(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 […]

A little colt–broncho, loaned to the farmTo be broken in time without fury or harm,Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm,Calling “Beware,” with lugubrious singing …The butterflies there in the bush were romancing,The smell of the grass caught your soul in a trance,So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces,O broncho that would […]

Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry,The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high,The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar,White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar.I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone.My home was a hut without orchard or lawn.It was mud-smear and logs near a whispering […]

(To Eudora, after I had had certain dire adventures.) When Dragon-fly would fix his wings,When Snail would patch his house,When moths have marred the overcoatOf tender Mister Mouse, The pretty creatures go with hasteTo the sunlit blue-grass hillsWhere the Flower of Mending yields the waxAnd webs to help their ills. The hour the coats are […]

The King of Yellow Butterflies,The King of Yellow Butterflies,The King of Yellow Butterflies,Now orders forth his men.He says “The time is almost hereWhen violets bloom again.”Adown the road the fickle routGoes flashing proud and bold,Adown the road the fickle routGoes flashing proud and bold,Adown the road the fickle routGoes flashing proud and bold,They shiver by […]

Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all aloneUpon the sacred cliffs above the sky.God and the angels, and the gleaming saintsHad journeyed out into the stars to die. They had gone forth to win far citizens,Bought at great price, bring happiness for all:By such a harvest make a holier townAnd put new life within old […]

Romance was always young.You come todayJust eight years oldWith marvellous dark hair.Younger than Dante found youWhen you turnedHis heart into the wayThat found the heavenly stair. Perhaps we must be strangers.I confessMy soul this hour is Dante’s,And your careShould be for dollsWhose painted hands caressYour marvellous dark hair. Romance, with moonflower faceAnd morning eyes,And lips […]

I know a seraph who has golden eyes,And hair of gold, and body like the snow.Here in the wind I dream her unbound hairIs blowing round me, that desire’s sweet glowHas touched her pale keen face, and willful mien.And though she steps as one in manner bornTo tread the forests of fair Paradise,Dark memory’s wood […]

I “Down cellar,” said the cricket,“Down cellar,” said the cricket,“Down cellar,” said the cricket,“I saw a ball last night,In honor of a lady,In honor of a lady,In honor of a lady,Whose wings were pearly-white.The breath of bitter weather,The breath of bitter weather,The breath of bitter weather,Had smashed the cellar pane.We entertained a drift of leaves,We […]

(A Negro Sermon.) Once, in a night as black as ink,She drove him out when he would not drink.Round the house there were men in waitAsleep in rows by the Gaza gate.But the Holy Spirit was in this man.Like a gentle wind he crept and ran.(“It is midnight,” said the big town clock.) He lifted […]

[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe] Who now will praise the Wizard in the streetWith loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet–This Jingle-man, of strolling players born,Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn,This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good,With melancholy bells upon his hood? The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven’s croak,And well may mock his […]

[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)] “He could not forget that he was a Sidney.” Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown,The darling of the glad and gaping town? This is that dubious hero of the pressWhose slangy tongue and insolent addressWere spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoonThe man with yellow journals round him strewn.We […]

The following verses were written on the evening of March 1, 1911, and printed next morning in the Illinois State Register. They celebrate the arrival of the news that the United States Senate had declared the election of William Lorimer good and valid, by a vote of forty-six to forty. [Revelation 16: Verses 16-19] And […]

We are happy all the timeEven when we fight:Sweet briars of the stairways,Gay fairies of the grime;WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT. “Our feet are in the gutters,Our eyes are sore with dust,But still our eyes are bright.The wide street roars and mutters–We know it works because it must–WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT! “Dirt is everlasting.– […]

[This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose] This is a song to the white-armed oneCold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring,Whose feet are slow on the hills of life,Whose round mouth rules by […]

The cornfields rise above mankind,Lifting white torches to the blue,Each season not ashamed to beMagnificently decked for you. What right have you to call them yours,And in brute lust of riches burnWithout some radiant penance wrought,Some beautiful, devout return?

Would that such hills and cities round us sang,Such vistas of the actual earth and manAs kindled Titian when his life began;Would that this latter Greek could put his gold,Wisdom and splendor in our brushes boldTill Greece and Venice, children of the sun,Become our every-day, and we aspireTo colors fairer far, and glories higher.

Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soulOf Michelangelo, who hewed the stoneAnd Night and Day revealed, whose arm aloneCould draw the face of God, the titan highWhose genius smote like lightning from the sky–And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?Nay he is in us! Let us dare and dare.God help […]

[John P. Altgeld. Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902] Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. “We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.They made a brave show of their mourning, […]

I asked her, “Is Aladdin’s lampHidden anywhere?”“Look into your heart,” she said,“Aladdin’s lamp is there.” She took my heart with glowing hands.It burned to dust and airAnd smoke and rolling thistledownBlowing everywhere. “Follow the thistledown,” she said,“Till doomsday, if you dare,Over the hills and far away.Aladdin’s lamp is there.”