Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

by Vachel Lindsay

 
It is portentous, and a thing of state   
That here at midnight, in our little town   
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,   
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,   
   
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,   
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones   
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.   
   
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,   
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,   
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.   
   
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.   
He is among us:—as in times before!   
And we who toss and lie awake for long,
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.   
   
His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings.   
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?   
Too many peasants fight, they know not why;   
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.
   
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.   
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.   
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now   
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.   
   
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free:   
A league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,   
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.   
   
It breaks his heart that things must murder still,   
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace   
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

On Reading Omar Khayyam

by Vachel Lindsay

[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]

In the midst of the battle I turned,
(For the thunders could flourish without me)
And hid by a rose-hung wall,
Forgetting the murder about me;
And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
In mirth, half prayer, half play: —
"Send me a picture book,
Send me a song, to-day."

I saw him there by the wall
When I scarce had written the line,
In the enemy's colors dressed
And the serpent-standard of wine
Writhing its withered length
From his ghostly hands o'er the ground,
And there by his shadowy breast
The glorious poem I found.

This was his world-old cry:
Thus read the famous prayer:
"Wine, wine, wine and flowers
And cup-bearers always fair!"
'Twas a book of the snares of earth
Bordered in gold and blue,
And I read each line to the wind
And read to the roses too:
And they nodded their womanly heads
And told to the wall just why
For wine of the earth men bleed,
Kingdoms and empires die.
I envied the grape stained sage:
(The roses were praising him.)
The ways of the world seemed good
And the glory of heaven dim.
I envied the endless kings
Who found great pearls in the mire,
Who bought with the nation's life
The cup of delicious fire.

But the wine of God came down,
And I drank it out of the air.
(Fair is the serpent-cup,
But the cup of God more fair.)
The wine of God came down
That makes no drinker to weep.
And I went back to battle again
Leaving the singer asleep.