Work poems
/ page 266 of 355 /
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.
His Brothers Keeper
© Henry Lawson
By his paths through the parched desolation,
Hot rides and the terrible tramps;
By the hunger, the thirst, the privation
Of his work in the further most camps.
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,
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 Settle An The Girt Wood Vire
© William Barnes
Ah! naïghbour John, since I an' you
Wer youngsters, ev'ry thing is new.
An Orchard Dance
© Norman Rowland Gale
All work is over at the farm
And men and maids are ripe for glee;
Here's to the Mice!
© Vachel Lindsay
(Written with the hope that the socialists might yet dethrone Kaiser and Czar.)
Here's to the mice that scare the lions,
Creeping into their cages.
Here's to the fairy mice that bite
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 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.
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:
Sunshine
© Vachel Lindsay
The sun gives not directly
The coal, the diamond crown;
Not in a special basket
Are these from Heaven let down.
Sweet Briars of the Stairways
© Vachel Lindsay
We are happy all the time
Even when we fight:
Sweet briars of the stairways,
Gay fairies of the grime;
We, who are playing to-night.
Heroism
© William Cowper
There was a time when Ætna's silent fire
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire;
The Knight in Disguise
© Vachel Lindsay
Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,
The darling of the glad and gaping town?
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.
Love and Law
© Vachel Lindsay
TRUE Love is founded in rocks of Remembrance
In stones of Forbearance and mortar of pain.
The workman lays wearily granite on granite,
And bleeds for his castle, 'mid sunshine and rain.
The White Man's Burden
© Rudyard Kipling
Take up the White man's burden --
Send forth the best ye breed --
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
