IN PRAISE OF JOHNNY APPLESEED[1] ( Born 1775. Died 1847 ) [Footnote 1: The best account of John Chapman’s career, under the name “Johnny Appleseed,” is to be found in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, November, 1871.] I. ~Over the Appalachian Barricade~ [Sidenote: To be read like old leaves on the elm tree of Time. Sifting soft […]

Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse,Saying: “We tell the fortunes of the nations,And revel in the deep palm of the world.The head-line is the road we choose for trade.The love-line is the lane wherein we camp.The life-line is the road we wander on.Mount Venus, Jupiter, and all the restAre finger-tips of ranges clasping roundAnd […]

Two Poems, written on the Sinking of the Lusitania.Appearing in the Chicago ‘Herald’, May 11, 1915. I. Speak Now for Peace Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen,Stand now for peace, (though anger breaks your heart),Though naught but smoke and flame and drowning is seen. Lady of Light, speak, though you speak alone,Though […]

When Bryan speaks, the town’s a hive.From miles around, the autos drive.The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows.The place is kicking and alive. When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows.The raw procession onward flows.The small dogs bark. The children laughA wind of springtime fancy blows. When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes.The corporation magnate quakes.The pre-convention plot is […]

(Written with the hope that the socialists might yet dethrone Kaiser and Czar.) Here’s to the mice that scare the lions,Creeping into their cages.Here’s to the fairy mice that biteThe elephants fat and wise:Hidden in the hay-pile while the elephant thunder rages.Here’s to the scurrying, timid miceThrough whom the proud cause dies. Here’s to the […]

(Matthew 5:38-48) Who can surrender to Christ, dividing his best with the stranger,Giving to each what he asks, braving the uttermost dangerAll for the enemy, MAN? Who can surrender till deathHis words and his works, his house and his lands,His eyes and his heart and his breath? Who can surrender to Christ? Many have yearned […]

“How, how,” he said. “Friend Chang,” I said,“San Francisco sleeps as the dead–Ended license, lust and play:Why do you iron the night away?Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round.While the monster shadows glower and creep,What can be better for man than sleep?” “I will tell […]

When Yankee soldiers reach the barricadeThen Joan of Arc gives each the accolade. For she is there in armor clad, today,All the young poets of the wide world say. Which of our freemen did she greet the first,Seeing him come against the fires accurst? Mark Twain, our Chief, with neither smile nor jest,Leading to war […]

I. God Send the Regicide Would that the lying rulers of the worldWere brought to block for tyrannies abhorred.Would that the sword of Cromwell and the Lord,The sword of Joshua and Gideon,Hewed hip and thigh the hosts of Midian.God send that ironside ere tomorrow’s sun;Let Gabriel and Michael with him ride.God send the Regicide. II. […]

(Note:–Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.) “Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet asa red haw in November or a pawpaw in May–didshe wonder? does she remember–in the dust–inthe cool tombs?” Carl Sandburg. I Powhatan was conqueror,Powhatan was emperor.He was akin to wolf and bee,Brother of the hickory tree.Son of the red lightning strokeAnd the […]

Written to Miss Alice L. F. Fitzgerald, Edith Cavell memorial nurse, going to the front. Your fine white hand is Heaven’s giftTo cure the wide world, stricken sore,Bleeding at the breast and head,Tearing at its wounds once more. Your white hand is a prophecy,A living hope that Christ shall comeAnd make the nations merciful,Hating the […]

A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old. The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages. It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace is unconquerable and eternal. I […]

In “Man’s Genesis”, “The Wild Girl of the Sierras”, “The Wharf Rat”, “A Girl of the Paris Streets”, etc. I The arts are old, old as the stonesFrom which man carved the sphinx austere.Deep are the days the old arts bring:Ten thousand years of yesteryear. II She is madonna in an artAs wild and young […]

I. Edwin Booth An old actor at the Player’s Club told me that Edwin Booth first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California. There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided with crude assembly rooms for strolling players. The youth played in the blear hotel.The rafters gleamed with glories strange.And winds of mourning ElsinoreHowling […]

Where a river roars in rapidsAnd doves in maples fret,Where peace has decked the pasturesOur guardian angels met. Long they had sought each otherIn God’s mysterious name,Had climbed the solemn chaos tidesAlone, with hope aflame: Amid the demon deeps had woundBy many a fearful way.As they beheld each otherTheir shout made glad the day. No […]

(Being a Chant of the American Soap-Box and the Russian Revolution.) O market square, O slattern place,Is glory in your slack disgrace?Plump quack doctors sell their pills,Gentle grafters sell brass watches,Silly anarchists yell their ills.Shall we be as weird as these?In the breezes nod and wheeze? Heaven’s mass is sung,Tomorrow’s mass is sungIn a spirit […]

I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room.The smoke formed the giant frog-cat of my doom.His web feet left dreadful slime tracks on the floor.He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door.He sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair.He looked through my heart to the mud that was there.Like a […]

“Yes,” said the sister with the little pinched face,The busy little sister with the funny little tract:–“This is the climax, the grand fifth act.There rides the proud, at the finish of his race.There goes the hearse, the mourners cry,The respectable hearse goes slowly by.The wife of the dead has money in her purse,The children are […]

Two old crows sat on a fence rail,Two old crows sat on a fence rail,Thinking of effect and cause,Of weeds and flowers,And nature’s laws.One of them muttered, one of them stuttered,One of them stuttered, one of them muttered.Each of them thought far more than he uttered.One crow asked the other crow a riddle.One crow asked […]

(To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect.) Here upon the prairieIs our ancestral hall.Agate is the dome,Cornelian the wall.Ghouls are in the cellar,But fays upon the stairs.And here lived old King Silver Dreams,Always at his prayers. Here lived grey Queen Silver Dreams,Always singing psalms,And haughty Grandma Silver Dreams,Throned with folded palms.Here played cousin Alice.Her soul […]