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The Wizard in the Street
© Vachel Lindsay
I love him in this blatant, well-fed place.
Of all the faces, his the only face
Beautiful, tho' painted for the stage,
Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage,
Shames that are living, loves and hopes long dead,
Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.
The Queen of Bubbles
© Vachel Lindsay
The Youth speaks: :
"Why do you seek the sun
In your bubble-crown ascending?
Your chariot will melt to mist.
Your crown will have an ending."
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.
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. . . .
Well, You Neednt
© William Matthews
Rather than hold his hands properly
arched off the keys, like cats
with their backs up,
Monk, playing block chords,
hit the keys with his fingertips well
above his wrists,
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.
An Orchard Dance
© Norman Rowland Gale
All work is over at the farm
And men and maids are ripe for glee;
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.
Popcorn, Glass Balls, and Cranberries
© Vachel Lindsay
The Lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.
The Man In Gray
© Madison Julius Cawein
We live in dreams as well as deeds, in thoughts as well as acts;
And life through things we feel, not know, is realized the most;
The conquered are the conquerors, despite the face of facts,
If they still feel their cause was just who fought for it and lost.
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 Adieu
© George Gordon Byron
Written Under The Impression That The Author Would Soon Die.
Adieu, thou Hill! where early joy
Spread roses o'er my brow;
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 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 Pilgrim's Vision
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
The trees all clad in icicles,
The streams that did not flow;
A sudden thought flashed o'er him,-
A dream of long ago,-
He smote his leathern jerkin,
And murmured, "Even so!"
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:
The Whistle by Kathy Mangan : American Life in Poetry #242 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
There are lots of poems in which a poet expresses belated appreciation for a parent, and if you don’t know Robert Hayden’s poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” you ought to look it up sometime. In this lovely sonnet, Kathy Mangan, of Maryland, contributes to that respected tradition.
The Whistle
