Read Ebook: A Handy Guide for Beggars: Especially Those of the Poetic Fraternity Being Sundry Explorations Made While Afoot and Penniless in Florida Georgia North Carolina Tennessee Kentucky New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These Adventures Convey and Illustrate the Rule by Lindsay Vachel

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Ebook has 32 lines and 4513 words, and 1 pages

or in marble that breathes and sings.

A long long time I lay awake while the image glimmered and glowed. The clock downstairs would strike its shrill bell, and in my heart a censer swung.

MORNING

There was a pounding on the door and a shout. It was the young husband's voice. "It's time to feed your face."

They were at the breakfast table when I came down. My cherished memory of the group is the picture of them with bowed heads, the grandfather, with hand upraised, saying grace. It was ornate, and by no means brief. It was rich with authority. I wanted to call in all the mocking pagans of the nation, to be subdued before that devotion. I wanted to say: "Behold, little people, some great hearts still pray."

I stood in the door and made shift to bow my head. Yet my head was not so much bowed but I could see Gretchen-Cecilia and her mother timidly cross themselves. In my heart I said "Amen" to the old man's prayer. But I love every kind of devotion, so I crossed myself in the Virgin's name.

The tale had as well end here as anywhere. On the road there are endless beginnings and few conclusions. For instance I gathered from the conversation at the breakfast table they were not sure whether they would move to the city or not. They were for the most part silent and serene.

There were pleasant farewells a little later. Gretchen-Cecilia, when the others were not looking, gave me, at my earnest solicitation, a tiny curl from the head of her doll that had truly truly hair.

I walked on and on, toward the ends of the infinite earth, though I had found this noble temple, this shrine not altogether made with hands. I again consecrated my soul to the august and Protean Creator, maker of all religions, dweller in all clean temples, master of the perpetual road.

THAT MEN MIGHT SEE AGAIN THE ANGEL-THRONG

WOULD we were blind with Milton, and we sang With him of uttermost Heaven in a new song, That men might see again the angel-throng, And newborn hopes, true to this age would rise, Pictures to make men weep for paradise, All glorious things beyond the defeated grave. God smite us blind, and give us bolder wings; God help us to be brave.

Printed in the United States of America.

The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author.

The Congo and Other Poems

In the readings which Vachel Lindsay has given for colleges, universities, etc., throughout the country, he has won the approbation of the critics and of his audiences in general for the new verse-form which he is employing, as well as the manner of his chanting and singing, which is peculiarly his own. He carries in memory all the poems in his books, and recites the program made out for him; the wonderful effect of sound produced by his lines, their relation to the idea which the author seeks to convey, and their marvelous lyrical quality are quite beyond the ordinary, and suggest new possibilities and new meanings in poetry. It is his main object to give his already established friends a deeper sense of the musical intention of his pieces.

The book contains the much discussed "War Poem," "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"; it contains among its familiar pieces: "The Santa Fe Trail," "The Firemen's Ball," "The Dirge for a Righteous Kitten," "The Griffin's Egg," "The Spice Tree," "Blanche Sweet," "Mary Pickford," "The Soul of the City," etc.

General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems

This book contains among other verses: "On Reading Omar Khayyam during an Anti-Saloon Campaign in Illinois"; "The Wizard Wind"; "The Eagle Forgotten," a Memorial to John P. Altgeld; "The Knight in Disguise," a Memorial to O. Henry; "The Rose and the Lotus"; "Michaelangelo"; "Titian"; "What the Hyena Said"; "What Grandpa Mouse Said"; "A Net to Snare the Moonlight"; "Springfield Magical"; "The Proud Farmer"; "The Illinois Village"; "The Building of Springfield."

Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty

This is a series of happenings afoot while reciting at back-doors in the west, and includes some experiences while harvesting in Kansas. It includes several proclamations which apply the Gospel of Beauty to agricultural conditions. There are, among other rhymed interludes: "The Shield of Faith," "The Flute of the Lonely," "The Rose of Midnight," "Kansas," "The Kallyope Yell."

SOMETHING TO READ

The Art of the Moving Picture

An effort to apply the Gospel of Beauty to a new art. The first section has an outline which is proposed as a basis for photoplay criticism in America; chapters on: "The Photoplay of Action," "The Intimate Photoplay," "The Picture of Fairy Splendor," "The Picture of Crowd Splendor," "The Picture of Patriotic Splendor," "The Picture of Religious Splendor," "Sculpture in Motion," "Painting in Motion," "Furniture," "Trappings and Inventions in Motion," "Architecture in Motion," "Thirty Differences between the Photoplays and the Stage," "Hieroglyphics." The second section is avowedly more discursive, being more personal speculations and afterthoughts, not brought forward so dogmatically; chapters on: "The Orchestra Conversation and the Censorship," "The Substitute for the Saloon," "California and America," "Progress and Endowment," "Architects as Crusaders," "On Coming Forth by Day," "The Prophet Wizard," "The Acceptable Year of the Lord."

GENERAL ARTICLES ON THE POETRY SITUATION

FOOTNOTES:

In the prose sketches in this book I have allowed myself a story-teller's license only a little. Sometimes a considerable happening is introduced that came the day before, or two days after. In some cases the events of a week are told in reverse order.

Lady Iron-Heels is obviously a story, but embodies my exact impression of that region in a more compressed form than a note-book record could have done.

The other travel-narratives are ninety-nine per cent literal fact and one per cent abbreviation.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.

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