Good poems
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The Booker Washington Trilogy
© Vachel Lindsay
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.
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.
The Dover Bitch: A Criticism Of Life
© Anthony Evan Hecht
So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
By the Spring, at Sunset
© Vachel Lindsay
Sun in my face, wind beside my shoulder,
Streaming clouds, banners of new-born night
Enchant me now. The splendors growing bolder
Make bold my soul for some new wise delight.
Darling Daughter of Babylon
© Vachel Lindsay
Too soon you wearied of our tears.
And then you danced with spangled feet,
Leading Belshazzar's chattering court
A-tinkling through the shadowy street.
In Memoriam A. H. H.: 6.
© Alfred Tennyson
O mother, praying God will save
Thy sailor,-while thy head is bow'd,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.
A Dirge for a Righteous Kitten
© Vachel Lindsay
To be intoned, all but the two italicized lines, which are to be spoken in a snappy, matter-of-fact way.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.
Here lies a kitten good, who kept
A kitten's proper place.
A Curse for Kings
© Vachel Lindsay
A curse upon each king who leads his state,
No matter what his plea, to this foul game,
And may it end his wicked dynasty,
And may he die in exile and black shame.
The Firemen's Ball
© Vachel Lindsay
"Many's the heart that's breaking
If we could read them all
After the ball is over."
A Map of Verona
© Henry Reed
Quelle belle heure, quels bons bras
me rendront ces régions d'où mes
sommeils et mes moindres mouvements?
The Heart Of The Tree
© Henry Cuyler Bunner
WHAT does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants a friend of sun and sky;
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:
General William Booth Enters into Heaven
© Vachel Lindsay
Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
Beard a-flying, air of high command
Unabated in that holy land.
The Knight in Disguise
© Vachel Lindsay
Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
The Ideal
© Charles Harpur
Spirit of Dreams! When many a toilsome height
Shut paradise from exiled Adams sight,
Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread"
© Vachel Lindsay
Those were his days of glory,
Of faith in his fellow-men.
Therefore to-day the singer
Turns beggar once again.
The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race
© Vachel Lindsay
I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERYFat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
A deep rolling bass.
The Woodman And The Nightingale
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune
(I think such hearts yet never came to good)
Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,
On The Garden Wall
© 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.
Rafferty's Racin' Mare
© William Percy French
You've not seen Rafferty round this way?
He's a man with a broken hat,
