Oh, gypsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Picking the brains and pockets of mankind, You will go westward for one-half hour yet. You will turn eastward in a little while. 41 You will go back, as men turn to Kentucky, Land of their fathers, dark and bloody ground. When all the Jews go home to Syria, When Chinese cooks go back to Canton, When Japanese photographers return And Scotch accountants back to Edinburgh, When you have reached the borders of your quest, Homesick at last, by many a devious way, Winding the wonderlands circuitous, By foot and horse will trace the long way back! Fiddling for ocean liners, while the dance Sweeps through the decks, your brown tribes all will go! Those east-bound ships will hear your long farewell On fiddle, piccolo, and flute and timbrel. That hour of their homesickness, I myself Passing the Indus, winding poisonous forests, Blowing soft flutes at scandalous temple girls, Filling the highways with their magpie loot, What brass from my Chicago will they heap, 80 What gems from Walla Walla, Omaha, Will they pile near the Bodhi Tree, and laugh? They will dance near such temples as best suit them, Though they will not quite enter, or adore, Looking on roofs, as poets look on lilies, Looking at towers, as boys at forest vines, That leap to tree-tops through the dizzy air. I know all this, when gypsy fiddles cry. And with the gypsies there will be a king And a thousand desperadoes just his style, 90 With all their rags dyed in the blood of roses, Splashed with the blood of angels, and of demons. And he will boss them with an awful voice. And with a red whip he will beat his wife. He will be wicked on that sacred shore, And rattle cruel spurs against the rocks, And shake Calcutta's walls with circus bugles. He will kill Brahmins there, in Kali's name, And please the thugs, and blood-drunk of the earth. I know all this, when gypsy fiddles cry. 100 Oh, sweating thieves, and hard-boiled scalawags, That still will boast your pride until the doom, Smashing every caste rule of the world, Reaching at last your Hindu goal to smash The caste rules of old India, and shout: 'Down with the Brahmins, let the Romany reign." I. THE PROUD FARMER (In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana) INTO the acres of the newborn state He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name, And, when the traders followed him, he stood Towering above their furtive souls and tame. That brow without a stain, that fearless eye Oft left the passing stranger wondering To find such knighthood in the sprawling land, To see a democrat well-nigh a king. He lived with liberal hand, with guests from far, With talk and joke and fellowship to spare,Watching the wide world's life from sun to Lining his walls with books from everywhere. He read by night, he built his world by day. The farm and house of God to him were one. For forty years he preached and plowed and wrought A statesman in the fields, who bent to none. From V. Lindsay's General William Booth Enters into Heaven, and Other Poems, copyrighted in 1913 by the Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission. Mr. Lindsay states that he recited this group of poems more than any others in his "mendicant preaching tour through the West," and he adds: “Taken as a triad, they hold in solution my theory of American civilization." ΙΟ Yet when I see the flocks of girls, 20 Maids, lovers, friends, so deep in life, Who can pass a village church As jade or marble, wrought this hour:- Who can pass a district school The Artist's town of Bethlehem! III. ON THE BUILDING OF SPRINGFIELD 30 40 50 |