Home > Author > Vachel Lindsay
1 " We left you there, lonely,Beauty your power,Wisdom your watchman,To hold the clay tower.from 'The Tale of the Tiger Tree "
― Vachel Lindsay
2 " Except the Christ be born again tonightIn dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,The world will never see his kingdom bright. "
3 " They tried to get me—I got them first! "
4 " In a whirlwind world, independent languor becomes a virtue, and meditation engenders a finer art than any nervousness "
― Vachel Lindsay , The Golden Book of Springfield
5 " Factory windows are always brokenOther windows are let alone.No one throws through the chapel-windowThe bitter, snarling, derisive stone. "
― Vachel Lindsay , Collected Poems by Vachel Lindsay
6 " I am unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness. I, the unloving, say life should be lovely. I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness. "
7 " Not that they starve; but starve so dreamlessly,Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap,Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve,Not that they die, but that they die like sheep. "
8 " Old Euclid drew a circleOn a sand-beach long ago.He bounded and enclosed itWith angles thus and so.His set of solemn greybeardsNodded and argued muchOf arc and circumference,Diameter and such.A silent child stood by themFrom morning until noonBecause they drew such charmingRound pictures of the moon. "
9 " Let not young souls be smothered outBefore they do quaint deeds And fully flaunt their pride. "
10 " We let our ship blow and drift as it will. But it sweeps up and up, with the swiftness of light. In less time than it takes a flower to open, we are carried to the parapets of ancient Heaven. We find our great-leaved, heavy-fruited Amaranth Vine, climbing up over the closed gates and high wall-towers of Heaven and winding a long way into the old forest that has overgrown the streets. We find the new all conquering Springfield vine, spreading branches through the forest like a banyan tree.As this Amaranth from our little earthly village grows thicker, we see by its light a bit pf what the ancient Heaven has been. And it is still a solid place of soil and rock and metal. Where the Springfield Amaranth blooms thickest, shedding luminous glory from the petals in the starlight, this Heaven is shown to be an autumn forest, yet with the cedars of Lebanon, and sandalwood thickets, and the million tropic trees whose seeds have blown here from strange zones of the'planets, and whose patterns are not the patterns of those of our world. Among these, vineclad pillars and walls are still standing, roofed palaces, so gigantic that, when our boat glides down the great streets between them, they overhang our masts.And from branches above us these strange manners of fruits tumble upon our decks for our feasting and delight. And there are beneath our ship, as it sails on as it will, little fields long cleared in the forest, where grows weedy ungathered grain.Through hours and hours of the night our boat goes on, whether we will or no, through starlight and through storm-clouds and through flower-light. And the red star at the masthead and the sight of the proud face of Avanel keeps laughter in my bosom, and the heavenly breeze that blows on the flowers still sings to our hearts: “Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.”Out of the storm now, three great rocks . appear, giving forth white light there on the far horizon, and this light burns on and on. At last our ship approaches. We see the great rocks are three empty thrones.These are the thrones of the Trinity, empty for these many years, just as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies were bereft of the Presence, when Israel sinned. "
11 " ...and the handsome jester, Devil’s Gold, is shaking his bead-covered rattle, making medicine and calling us by name. We are so tired from our long walk that we cannot but admire his gilded face and his yellow magic blanket. And, holding each other’s hands like lovers, we stoop and admire ourselves in the golden pool that flickers in the great campfire he has impudently built at the crossing of two streets in Heaven.But we do not step into the pool as beforetime. Our boat is beside us, it has overtaken us like some faithful tame giant swan, and Avanel whispers: “Take us where The Golden Book was written.” And thus we are up and away. The boat carries us deeper, down the valley. We find the cell of Hunter Kelly,— . St. Scribe of the Shrines. Only his handiwork remains to testify of him. Upon the walls of his cell he has painted many an illumination he afterward painted on The Golden Book margins and, in a loose pile of old torn and unbound pages, the first draft of many a familiar text is to be found. His dried paint jars are there and his ink and on the wall hangs the empty leather sack of Johnny Appleseed, from which came the first sowing of all the Amaranths of our little city, and the Amaranth that led us here.And Avanel whispers:—“I ask my heart: —Where is Hunter Kelly, and my heart speaks to me as though commanded: ‘The Hunter is again pioneering for our little city in the little earth. He is reborn as the humblest acolyte of the Cathedral, a child that sings tonight with the star chimes, a red-cheeked boy, who shoes horses at the old forge of the Iron Gentleman. Let us also return’.”It is eight o’clock in the evening, at Fifth and Monroe. It is Saturday night, and the crowd is pouring toward The Majestic, and Chatterton’s, and The Vaudette, and The Princess and The Gaiety.It is a lovely, starry evening, in the spring. The newsboys are bawling away, and I buy an Illinois State Register. It is dated March 1, 1920.Avanel of Springfield is one hundred years away.The Register has much news of a passing nature. I am the most interested in the weather report, that tomorrow will be fair.THE END - Written in Washington Park Pavilion, Springfield, Illinois. "
12 " There are many earthly languages. There are many heavenly languages. There are many blazing, blinding tomorrows. But they all lead to the same glorious tomorrow at last. "
13 " The Dandelion"O dandelion, rich and haughty,King of village flowers!Each day is coronation time,You have no humble hours.I like to see you bring a troopTo beat the blue-grass spears,To scorn the lawn-mower that would beLike fate's triumphant shears.Your yellow heads are cut away,It seems your reign is o'er.By noon you raise a sea of starsMore golden than before. "
14 " Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil. "
