  Poetry
This week: Nicholas Vachel Lindsay Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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The Beggar's Valentine
by Vachel Lindsay
Kiss me and comfort my heart
Maiden honest and fine.
I am the pilgrim boy
Lame, but hunting the shrine;
Fleeing away from the sweets,
Seeking the dust and rain,
Sworn to the staff and road,
Scorning pleasure and pain;
Nevertheless my mouth
Would rest like a bird an hour
And find in your curls a nest
And find in your breast a bower:
Nevertheless my eyes
Would lose themselves in your own,
Rivers that seek the sea,
Angels before the throne:
Kiss me and comfort my heart,
For love can never be mine:
Passion, hunger and pain,
These are the only wine
Of the pilgrim bound to the road.
He would rob no man of his own.
Your heart is another's I know,
Your honor is his alone.
The feasts of a long drawn love,
The feasts of a wedded life,
The harvests of patient years,
And hearthstone and children and wife:
These are your lords I know.
These can never be mine —
This is the price I pay
For the foolish search for the shrine:
This is the price I pay
For the joy of my midnight prayers,
Kneeling beneath the moon
With hills for my altar stairs;
This is the price I pay
For the throb of the mystic wings,
When the dove of God comes down
And beats round my heart and sings;
This is the price I pay
For the light I shall some day see
At the ends of the infinite earth
When truth shall come to me.
And what if my body die
Before I meet the truth?
The road is dear, more dear
Than love or life or youth.
The road, it is the road,
Mystical, endless, kind,
Mother of visions vast,
Mother of soul and mind;
Mother of all of me
But the blood that cries for a mate —
That cries for a farewell kiss
From the child of God at the gate.
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay was born on November 10, 1879. Lindsay was the second child born to Thomas and Kate Frazee Lindsay. Lindsay's father was a well-known physician and his mother influenced Lindsay's artistic side. Though his family was very well off they faced a lot of hardships too. Lindsay lost three of his sisters to scarlet fever. His father being a doctor blamed himself for the girls’ deaths because he was helping so many people in the town that had scarlet fever he left that he brought it home. Lindsay went to Springfield Public Schools in the beginning. At the age of eleven he entered Stuart Grammar School of Springfield, which was a private school. He attended Springfield High School, where he was taught by Susan Wilcox. Ms. Wilcox became a great friend to Lindsay that friendship continued throughout his life. She was the first person that got to read his poetry.
Thomas Lindsay did not want his son to become a poet and pushed him into studying medicine at Hiram College. He was there for almost three years but knew deep inside he was not meant to be a doctor. Finally His father agreed and Lindsay went to the Chicago Art Institute. Over the next five years he studied mostly Egyptian art. Many of his paintings have poems that go with them like, "The Tree of Laughing Bells." Then there was "The Potatoes' Dance" to name a few. His first poem was published in 1913, "General William Booth Enters Heaven". Lindsay published "The Congo and Other Poems" in 1914, then "A Handy Guide for Beggars: Especially Those of the Poetic Fraternity; Being Sundry Explorations ..." in 1916.
Lindsay married Elizabeth Connor on May 20, 1925. Lindsay was forty-six and Elizabeth was only twenty-three years old. Lindsay’s first child was a girl, Susan Doniphan, born on May 28, 1926. Their second was a boy, Nicholas Cave, born on September 16, 1927. During this time Lindsay published a collection of poems "The Candle in the Cabin." In 1929 Lindsay moved his family back to the house he was born in. Lindsay's then published "Every Soul is a Circus" later that year.
Lindsay gave what was to be his last poetry reading on November 30, 1931 in his hometown of Springfield. Though the reading went well and Lindsay’s felt that he had finally won over Springfield, he was deeply depressed. His marriage was falling apart and financially he had many debts that he could not pay off. Lindsay mental health had become more and more unstable. Then on December 5, 1931 at one in the morning Nicholas Vachel Lindsay took his own life.
The Wizard in the Street by Vachel Lindsay
(written in regards to Edgar Allan Poe)
Who now will praise the Wizard in the street
With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet —
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born,
Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn,
This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good,
With melancholy bells upon his hood?
The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak,
And well may mock his mystifying cloak
Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read
To make the ignoramus turn his head.
The artificial glitter of his eyes
Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise.
Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep,
Soothed by his steady wand's mesmeric sweep.
The little lacquered boxes in his hands
Somehow suggest old times and reverenced lands.
From them doll-monsters come, we know not how:
Puppets, with Cain's black rubric on the brow.
Some passing jugglers, smiling, now concede
That his best cabinet-work is made, indeed
By bleeding his right arm, day after day,
Triumphantly to seal and to inlay.
They praise his little act of shedding tears;
A trick, well learned, with patience, thro' the years.
I love him in this blatant, well-fed place.
Of all the faces, his the only face
Beautiful, tho' painted for the stage,
Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage,
Shames that are living, loves and hopes long dead,
Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.
Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep:
"What Nations sow, they must expect to reap,"
Or haste to clothe the race with truth and power,
With hymns and shouts increasing every hour.
Useful are you. There stands the useless one
Who builds the Haunted Palace in the sun.
Good tailors, can you dress a doll for me
With silks that whisper of the sounding sea?
One moment, citizens, — the weary tramp
Unveileth Psyche with the agate lamp.
Which one of you can spread a spotted cloak
And raise an unaccounted incense smoke
Until within the twilight of the day
Stands dark Ligeia in her disarray,
Witchcraft and desperate passion in her breath
And battling will, that conquers even death?
And now the evening goes. No man has thrown
The weary dog his well-earned crust or bone.
We grin and hie us home and go to sleep,
Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep.
He drank alone, for sorrow, and then slept,
And few there were that watched him, few that wept.
He found the gutter, lost to love and man.
Too slowly came the good Samaritan.
The Moon is a Painter
by Vachel Lindsay
He coveted her portrait.
He toiled as she grew gay.
She loved to see him labor
In that devoted way.
And in the end it pleased her,
But bowed him more with care.
Her rose-smile showed so plainly,
Her soul-smile was not there.
That night he groped without a lamp
To find a cloak, a book,
And on the vexing portrait
By moonrise chanced to look.
The color-scheme was out of key,
The maiden rose-smile faint,
But through the blessed darkness
She gleamed, his friendly saint.
The comrade, white, immortal,
His bride, and more than bride—
The citizen, the sage of mind,
For whom he lived and died.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] is:
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#1917965 by Not Available. |
A twist in our fate has seperated us
and has cast a shadow over our reality.
Dusk has escaped on the wings of a chilled wind
and darkness invades with a purposeful hand.
Surrounded by strangers, I stand alone.
Muffled whispers, shuffeling feet,
the dying light of my candle in the damp, cold night
all accentuate my fears for me.
But it matters not.
Every twist and turn in my lonely journey
makes my love much stronger,
my heart beat faster,
my purpose much clearer,
and my red blood burn hotter...
with every step it takes to get back to you.
Honorable mention:
| | | Invalid Item
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#1917377 by Not Available. |
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Poetry: February 12, 2013 Issue [#5514]
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