Poems by Vachel Lindsay

Uploaded 29 May 1998

A RHYME ABOUT AN ELECTRICAL ADVERTISING SIGN

I look on the specious electrical light
Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white,
Wickedly red or malignantly green
Like the beads of young Senegambian queen.
Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,
The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn,
By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl,
Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl,
By maggoty motions in sickening line
Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine,
While there far above the steep cliffs of the street
The stars sing a message elusive and sweet.

Now man cannot rest in his pleasure and toil
His clumsy contraptions of coil upon coil
Till the thing he invents, in its use and its range,
Leads on to the marvellous CHANGE BEYOND CHANGE.
Some day this old Broadway shall climb to the skies,
As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise.
And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night,
Till we join with the planets who choir their delight.
The signs in the street and the signs in the skies
Shall make the new Zodiac, guiding the wise,
And Broadway make one with that marvellous stair
That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.

1913-1914

TO MARY PICKFORD
MOVING PICTURE ACTRESS

(On hearing she was leaving the moving-pictures for the
stage.)

Mary Pickford, doll divine,
Year by year, and every day
At the moving-picture play,
You have been my valentine.

Once a free-limbed page in hose,
Baby-Rosalind in flower,
Cloakless, shrinking, in that hour
How our reverent passion rose,
How our fine desire your won.
Kitchen-wench another day,
Shapeless, wooden every way.
Next, a fairy from the sun.

Once you walked a grown-up strand
Fish-wife siren, full of lure,
Snaring with devices sure
Lads who murdered on the sand.
But on most days just a child
Dimpled as no grown-folk are,
Cold of kiss as some north star,
Violet from the valleys wild.
Snared as innocence must be,
Fleeing, prisoned, chained, half-dead;
At the end of tortures dread
Roaring cowboys set you free.

Fly, O song, to her today,
Like a cowboy cross the land
Snatch her from Belasco’s hand
And that prison called Broadway.
All the village swains await
One dear lily-girl demure,
Saucy, dancing, cold and pure,
Elf who must return in state.

1913

BLANCHE SWEET
MOVING-PICTURE ACTRESS

(After seeing the reel called “Oil and Water.”)

Beauty has a throne-room
In our humorous town,
Spoiling its hob-goblins,
Laughing shadows down.
Rank musicians torture
Ragtime ballads vile,
But we walk serenely
Down the odorous aisle.
We forgive the squalor
And the boom and squeal
For the Great Queen flashes
From the moving reel.

Just a prim blonde stranger
In her early day,
Hiding brilliant weapons,
Too averse to play,
Then she burst upon us
Dancing through the night.
Oh, her maiden radiance,
Veils and roses white.
With new powers, yet cautious,
Not too smart or skilled,
That first flash of dancing
Wrought the thing she willed:–
Mobs of us made noble
By her strong desire,
By her white, uplifting,
Royal romance-fire.

Though the tin piano
Snarls its tango rude,
Though the chairs are shaky
And the dramas crude,
Solemn are her motions,
Stately are her wiles,
Filling oafs with wisdom,
Saving souls with smiles;
‘Mid the restless actors
She is rich and slow.
She will stand like marble,
She will pause and glow,
Though the film is twitching,
Keep a peaceful reign,
Ruler of her passion,
Ruler of our pain!

1914

EPITAPH FOR JOHN BUNNY,
MOTION-PICTURE COMEDIAN

(In which he is remembered in similitude, by reference to
Yorick, the king’s jester, who died when Hamlet and Ophelia
were children)

Yorick is dead. Boy Hamlet walks forlorn
Beneath the battlements of Elsinore.
Where are those oddities and capers now
That used to “set the table on a roar”?

And do his bauble-bells beyond the clouds
Rind out, and shake with mirth the planets bright?
No doubt he brings the blessed dead good cheer,
But silence broods on Elsinore tonight.

That little elf, Ophelia, eight years old,
Upon her battered doll’s staunch bosom weeps.
(“O best of men, that wove glad fairy-tales.”)
With tear-burned face, at last the darling sleeps.

Hamlet himself could not give cheer or help,
Though firm and brave, with his boy-face controlled.
For every game they started out to play
Yorick invented, in the days of old.

The times are out of joint! O cursed spite!
The noble jester Yorick comes no mor.
And Hamlet hides his tears in boyish pride
By some lone turre-stair of Elsinore.

1915

MAE MARSH, MOTION PICTURE ACTRESS

(In “Man’s Genesis,” “The Wild Girl of the Sierras,”
“The Wharf Rat,” “A Girl of the Paris Streets,” etc.)

I

The arts are old, old as the stones
From which man carved the sphinx austere.
Deep are the days the old arts bring:
Ten thousand years of yesteryear.

II

She is madonna in an art
As wild and young as her sweet eyes:
A frail dew flower from this hot lamp
That is today’s divine surprise.

Despite raw lights and gloating mobs
She is not seared: a picture still:
Rare silk the fine director’s hand
May weave for magic if he will.

When ancient films have crumbled like
Papyrus rolls of Egypt’s day,
Let the dust speak: “Her pride was high,
All but the artist hid away:

“Kin to the myriad artist clan
Since time began, whose work is dear.”
The deep new ages come with her,
Tomorrow’s years of yesteryear.

1917

A DOLL’S “ARABIAN NIGHTS

(A Rhymed Scenario for Mae Marsh, when she acts in
the new many-colored films.)
I dreamed the play was real.
I walked into the screen.
Like Alice through the looking-glass,
I found a curious scene.
The black stones took on flame.
The shadows shone with eyes.
The colors poured and changed
In a Hell’s debauch of dyes,
In a street with incense thick,
In a court of witch-bazaars,
With flambeaux by the stalls
Whose sputter hid the stars.
Camels stalked in line.
Courtezans tripped by
Dressed in silks and gems,
Copper diadems,
All the wealth they had.

Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!
This refrain to
be elaborately
articulated and
the instrumental
music then made
to match it
precisely

You were a guarded girl
In a palanquin of gold.
I was buying figs:
All my hands could hold.
You slipped a note to me.
Your eyes made me your slave.
“Twelve paces back,” you wrote.
No other word gave.
The delicate dove house swayed
Close-veiled, a snare most sweet.
“Joy,” said the silver bells
On the palanquin-bearers’ feet.
Then by a mosque, a dervish
Yelled and whirled like mad.

Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!

I reached a dim, still court.
I saw you there afar,
Beckoning from the roof,
Veiled, a cloud-wrapped star.
And your black slave said: “Proud boy,
Do you dare everything
With your young arm and bright steel?
Then climb. You are her king.”
And I heard a hiss of knives
In the doorway dark and bad.

Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!

The stairway climbed and climbed.
It spoke. It shouted lies.
I reached a tar-black room,
A panther’s belly gloom,
Filled with howls and sighs.
I found the roof. Twelve kings
Rose up to stab me there.
But I sent them to their graves.
My singing shook the air.
My scimitar seemed more
Than any steel could be,
A Whirling wheel, a pack
Of death-hounds guarding me.
And then you came like May.
You bound my torn breast well
With your discarded veil.
And flowery silence fell.
While Mohammed spread his wings
In the stars, you bent me back,
With a quick kiss touched my mouth,
And my heart was on the rack.
Oh dreadful, deathless love!
Oh kiss of Islam fire.
And your flashing hands were more
Than all a thief’s desire.

Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!

I woke by twelve dead curs
On bloody, stony ground.
And the gray watch muttered, “Shame,”
As he tottered on his round.
The morning
after is always
noted in the
Arabian Nights.
You had written on my sword:–
“Goodby, O iron arm.
I love you much too well
To do you further harm.
And as my pledge and sign
You are in crimson clad.”

Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!
.      .      .      .
.      .      .      .
The rocs scream in the air.
The ghouls my pathway clear.
For I have drunk the soul
Of the dazzling maid they fear.
The long handclasp you gave
Still shakes upon my hands.
O, daughter of a Jinn,
I plot in Islam lands,
Haunting purple streets,
Hissing, snarling, bold,
A robbed never jailed,
A beggar never cold.
I shall be sultan yet
In this old crimson clad.

Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!

1919

THE GOODLY, STRANGE LANTERNS

(In praise of Edison’s great invention, and in sorrow at the news that must be shown.)

No prophet, though mighty, forecasted
These lanterns of wisdom and mirth,
These innocent, stuffy, brief conclaves,
These shadow-tales, sweeping the earth.
(What to the great reels show tonight?)
To see the films flashing a legion
Of freemen make haste to the show.
The wealthy are eager and early,
Their autos outside in a row.
The newsboys, the Sunday school children,
The preachers, the weavers of song,
The slum-dwellers, villagers, farmers,
The broken, the hopeful, the strong
Rejoice at these goodly, strange lanterns
Then pour forth to ponder or sleep.
These restless Kinetoscope vigils
Our proudest, best patriots keep.
(What do the great reels show tonight?)
O films more beloved than red liquor,
White gates, wellnigh free as the park.
First doors, since mankind made the tavern,
To draw such tired feet, after dark.
O, lamps gilding gutters with beauty,
World-gossip, world-splendor and joy.
Equality’s wide-flashing art-fire
And Edisons’s goodliest toy.
But what do the great reels show tonight?
Fairy tales for the heart’s delight?
Bits of science, made so plain
The stir the dull ditch-digger’s brain?
What do the great reels show tonight?
A civic pageant brave and bright?
What do the great reels show?
WAR, WAR
Brother’s hand against brother,
WAR, WAR.

Summer, 1914