Vachel Lindsay Poems

I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
...

It is portentous, 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.
...

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.
...

Let not young souls be smothered out before
They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride.
It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull,
Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed.
...

Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
...

Factory windows are always broken.
Somebody's always throwing bricks,
Somebody's always heaving cinders,
Playing ugly Yahoo tricks.
...

(IN THE BEGINNING)

The sun is a huntress young,
The sun is a red, red joy,
...

No man should stand before the moon
To make sweet song thereon,
With dandified importance,
His sense of humor gone.
...

A Recitation for Martha Wakefield, Three Years Old


There was a little turtle.
...

The Moon's the North Wind's cooky.
He bites it, day by day,
Until there's but a rim of scraps
That crumble all away.
...