Chapter V

I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope, Tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope; Shaking window-pane and door With a crashing cosmic tune, With the war-cry of the spheres, Rhythm of the roar of noon, Rhythm of Niagara’s roar, Voicing planet, star and moon, SHRIEKING of the better years. Prophet-singers will arise, Prophets coming after me, Sing my song in softer guise With more delicate surprise; I am but the pioneer Voice of the Democracy; I am the gutter-dream, I am the golden dream, Singing science, singing steam. I will blow the proud folk down, (Listen to the lion roar!) I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope, Tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, Willy willy willy wah HOO! Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, Whoop whoop, whoop whoop, Whoop whoop, whoop whoop, Willy willy willy wah HOO! Sizz ..... Fizz .....

_The Forum_ _Nicholas Vachel Lindsay_

THANKSGIVING FOR OUR TASK

The sickle is dulled of the reaping and the threshing-floor is bare; The dust of night’s in the air. The peace of the weary is ours: All day we have taken the fruit and the grain and the seeds of the flowers.

The ev’ning is chill, It is good now to gather in peace by the flames of the fire. We have done now the deed that we did for our need and desire: We have wrought our will.

And now for the boon of abundance and golden increase, And immurèd peace, Shall we thank our God? Bethink us, amid His indulgence, His terrible rod?

Shall we be as the maple and oak, Strew the earth with our gold, giving only bare boughs to the sky? Nay, the pine stayeth green while the Winter growls sullenly by, And doth not revoke

For soft days or stern days the pledge of its constancy. Shall we not be Also the same through all days, Giving thanks when the battle breaks on us, in toil giving praise?

O Father who saw at the dawn, That the folly of Pride would be the lush weed of our sin, There is better than that in our hearts, O enter therein, A light burneth, though wan

And weak be the flame, yet it gloweth, our Humility! Ah, how can it be Trimmed o’ the wick, And replenished with oil to burn brightly and golden and quick?

For deep in our hearts We wish to be thankful through lean years and fat without change, Knowing that here Thou hast set for the spirit a range: We would play well our parts,

Making America throb with the building of souls and the glory of good; Yea, and we would, And before the last Autumn we will Build a temple from ocean to ocean where deeds never still

Melodiously shall proclaim Thanksgiving forever that Thou hast set here to our hand So wondrous a mystical harvest, that Thou dost demand Sheaves bound in Thy name,

Yea, supersubstantial sheaves of strong souls that have grown Fain to be known As the corn of Thine occident field: O Yielder of All, can America worthily thank Thee till such be her yield?

In the mellowing light Of the goldenest days that precede the gray days of the year, We sing Thee our harvesting song and we pray Thee to hear, In the midst of Thy might:

Labor is given to us,
Let us give thanks!
Power worketh through us,
Let us give thanks!
Not for what we have
(So might speak a slave),
Not for the garnering,
Gratefully we sing,
But for the mighty thing
We must do, travailing!
For our task and for our strength;
For the journey and its length;
For our dauntless eagerness;
For our humbling weariness;
For these, for these, O Father,
Let us give thanks!
For these, O Mighty Father,
Take Thou our thanks!

_The Forum_ _Shaemas OSheel_

A LIKENESS

PORTRAIT BUST OF AN UNKNOWN, CAPITOL, ROME

In every line a supple beauty--
The restless head a little bent--
Disgust of pleasure, scorn of duty,
The unseeing eyes of discontent.
I often come to sit beside him,
This youth who passed and left no trace
Of good or ill that did betide him,
Save the disdain upon his face.

The hope of all his House, the brother
Adored, the golden-hearted son,
Whom Fortune pampered like a mother;
And then--a shadow on the sun.
Whether he followed Cæsar’s trumpet,
Or chanced the riskier game at home
To find how favor played the strumpet
In fickle politics at Rome;

Whether he dreamed a dream in Asia
He never could forget by day,
Or gave his youth to some Aspasia,
Or gamed his heritage away;
Once lost, across the Empire’s border
This man would seek his peace in vain;
His look arraigns a social order
Somehow entrammelled with his pain.

“The dice of gods are always loaded”;
One gambler, arrogant as they,
Fierce, and by fierce injustice goaded,
Left both his hazard and the play.
Incapable of compromises,
Unable to forgive or spare,
The strange awarding of the prizes
He had no fortitude to bear.

Tricked by the forms of things material--
The solid-seeming arch and stone,
The noise of war, the pomp imperial,
The heights and depths about a throne--
He missed, among the shapes diurnal,
The old, deep-travelled road from pain,
The thoughts of men which are eternal,
In which, eternal, men remain.

Ritratto d’ignoto; defying
Things unsubstantial as a dream--
An Empire, long in ashes lying--
His face still set against the stream.
Yes, so he looked, that gifted brother
I loved, who passed and left no trace,
Not even--luckier than this other--
His sorrow in a marble face.

_Scribner’s_ _Willa Sibert Cather_

THE FIELD OF GLORY

War shook the land where Levi dwelt, And fired the dismal wrath he felt, That such a doom was ever wrought As his, to toil while others fought; To toil, to dream--and still to dream, With one day barren as another; To consummate, as it would seem, The dry despair of his old mother.

Far off one afternoon began The sound of man destroying man; And Levi, sick with nameless rage, Condemned again his heritage, And sighed for scars that might have come, And would, if once he could have sundered Those harsh, inhering claims of home That held him while he cursed and wondered.

Another day, and then there came, Rough, bloody, ribald, hungry, lame, But yet themselves, to Levi’s door, Two remnants of the day before. They laughed at him and what he sought; They jeered him, and his painful acre; But Levi knew that they had fought, And left their manners to their Maker.

That night, for the grim widow’s ears, With hopes that hid themselves in fears, He told of arms, and featly deeds, Whereat one leaps the while he reads, And said he’d be no more a clown, While others drew the breath of battle. The mother looked him up and down, And laughed--a scant laugh with a rattle.

She told him what she found to tell, And Levi listened, and heard well Some admonitions of a voice That left him no cause to rejoice. He sought a friend, and found the stars, And prayed aloud that they should aid him; But they said not a word of wars, Or of a reason why God made him.

And who’s of this or that estate We do not wholly calculate, When baffling shades that shift and cling Are not without their glimmering; When even Levi, tired of faith, Beloved of none, forgot by many, Dismissed as an inferior wraith, Reborn may be as great as any.

_The Outlook_ _Edwin Arlington Robinson_

RICH MAN, POOR MAN--

Oh, joy that burns in Denver tavern!
The lights, the drink, the ceaseless play!
A kingdom, dull within a cavern,
Across the boards he flings away.

Then night that falls on either mountain
(Ah, bitter black it falls between);
But he, like water to its fountain,
Is come again where life runs clean.

So Death shall find him, delving, peering.
Still silver rock, still golden sand.
He weeps to hear the magpies’ jeering,
But he is back in his own land.

_Lippincott’s_ _Francis Hill_

THE SIN EATER