The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 24

Let Science and Machinery and Trade Be slaves of her, and make her all in all -- Building against our blatant restless time An unseen, skillful, mediaeval wall.

Let every citizen be rich toward G.o.d.

Let Christ, the beggar, teach divinity -- Let no man rule who holds his money dear.

Let this, our city, be our luxury.

We should build parks that students from afar Would choose to starve in, rather than go home -- Fair little squares, with Phidian ornament -- Food for the spirit, milk and honeycomb.

Songs shall be sung by us in that good day -- Songs we have written -- blood within the rhyme Beating, as when old England still was glad, The purple, rich, Elizabethan time.

Say, is my prophecy too fair and far?

I only know, unless her faith be high, The soul of this our Nineveh is doomed, Our little Babylon will surely die.

Some city on the breast of Illinois No wiser and no better at the start, By faith shall rise redeemed -- by faith shall rise Bearing the western glory in her heart --

The genius of the Maple, Elm and Oak, The secret hidden in each grain of corn -- The glory that the prairie angels sing At night when sons of Life and Love are born --

Born but to struggle, squalid and alone, Broken and wandering in their early years.

When will they make our dusty streets their goal, Within our attics hide their sacred tears?

When will they start our vulgar blood athrill With living language -- words that set us free?

When will they make a path of beauty clear Between our riches and our liberty?

We must have many Lincoln-hearted men -- A city is not builded in a day -- And they must do their work, and come and go While countless generations pa.s.s away.

The Poet's Town. [John G. Neihardt]

I

'Mid glad green miles of tillage And fields where cattle graze, A prosy little village, You drowse away the days.

And yet -- a wakeful glory Clings round you as you doze; One living lyric story Makes music of your prose.

Here once, returning never, The feet of song have trod; And flashed -- Oh, once forever! -- The singing Flame of G.o.d.

II

These were his fields Elysian: With mystic eyes he saw The sowers planting vision, The reapers gleaning awe.

Serfs to a sordid duty, He saw them with his heart, Priests of the Ultimate Beauty, Feeding the flame of art.

The weird, untempled Makers Pulsed in the things he saw; The wheat through its virile acres Billowed the Song of Law.

The epic roll of the furrow Flung from the writing plow, The dactyl phrase of the green-rowed maize Measured the music of Now.

III

Sipper of ancient flagons, Often the lonesome boy Saw in the farmers' wagons The chariots hurled at Troy.

Trundling in dust and thunder They rumbled up and down, Laden with princely plunder, Loot of the tragic Town.

And once when the rich man's daughter Smiled on the boy at play, Sword-storms, giddy with slaughter, Swept back the ancient day!

War steeds shrieked in the quiet, Far and hoa.r.s.e were the cries; And Oh, through the din and the riot, The music of Helen's eyes!

Stabbed with the olden Sorrow, He slunk away from the play, For the Past and the vast To-morrow Were wedded in his To-day.

IV

Rich with the dreamer's pillage, An idle and worthless lad, Least in a prosy village, And prince in Allahabad;

Lover of golden apples, Munching a daily crust; Haunter of dream-built chapels, Wors.h.i.+pping in the dust;

Dull to the worldly duty, Less to the town he grew, And more to the G.o.d of Beauty Than even the grocer knew!

V

Corn for the buyers, and cattle -- But what could the dreamer sell?

Echoes of cloudy battle?

Music from heaven and h.e.l.l?

Spices and bales of plunder Argosied over the sea?

Tapestry woven of wonder, And myrrh from Araby?

None of your dream-stuffs, Fellow, Looter of Samarcand!

Gold is heavy and yellow, And value is weighed in the hand!

VI

And yet, when the years had humbled The Kings in the Realm of the Boy, Song-built bastions crumbled, Ash-heaps smothering Troy;

Thirsting for shattered flagons, Quaffing a brackish cup, With all of his chariots, wagons -- He never could quite grow up.

The debt to the ogre, To-morrow, He never could comprehend: Why should the borrowers borrow?

Why should the lenders lend?

Never an oak tree borrowed, But took for its needs -- and gave.

Never an oak tree sorrowed; Debt was the mark of the slave.