Vachel Lindsay: Всі вірші поета

« ‹ 1 2 3 4 5 › »

Epitaphs For Two Players

I. EDWIN BOOTH

An old actor at the Player's Club told me that Edwin Booth first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California. There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided with crude assembly rooms for strolling players.

The youth played in the blear hotel.

The rafters gleamed with glories strange.

And winds of mourning Elsinore

Howling at chance and fate and change;

Voices of old Europe's dead

Disturbed the new-built cattle-shed,

by Vachel Lindsay

Mark Twain And Joan Of Arc

When Yankee soldiers reach the barricade

Then Joan of Arc gives each the accolade.

For she is there in armor clad, today,

All the young poets of the wide world say.

Which of our freemen did she greet the first,

Seeing him come against the fires accurst?

Mark Twain, our Chief, with neither smile nor jest,

Leading to war our youngest and our best.

by Vachel Lindsay

The Broncho That Would Not Be Broken

A little colt — broncho, loaned to the farm

To be broken in time without fury or harm,

Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,

Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing…

The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,

The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,

So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,

O broncho that would not be broken of dancing?

by Vachel Lindsay

On The Garden Wall

Oh, once I walked a garden

In dreams. 'Twas yellow grass.

And many orange-trees grew there

In sand as white as glass.

The curving, wide wall-border

Was marble, like the snow.

I walked that wall a fairy-prince

And, pacing quaint and slow,

by Vachel Lindsay

A Net To Snare The Moonlight

[What the Man of Faith said]

The dew, the rain and moonlight

All prove our Father's mind.

The dew, the rain and moonlight

Descend to bless mankind.

Come, let us see that all men

Have land to catch the rain,

Have grass to snare the spheres of dew,

by Vachel Lindsay

Alone In The Wind, On The Prairie

I know a seraph who has golden eyes,

And hair of gold, and body like the snow.

Here in the wind I dream her unbound hair

Is blowing round me, that desire's sweet glow

Has touched her pale keen face, and willful mien.

And though she steps as one in manner born

To tread the forests of fair Paradise,

Dark memory's wood she chooses to adorn.

by Vachel Lindsay

The Eagle That Is Forgotten

Sleep softly… eagle forgotten… under the stone.

Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.

"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.

They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.

They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you, day after day.

Now you were ended. They praised you… and laid you away.

The others, that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,

The window bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,

by Vachel Lindsay

The Lion

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.

He cuffs his wife and bites her ears

Till she is nearly moved to tears.

Then some explorer finds the den

And all is family peace again.

by Vachel Lindsay

An Apology For The Bottle Volcanic

Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire,

The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire.

It's Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small,

And then 'tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all.

And so my blood grows cold. I say, "The bottle held but ink,

And, if you thought it otherwise, the worser for your think."

And then, just as I throw my scribbled paper on the floor,

The bottle says, "Fe, fi, fo, fum," and steams and shouts some more.

by Vachel Lindsay

Above The Battle's Front

St. Francis, Buddha, Tolstoi, and St. John —

Friends, if you four, as pilgrims, hand in hand,

Returned, the hate of earth once more to dare,

And walked upon the water and the land,

If you, with words celestial, stopped these kings

For sober conclave, ere their battle great,

Would they for one deep instant then discern

Their crime, their heart-rot, and their fiend's estate?

by Vachel Lindsay

Eden In Winter

[Supposed to be chanted to some rude instrument at a modern fireplace]

Chant we the story now

Tho' in a house we sleep;

Tho' by a hearth of coals

Vigil to-night we keep.

Chant we the story now,

Of the vague love we knew

When I from out the sea

by Vachel Lindsay

A Curse For Kings

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.

If there is vengeance in the Heaven of Heavens,

What punishment could Heaven devise for these

Who fill the rivers of the world with dead,

And turn their murderers loose on all the seas!

by Vachel Lindsay