American Poetry, 1922 Part 6

WINDFLOWER LEAF

This flower is repeated out of old winds, out of old times.

The wind repeats these, it must have these, over and over again.

Oh, windflowers so fresh, Oh, beautiful leaves, here now again.

The domes over fall to pieces.

The stones under fall to pieces.

Rain and ice wreck the works.

The wind keeps, the windflowers keep, the leaves last, The wind young and strong lets these last longer than stones.

VACHEL LINDSAY

IN PRAISE OF JOHNNY APPLESEED[1]

(_Born 1775. Died 1847_)

[Footnote 1: The best account of John Chapman's career, under the name "Johnny Appleseed," is to be found in _Harper's Monthly Magazine_, November, 1871.]

I. ~Over the Appalachian Barricade~

[Sidenote: _To be read like old leaves on the elm tree of Time.

Sifting soft winds with sentence and rhyme_.]

In the days of President Was.h.i.+ngton, The glory of the nations, Dust and ashes, Snow and sleet, And hay and oats and wheat, Blew west, Crossed the Appalachians, Found the glades of rotting leaves, the soft deer-pastures, The farms of the far-off future In the forest.

Colts jumped the fence, Snorting, ramping, snapping, sniffing, With gastronomic calculations, Crossed the Appalachians, The east walls of our citadel, And turned to gold-horned unicorns, Feasting in the dim, volunteer farms of the forest.

Stripedest, kickingest kittens escaped, Caterwauling "Yankee Doodle Dandy,"

Renounced their poor relations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to tiny tigers In the humorous forest.

Chickens escaped From farmyard congregations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to amber trumpets On the ramparts of our Hoosiers' nest and citadel, Millennial heralds Of the foggy mazy forest.

Pigs broke loose, scrambled west, Scorned their loathsome stations, Crossed the Appalachians, Turned to roaming, foaming wild boars Of the forest.

The smallest, blindest puppies toddled west While their eyes were coming open, And, with misty observations, Crossed the Appalachians, Barked, barked, barked At the glow-worms and the marsh lights and the lightning-bugs, And turned to ravening wolves Of the forest.

Crazy parrots and canaries flew west, Drunk on May-time revelations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to delirious, flower-dressed fairies Of the lazy forest.

Haughtiest swans and peac.o.c.ks swept west, And, despite soft derivations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to blazing warrior souls Of the forest, Singing the ways Of the Ancient of Days.

And the "Old Continentals In their ragged regimentals,"

With bard's imaginations, Crossed the Appalachians.

And A boy Blew west And with prayers and incantations, And with "Yankee Doodle Dandy,"

Crossed the Appalachians, And was "young John Chapman,"

Then "Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed,"

Chief of the fastnesses, dappled and vast, In a pack on his back, In a deer-hide sack, The beautiful orchards of the past, The ghosts of all the forests and the groves-- In that pack on his back, In that talisman sack, To-morrow's peaches, pears and cherries, To-morrow's grapes and red raspberries, Seeds and tree souls, precious things, Feathered with microscopic wings, All the outdoors the child heart knows, And the apple, green, red, and white, Sun of his day and his night-- The apple allied to the thorn, Child of the rose.

Porches untrod of forest houses All before him, all day long, "Yankee Doodle" his marching song; And the evening breeze Joined his psalms of praise As he sang the ways Of the Ancient of Days.

Leaving behind august Virginia, Proud Ma.s.sachusetts, and proud Maine, Planting the trees that would march and train On, in his name to the great Pacific, Like Birnam wood to Dunsinane, Johnny Appleseed swept on, Every shackle gone, Loving every sloshy brake, Loving every skunk and snake, Loving every leathery weed, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, Master and ruler of the unicorn-ramping forest, The tiger-mewing forest, The rooster-trumpeting, boar-foaming, wolf-ravening forest, The spirit-haunted, fairy-enchanted forest, Stupendous and endless, Searching its perilous ways In the name of the Ancient of Days.

III. ~The Indians Wors.h.i.+p Him, but He hurries on~

Painted kings in the midst of the clearing Heard him asking his friends the eagles To guard each planted seed and seedling.

Then he was a G.o.d, to the red man's dreaming; Then the chiefs brought treasures grotesque and fair,-- Magical trinkets and pipes and guns, Beads and furs from their medicine-lair,-- Stuck holy feathers in his hair, Hailed him with austere delight.

The orchard G.o.d was their guest through the night.

While the late snow blew from bleak Lake Erie, Scourging rock and river and reed, All night long they made great medicine For Jonathan Chapman, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed; And as though his heart were a wind-blown wheat-sheaf, As though his heart were a new-built nest, As though their heaven house were his breast, In swept the snow-birds singing glory.

And I hear his bird heart beat its story, Hear yet how the ghost of the forest s.h.i.+vers, Hear yet the cry of the gray, old orchards, Dim and decaying by the rivers, And the timid wings of the bird-ghosts beating, And the ghosts of the tom-toms beating, beating.

[Sidenote: _While you read, hear the hoof-beats of deer in the snow.

And see, by their track, bleeding footprints we know._]

But he left their wigwams and their love.

By the hour of dawn he was proud and stark, Kissed the Indian babes with a sigh, Went forth to live on roots and bark, Sleep in the trees, while the years howled by--

Calling the catamounts by name, And buffalo bulls no hand could tame, Slaying never a living creature, Joining the birds in every game, With the gorgeous turkey gobblers mocking, With the lean-necked eagles boxing and shouting; Sticking their feathers in his hair,-- Turkey feathers, Eagle feathers,-- Trading hearts with all beasts and weathers He swept on, winged and wonder-crested, Bare-armed, barefooted, and bare-breasted.

[Sidenote: _While you read, see conventions of deer go by.

The bucks toss their horns, the fuzzy fawns fly._]

The maples, shedding their spinning seeds, Called to his appleseeds in the ground, Vast chestnut-trees, with their b.u.t.terfly nations, Called to his seeds without a sound.

And the chipmunk turned a "summer-set,"

And the foxes danced the Virginia reel; Hawthorne and crab-thorn bent, rain-wet, And dropped their flowers in his night-black hair; And the soft fawns stopped for his perorations; And his black eyes shone through the forest-gleam, And he plunged young hands into new-turned earth, And prayed dear orchard boughs into birth; And he ran with the rabbit and slept with the stream.

And he ran with the rabbit and slept with the stream.

And so for us he made great medicine, And so for us he made great medicine, In the days of President Was.h.i.+ngton.

III. ~Johnny Appleseed's Old Age~

[Sidenote: _To be read like faint hoof-beats of fawns long gone From respectable pasture, and park and lawn, And heartbeats of fawns that are coming again When the forest, once more, is the master of men._]

Long, long after, When settlers put up beam and rafter, They asked of the birds: "Who gave this fruit?

Who watched this fence till the seeds took root?

Who gave these boughs?" They asked the sky, And there was no reply.

But the robin might have said, "To the farthest West he has followed the sun, His life and his empire just begun."

Self-scourged, like a monk, with a throne for wages, Stripped like the iron-souled Hindu sages, Draped like a statue, in strings like a scarecrow, His helmet-hat an old tin pan, But worn in the love of the heart of man, More sane than the helm of Tamerlane, Hairy Ainu, wild man of Borneo, Robinson Crusoe--Johnny Appleseed; And the robin might have said, "Sowing, he goes to the far, new West, With the apple, the sun of his burning breast-- The apple allied to the thorn, Child of the rose."

Was.h.i.+ngton buried in Virginia, Jackson buried in Tennessee, Young Lincoln, brooding in Illinois, And Johnny Appleseed, priestly and free, Knotted and gnarled, past seventy years, Still planted on in the woods alone.

Ohio and young Indiana-- These were his wide altar-stone, Where still he burnt out flesh and bone.

Twenty days ahead of the Indian, twenty years ahead of the white man, At last the Indian overtook him, at last the Indian hurried past him; At last the white man overtook him, at last the white man hurried past him; At last his own trees overtook him, at last his own trees hurried past him.