Chapter I: Preface

Vachel Lindsay is the poet. He is best known as the author of _General William Booth Enters Heaven_, _The Congo_ and _Johnny Appleseed_. He also wrote a highly comical piece called _The Daniel Jazz_. He is a wonderful reciter, and is aided by a sonorous, heaven-reaching voice. All his poems are written to be read aloud, chanted, or declaimed; in some cases they are written to be danced also, and played as games. In many of his recitations the audience is called upon to take part in choruses and refrains. Thus, in one poem, when Lindsay says, “I’ve been to Palestine,” the audience as one man has to cry back to him, “_What did you see in Palestine?_” This is rapturously enjoyed by the audience. When you have heard the poet you can well understand that he did not starve when he used to tramp in America and recite to the farmers for a meal and a night’s lodging. He has gained a great popularity.

He is, however, something more than an entertainer. He has a spiritual message to the world, and is deeply in earnest. In a large experience of men and women in many countries, I have rarely met such a rebel against vulgarity, materialism, and the modern artificial way of life. At the same time, despite his poetry, he is almost inarticulate. He has helped me, and here in a way I help him by giving in a new form part of the richness of his thoughts and his opinions.

Vachel Lindsay visited England in 1920, and recited his poems at Oxford and Cambridge and to several groups of friends in London. His mother, Catharine Frazee Lindsay, who accompanied him, was a notable woman in Springfield, Illinois, in religious and progressive activities. She succumbed to an attack of pneumonia this year. But those who met her in this country recognised in her a remarkable figure. At Vachel’s invitation I visited Springfield last summer, and we went to the Rockies, and tramped together to Canada, and this volume is a record of our holiday. A mutual friend of ours is Christopher Morley, who brought us together in 1919. When he heard of our projected expedition he interposed to get some letters for the New York _Evening Post_. Some thirty-two of these were written, mostly by the camp fire or sitting on the rocks in the sun, and were printed in the _Post_, where they attracted considerable attention. “Centurion” in the _Century Magazine_ for August wrote: “Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Graham are having a glorious time. As for those of us who must spend the dog-days in stuffy cities and stuffier offices, the picture of the two of them by a camp fire in the Rockies waking to the freshness and glory of a mountain dawn is--well, if there are no future issues of the _Century Magazine_, you may be sure that the entire staff, inspired by this example, has started vagabonding.” Another, a facetious scribe, wrote: “It is conceded by every one that Stephen Graham’s _Tramping with a Poet_ will some day stand on the shelf of open-air literature beside _Travels with a Donkey_.”

My thanks are due to the representatives of the Great Northern Railway of America, at St. Paul, who gave us a wonderful collection of pictures, maps, and books, when they heard we were going, on the subject of Glacier Park, which we tramped through. In fact, the railway company would have done a great deal for us, but we eluded their kind care, as was our wish, and got out entirely on our own.

As Vachel Lindsay was an art student before he was a poet, and wrote his first verses as scrolls to be illuminated below emblematic figures, we naturally discussed emblems and emblematic art and hieroglyphics as we tramped together. The emblems in this book are an attempt to express that side of our mutual experience. They have been done by my friend, Vernon Hill, who drew once that very precious work, “The Arcadian Calendar.”

One of the poems is by “Rusticus,” who, anent our adventures, contributed it to the New York _Evening Post_.

A last point: Vachel is pronounced to rhyme with Rachel, and is spelt with one l. It does not rhyme with satchel. The poet asked me to tell you that.

STEPHEN GRAHAM

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. TRAMPING AGAIN 1

II. FINDING THE POET 7

III. TAKING THE ROAD 14

IV. FIRST NIGHTS OUT 21

V. GOING UP TO THE SNOW 28

VI. DIFFERENT WAYS OF GOING DOWNWARD 34

VII. SILENCED BY THE MOUNTAINS 40

VIII. NIGHT AND NOTHING ON THE MOUNTAINS 47

IX. “WIFE, GIVE ME THE PAIN-KILLER” 54

X. CLEAR BLUE 62

XI. NATIONAL WILDERNESS 71

XII. GOING WEST 77

XIII. CLIMBING RED EAGLE 82

XIV. DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE 89

XV. PEOPLE IN CAMP 95

XVI. VISITED BY BEARS 101

XVII. LINDSAY’S STONE COFFEE 108

XVIII. MAKING MAPS OF THE WORLD 114

XIX. A MOUNTAIN POINT OF VIEW 121

XX. BY THE CAMP FIRE 127

XXI. DOWN CATARACT MOUNTAIN 133

XXII. “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN” 139

XXIII. THE SUN-WORSHIPPERS 146

XXIV. TWO VOICES 151

XXV. STOPPED BY THE CLOUDS 158

XXVI. LINDSAY ON ROOSEVELT 165

XXVII. THE WILLOWS 171

XXVIII. JOHNNY APPLESEED 177

XXIX. LOG-ROLLING 184

XXX. TOWARD THE KOOTENAI 190

XXXI. AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 196

XXXII. THE STAR OF SPRINGFIELD 201

XXXIII. FLAT TOP MOUNTAIN 213

XXXIV. CROSSING THE CANADIAN LINE 221

XXXV. THE DIFFERENCE 231

XXXVI. DUKHOBORS 239

XXXVII. A VISIT TO THE MORMONS 247

XXXVIII. “BLOOM FOR EVER, O REPUBLIC!” 274

TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE ROCKIES