FullReads

[# To be given very harshly,
with a snapping explosiveness. #]

Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking.
Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking.
Way down the road, trilling like a toad,
Here comes the dice-horn, here comes the vice-horn,
Here comes the snarl-horn, brawl-horn, lewd-horn,
Followed by the prude-horn, bleak and squeaking:–
(Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.)
Here comes the hod-horn, plod-horn, sod-horn,
Nevermore-to-roam-horn, loam-horn, home-horn.
(Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.)

[# To be read or sung, well-nigh in a whisper. #]

Far away the Rachel-Jane
Not defeated by the horns
Sings amid a hedge of thorns:–
“Love and life,
Eternal youth–
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet,
Dew and glory,
Love and truth,
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.”

[# Louder and louder, faster and faster. #]

WHILE SMOKE-BLACK FREIGHTS ON THE DOUBLE-TRACKED RAILROAD,
DRIVEN AS THOUGH BY THE FOUL-FIEND’S OX-GOAD,
SCREAMING TO THE WEST COAST, SCREAMING TO THE EAST,
CARRY OFF A HARVEST, BRING BACK A FEAST,
HARVESTING MACHINERY AND HARNESS FOR THE BEAST.
THE HAND-CARS WHIZ, AND RATTLE ON THE RAILS,
THE SUNLIGHT FLASHES ON THE TIN DINNER-PAILS.

[# In a rolling bass, with increasing deliberation. #]

And then, in an instant,
Ye modern men,
Behold the procession once again,

[# With a snapping explosiveness. #]

Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking,
Listen to the wise-horn, desperate-to-advise-horn,
Listen to the fast-horn, kill-horn, blast-horn….

[# To be sung or read well-nigh in a whisper. #]

Far away the Rachel-Jane
Not defeated by the horns
Sings amid a hedge of thorns:–
Love and life,
Eternal youth,
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet,
Dew and glory,
Love and truth.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.

[# To be brawled in the beginning with a
snapping explosiveness, ending in a languorous chant. #]

The mufflers open on a score of cars
With wonderful thunder,
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK,
CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK,
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK,…
Listen to the gold-horn…
Old-horn…
Cold-horn…
And all of the tunes, till the night comes down
On hay-stack, and ant-hill, and wind-bitten town.

[# To be sung to exactly the same whispered
tune as the first five lines. #]

Then far in the west, as in the beginning,
Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating,
Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn,
Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn….

[# This section beginning sonorously,
ending in a languorous whisper. #]

They are hunting the goals that they understand:–
San Francisco and the brown sea-sand.
My goal is the mystery the beggars win.
I am caught in the web the night-winds spin.
The edge of the wheat-ridge speaks to me.
I talk with the leaves of the mulberry tree.
And now I hear, as I sit all alone
In the dusk, by another big Santa Fe stone,
The souls of the tall corn gathering round
And the gay little souls of the grass in the ground.
Listen to the tale the cotton-wood tells.
Listen to the wind-mills, singing o’er the wells.
Listen to the whistling flutes without price
Of myriad prophets out of paradise.
Harken to the wonder
That the night-air carries….
Listen… to… the… whisper…
Of… the… prairie… fairies
Singing o’er the fairy plain:–

[# To the same whispered tune as the
Rachel-Jane song–but very slowly. #]

“Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
Love and glory,
Stars and rain,
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet….”