum bells.
Yet Gentle Will the Griffin Be
© Vachel Lindsay
(What Grandpa told the Children)
The moon? It is a griffin's egg,
Hatching to-morrow night.
And how the little boys will watch
A Ballad
© James Whitcomb Riley
Crowd about me, little children--
Come and cluster 'round my knee
While I tell a little story
That happened once with me.
King Arthur's Men Have Come Again
© 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 Unpardonable Sin
© Vachel Lindsay
This is the sin against the Holy Ghost:
To speak of bloody power as right divine,
And call on God to guard each vile chief's house,
And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine:
The Brave Days To Be.
© Arthur Henry Adams
I looked far in the future; down the dim
Echoless avenue of silent years,
And through the cold grey haze of Time I saw
The fair fulfilment of my spacious dream.
When Early March Seems Middle May
© James Whitcomb Riley
When country roads begin to thaw
In mottled spots of damp and dust,
And fences by the margin draw
Along the frosty crust
Their graphic silhouettes, I say,
The Spring is coming round this way.
The Song of the Darling River
© Henry Lawson
The skies are brass and the plains are bare,
Death and ruin are everywhere -
And all that is left of the last year's flood
Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;
The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver,
And - this is the dirge of the Darling River:
The Stealing Of The Mare - VII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Said the Narrator:
And when they had lit the fire, while Alia watched the kindling, behold, her fear was great, and her eyes looked to the right and to the left hand, because that Abu Zeyd had promised her that he would return to the camp; and while she was in this wise, suddenly she saw Abu Zeyd standing in the midst of the Arabs who were around her. And he was in disguisement as a dervish, or one of those who ask alms. And he saw that she was about to speak. But he signed to her that she should be silent: as it were he would say, ``Fear not, for I am here.'' And when she was sure that it was indeed he Abu Zeyd and none other, then smiled she on him very sweetly, and said, ``Thine be the victory, and I will be thy ransom. Nor shall thy enemies prevail against thee.'' But he answered with a sign, ``Of a surety thou shalt see somewhat that shall astonish thee.'' And this he said as the flames of the fire broke forth.
Now the cause of the coming of Abu Zeyd to the place was in this wise. After that he had gone away, and had taken with him the mare, and that his mind had entered into its perplexity as to what might befall Alia from her father, lest he should seize on her and inquire what had happened, and why she had cared nothing for her own people or for her wounded brother, and why she had cried to Abu Zeyd, then said he to himself, ``Of a surety I must return to her, and ascertain the event.'' And looking about him, he made discovery of a cave known as yet to no man, and he placed in it the mare, and gathered grass for her, and closed the door of the cave with stones. Then clothing himself as a dervish, he made his plan how he should return to the tents of Agheyl. And forthwith he found Alia in the straits already told, and he made his thought known to her by signs, and by signs she gave him to understand her answers.
And at this point the Narrator began again to sing, and it was in the following verses:
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
© Vachel Lindsay
IT is portentious, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house, pacing up and down.
Drying Their Wings
© Vachel Lindsay
What the Carpenter SaidTHE moon's a cottage with a door.
Some folks can see it plain.
Look, you may catch a glint of light,
A sparkle through the pane,
With Scindia to Delphi
© Rudyard Kipling
More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
Wilful Missing
© Rudyard Kipling
(Deserters)
There is a world outside the one you know,
To which for curiousness 'Ell can't compare--
It is the place where "wilful-missings" go,
As we can testify, for we are there.
