Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" -- Vachel Lindsay

(Poem #1718) Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" Even the shrewd and bitter, Gnarled by the old world's greed, Cherished the stranger softly Seeing his utter need. Shelter and patient hearing, These were their gifts to him, To the minstrel chanting, begging, As the sunset-fire grew dim. The rich said "you are welcome." Yea, even the rich were good. How strange that in their feasting His songs were understood! The doors of the poor were open, The poor who had wandered too, Who slept with never a roof-tree Under the wind and dew. The minds of the poor were open, There dark mistrust was dead: They loved his wizard stories, They bought his rhymes with bread. Those were his days of glory, Of faith in his fellow-men. Therefore to-day the singer Turns beggar once again. -- Vachel Lindsay

Commenting on Stevenson's "The Vagabond" [Poem #780], a less-than-charmed
reader said

  I think the poem stinks! It is the tale of a totally selfish bum!  It
  speaks of an existence that leads no where, with no purpose........not
  even a desire for love!  Pure trash IMO. Perhaps value can be salvaged by
  making it the example of 'what not to be...do...think..believe..etc

Well, I don't agree with him, but nor can I deny that it is a perfectly
valid reading of the poem. However, I was also reminded of today's poem,
which sings of a much more "human" aspect of the joys of the road, of the
kindness extended to a stranger and the appreciation of the wandering
minstrel's art.

Lindsay's poetry is very reminiscent of Kipling's, both for his appreciation
of the rhythmic aspects of poetry and for the nature and diversity of the
subjects he tackled. (And, in passing, for the accusations of racism
levelled against him by a more enlightened generation; accusations that are
often founded in little more than his being a product of his times, and for
having had the temerity to outlast them.) Unlike with Kipling, I can't read
too much of Lindsay in one sitting, but in short doses I find him both
pleasurable and thought provoking. Today's quietly restrained poem is an
excellent example of both aspects.

martin

The Bronco That Would Not Be Broken -- Vachel Lindsay

Guest poem sent in by Gregg Morgan

(Poem #1477) The Bronco That Would Not Be Broken A little colt -- bronco, 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 bronco that would not be broken of dancing? You were born with the pride of the lords great and olden Who danced, through the ages, in corridors golden. In all the wide farm-place the person most human. You spoke out so plainly with squealing and capering. With whinnying, snorting, contorting, and prancing, As you dodged your pursuers, looking askance. With Greek-footed figures, and Parthenon paces. O bronco that would not be broken of dancing. The grasshoppers cheered. "Keep whirling," they said The insolent sparrows called from the shed, "If men will not laugh, make them wish they were dead." But arch were your thoughts, all malice displacing, Though the horse-killers came, with snake-whips advancing. You bantered and cantered away from your last chance. And they scourged you, with Hell in their speech and their faces, O bronco that would not be broken of dancing. "Nobody cares for you," rattled the crows, As you dragged the whole reaper, next day, down the rows. The three mules held back, yet you danced on your toes. You pulled like a racer, and kept the mules chasing. You tangled the harness with bright eyes side-glancing, While the drunk driver bled you -- a pole for a lance -- And the giant mules bit at you -- keeping their places. O bronco that would not be broken of dancing. In that last afternoon your boyish heart broke. The hot wind came down like a sledge-hammer stroke. The blood-sucking flies to a rare feast awoke. And they searched out your wounds, your death-warrant tracing. And the merciful men, their religion enhancing, Stopped the red reaper, to give you a chance. Then you died on the prairie, and scorned all disgraces, O bronco that would not be broken of dancing. -- Vachel Lindsay

This is one of my many favorite Vachel Lindsay poems. The message
is simple, and full of devices that pull the reader to save the little
donkey -- to be the one who stands for he who will not be "broken"
and fights though winning is not an option, but the fight to be
free, your own man is also not an option...Genius!

Gregg

[Martin adds]

There are echoes of Invictus [Poem #221] and The Slave's Dream [Poem #629],
both worth rereading alongside this one for the several perspectives on a
common theme.

The Santa Fe Trail -- Vachel Lindsay

Today's poem is from Lindsay's collection "The Congo and Other Poems", in
the section headed "Poems Intended to be Read Aloud, or Chanted". Somewhat
unusually, Lindsay has included explicit reading directions. I've marked
these with a #. There are also several words emphasied in boldface, which I
have denoted by *word*. See the links for a properly typeset version of the
poem.

(Poem #1264) The Santa Fe Trail (A Humoresque) I asked the old Negro, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane." I. In which a Racing Auto comes from the East # To be sung delicately, to an improvised tune. 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. . . . # To be sung or read with great speed. Hark to the *pace*-horn, *chase*-horn, *race*-horn. And the holy veil of the dawn has gone. Swiftly the brazen car comes on. It burns in the East as the sunrise burns. I see great flashes where the far trail turns. Its eyes are lamps like the eyes of dragons. It drinks gasoline from big red flagons. Butting through the delicate mists of the morning, It comes like lightning, goes past roaring. It will hail all the wind-mills, taunting, ringing, Dodge the cyclones, Count the milestones, On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills -- Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. . . . # To be read or sung in a rolling bass, with some deliberation. Ho for the *tear*-horn, *scare*-horn, *dare*-horn, Ho for the *gay*-horn, *bark*-horn, *bay*-horn. Ho for Kansas, land that restores us When houses choke us, and great books bore us! Sunrise Kansas, harvester's Kansas, A million men have found you before us. II. In which Many Autos pass Westward # In an even, deliberate, narrative manner. I want live things in their pride to remain. I will not kill one grasshopper vain Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door. I let him out, give him one chance more. Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim, Grasshopper lyrics occur to him. I am a tramp by the long trail's border, Given to squalor, rags and disorder. I nap and amble and yawn and look, Write fool-thoughts in my grubby book, Recite to the children, explore at my ease, Work when I work, beg when I please, Give crank-drawings, that make folks stare To the half-grown boys in the sunset glare, And get me a place to sleep in the hay At the end of a live-and-let-live day. I find in the stubble of the new-cut weeds A whisper and a feasting, all one needs: The whisper of the strawberries, white and red Here where the new-cut weeds lie dead. But I would not walk all alone till I die Without some life-drunk horns going by. Up round this apple-earth they come Blasting the whispers of the morning dumb: -- Cars in a plain realistic row. And fair dreams fade When the raw horns blow. On each snapping pennant A big black name: -- The careering city Whence each car came. # Like a train-caller in a Union Depot. They tour from Memphis, Atlanta, Savannah, Tallahassee and Texarkana. They tour from St. Louis, Columbus, Manistee, They tour from Peoria, Davenport, Kankakee. Cars from Concord, Niagara, Boston, Cars from Topeka, Emporia, and Austin. Cars from Chicago, Hannibal, Cairo. Cars from Alton, Oswego, Toledo. Cars from Buffalo, Kokomo, Delphi, Cars from Lodi, Carmi, Loami. Ho for Kansas, land that restores us When houses choke us, and great books bore us! While I watch the highroad And look at the sky, While I watch the clouds in amazing grandeur Roll their legions without rain Over the blistering Kansas plain -- While I sit by the milestone And watch the sky, The United States Goes by. # To be given very harshly, with a snapping explosiveness. Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking. Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking. Way down the road, trilling like a toad, Here comes the *dice*-horn, here comes the *vice*-horn, Here comes the *snarl*-horn, *brawl*-horn, *lewd*-horn, Followed by the *prude*-horn, bleak and squeaking: -- (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.) Here comes the *hod*-horn, *plod*-horn, *sod*-horn, Nevermore-to-*roam*-horn, *loam*-horn, *home*-horn. (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.) # To be read or sung, well-nigh in a whisper. Far away the Rachel-Jane Not defeated by the horns Sings amid a hedge of thorns: -- "Love and life, Eternal youth -- Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, Dew and glory, Love and truth, Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet." # Louder and louder, faster and faster. WHILE SMOKE-BLACK FREIGHTS ON THE DOUBLE-TRACKED RAILROAD, DRIVEN AS THOUGH BY THE FOUL-FIEND'S OX-GOAD, SCREAMING TO THE WEST COAST, SCREAMING TO THE EAST, CARRY OFF A HARVEST, BRING BACK A FEAST, HARVESTING MACHINERY AND HARNESS FOR THE BEAST. THE HAND-CARS WHIZ, AND RATTLE ON THE RAILS, THE SUNLIGHT FLASHES ON THE TIN DINNER-PAILS. # In a rolling bass, with increasing deliberation. And then, in an instant, Ye modern men, Behold the procession once again, # With a snapping explosiveness. Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking, Listen to the *wise*-horn, desperate-to-*advise*-horn, Listen to the *fast*-horn, *kill*-horn, *blast*-horn. . . . # To be sung or read well-nigh in a whisper. Far away the Rachel-Jane Not defeated by the horns Sings amid a hedge of thorns: -- Love and life, Eternal youth, Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, Dew and glory, Love and truth. Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. # To be brawled in the beginning with a # snapping explosiveness, ending in a languorous chant. The mufflers open on a score of cars With wonderful thunder, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK-CRACK, . . . Listen to the gold-horn . . . Old-horn . . . Cold-horn . . . And all of the tunes, till the night comes down On hay-stack, and ant-hill, and wind-bitten town. # To be sung to exactly the same whispered tune # as the first five lines. Then far in the west, as in the beginning, Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating, Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn, Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn. . . . # This section beginning sonorously, ending in a languorous whisper. They are hunting the goals that they understand: -- San Francisco and the brown sea-sand. My goal is the mystery the beggars win. I am caught in the web the night-winds spin. The edge of the wheat-ridge speaks to me. I talk with the leaves of the mulberry tree. And now I hear, as I sit all alone In the dusk, by another big Santa Fe stone, The souls of the tall corn gathering round And the gay little souls of the grass in the ground. Listen to the tale the cotton-wood tells. Listen to the wind-mills, singing o'er the wells. Listen to the whistling flutes without price Of myriad prophets out of paradise. Harken to the wonder That the night-air carries. . . . Listen . . . to . . . the . . . whisper . . . Of . . . the . . . prairie . . . fairies Singing o'er the fairy plain: -- # To the same whispered tune as the Rachel-Jane song -- but very slowly. "Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. Love and glory, Stars and rain, Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. . . ." -- Vachel Lindsay

The most striking thing about today's poem - indeed, practically its
defining characteristic - is its intense focus on the *sound* of the words.
And this is very deliberate - quoting Lindsay:

  "I respectfully submit these poems as experiments in which I endeavor to
  carry this vaudeville form back towards the old Greek precedent of the
  half-chanted lyric. In this case the one-third of music must be added by
  the instinct of the reader."

The temptation is to dismiss this as pure gimmickry, to look no further than
the almost jarringly unexpected reading directions and to seize on the word
'experiment' as if that carries the whole value of the poem. However, even
the most casual reading should reveal the factor that makes the experiment
a definite success - Lindsay has a very fine ear indeed. In terms of sheer
sonorousness, I'd rank him right up there with Flecker, Masefield and
Kipling, though he does lack somewhat of their talent for description.
(Indeed, speaking of Masefield, today's poem is very reminscent of
'Cargoes', particularly the last verse thereof.)

Lindsay has blended form and content well, the overwhelming cascade of sound
and syllables bears down upon and swirls past the reader like the river of
cars and horns passing westwards. And in counterpoint, the recurring note of
the Rachel Janes "not defeated by the horns", and the superbly-crafted
parenthetical insertion, "(Some of them from Kansas, some of them from
Kansas)". And finally the "sweet in retreating" note of the flood passing
by, leaving the "wonder that the night air carries" - almost like Cargoes in
reverse.

All in all, a decidedly unusual, but very memorable and uniquely Lindsay
poem. Perhaps not as memorable as the better known "The Congo", but then,
neither does it suffer from the latter's appalling racism (it strikes me
that many of the complaints against Kipling - his racism, his vulgarity, his
sacrificing of poetic principle for start with a popular appeal - are more
closely applicable to Lindsay, and if he shares Kipling's strengths, he also
shares his failings). And, above all, great fun to read aloud.

martin

Links:

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/TheCongoandOtherPoems/toc.html
  has the full text of "The Congo and Other Poems", complete with proper
  typography, a biography, and an introduction by Harriet Monroe that I
  strongly urge you to read.

The Leaden-Eyed -- Vachel Lindsay

This week's theme: Poems with a Purpose.

(Poem #1069) The Leaden-Eyed 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. 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. -- Vachel Lindsay

Art for Art's sake? Not quite. Love poems and nature poems, odes to
melancholy and cats, Life sliced and filleted, funnies and furies -- these
are all very well, but there's a special place in the poetic pantheon for
pieces propounding purely political principles: Poems with a Purpose.

Unfortunately, there are two dangers which such poems often run into, both
easily foreseen, but quite a bit harder to prevent. Firstly, there's the
possibility that the poet allows the moral, social or political aspects of
his poem to overwhelm the purely poetic ones; he is so caught up in _what_
he is saying that he loses sight of _how_ he's saying it. The result, more
often than not, is a stilted, overly didactic piece, the kind which
Coleridge, the later Wordsworth and Shelley wrote far too many of. It was
this danger that the Imagists were warning against with their tenet "Show,
don't tell"; it was this possibility that Archibald MacLeish was reacting to
when he wrote "A poem should not mean / but be" [1].

The second danger is, ironically, the exact obverse of the first: namely,
the possibility that the poem's readers respond, not to the purely poetic
merits of the verse, but to the political ones; they allow their agreement
(or lack thereof) with the poet's philosophy to cloud their judgement when
it comes to evaluating the poem per se [2]. There are two ways to avoid this
danger; the easy one is to retreat into platitudes that offend nobody (but
equally, please nobody). That way lies mediocrity.

The other, more difficult way is to do what Vachel Lindsay does in today's
poem: find something you feel strongly about, which nonetheless has not been
bromided to death by a thousand previous moralisers, express it in words
fresh enough to be powerful, and leave it at that. The reader will do the
rest.

thomas.

[1] Poem #188, "Ars Poetica" -- Archibald MacLeish

[2] It might be argued that this is not a flaw: a poem that arouses strong
passions (favourable or otherwise) in its readers is a poem that's doing
_something_ right.

[Links]

Here's a nice resource on Lindsay's life and works:
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lindsay/lindsay.htm

Here are some Imagist poets on the Minstrels:
Poet #Kreymborg -- Alfred Kreymborg
Poet #Sandburg -- Carl Sandburg
Poet #Pound -- Ezra Pound
Poet #D. -- H. D.
Poet #Williams -- William Carlos Williams

Here are some previous poems, each with their own respective Purposes:
Poem #26, Jerusalem  -- William Blake
Poem #592, Sonnet: England in 1819 -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poem #132, Dulce Et Decorum Est  -- Wilfred Owen
Poem #28, To Whom It May Concern  -- Adrian Mitchell