The signs in the street and the signs in the skies Shall make a new Zodiac guiding the wise, And Broadway make one, with that marvelous stair That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer."
The Congo.
He looks straight up above the signs to heaven. But he does not forget to look down also, where the people are, the folks that walk and live and crawl under the electric signs. In "Galahad, Knight Who Perished"
(a poem dedicated to all crusaders against the international and interstate traffic in young girls), this phrase rings and rings its way into Christian consciousness:
"Galahad--knight who perished--awaken again, Teach us to fight for immaculate ways among men."
The Congo.
And again and again one is rudely awakened from his ease by such lines as "The leaden-eyed" children of the city which he pictures:
"Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly; Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap; Not that they serve, but have no G.o.ds to serve; Not that they die, but that they die like sheep."
The Congo.
Who has not seen factory windows in village, town, and city, and who has not known that "Factory windows are always broken"? How this smacks of pall, and smoke, and dirt, and grind, and hurt and little weak children, slaves of industry! Thank G.o.d, Vachel Lindsay, that the Christian Church has found an ally in you; and poet and preacher together--for they are both akin--pray G.o.d we may soon abolish forever child slavery. Yes, no wonder "Factory windows are always broken." The children break them because they hate a prison.
The "Coal Heaver," "The Scissors Grinder," "The Mendicant," "The Tramp," all so smacking of the city, have their interpretation.
I wish in these pages might be quoted all of "The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit," for it daringly, beautifully, and strongly carries into the new philosophy which Mr. Lindsay is introducing the thought that every village, every town, every city has a community soul that must be saved, through Christian influence. But the ring of it and the swing of it will suggest itself in a few verses:
"Censers are swinging Over the town; Censers are swinging, Look overhead!
Censers are swinging, Heaven comes down.
City, dead city, Awake from the dead!
"Soldiers of Christ For battle grow keen.
Heaven-sent winds Haunt alley and lane.
Singing of life In town-meadows green After the toil And battle and pain.
"Builders, toil on, Make all complete.
Make Springfield wonderful.
Make her renown Worthy this day, Till at G.o.d"s feet, Tranced, saved forever, Waits the white town."
The Congo.
Ah, if we could but catch this vision of not only the individuals but the city itself receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, we would have therein a new and a tremendous force for good.
One might quote from "The Drunkards in the Street":
"Within their gutters, drunkards dream of h.e.l.l.
I say my prayers by my white bed to-night, With the arms of G.o.d about me, with the angels singing, singing Until the grayness of my soul grows white."
General William Booth.
He goes to the bottom of the social evil, down to its economic causes, and blames the state for "The Trap," and this striking couplet rings in one"s heart long after the book is laid down:
"In liberty"s name we cry For these women about to die!"
General William Booth.
The poet who speaks in "The City That Will Not Repent" is only feeling over again, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,... how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" The "Old Horse in the City," "To Reformers in Despair," "The Gamblers"--it is all there: the heartaches, the struggle for existence, the fallen woman, the outcast man, the sound of drums, the tambourines, the singing of the mission halls. You find it all, especially in "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven." Here is life--the very life of life in the city.
FOREIGN MISSIONS
They who have found opposition to foreign missions will discover with a thrill a new helper in Poet Lindsay, he who has won the ear of the literary world. It is good to hear one of his worth, singing the battle challenge of missions, just as it is good to hear him call the modern village, town, and city to "The Gift of the Holy Spirit." "Foreign Fields in Battle Array" brings this thrillingly prophetic, Isaiahanic verse:
"What is the final ending?
The issue can we know?
Will Christ outlive Mohammed?
Will Kali"s altar go?
This is our faith tremendous--- Our wild hope, who shall scorn-- That in the name of Jesus, The world shall be reborn!"
General William Booth.
"Reborn"--does not that phrase sound familiar to Methodist ears, as does that other phrase, "The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit"? Or, again, hear two lines from "Star of My Heart":
"All hearts of the earth shall find _new birth_ And wake no more to sin."
General William Booth.
TEMPERANCE
In these days, when the world is being swept clean with the besom of temperance, the poet who sings the song of temperance is the "poet that sings to battle." Lindsay has done this in some lines in his "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven," which he admits having written while a field worker in the Anti-Saloon League in Illinois. At the end of each verse we have one of these three couplets:
"But spears are set, the charge is on, Wise Arthur shall be King!"
"Fierce Cromwell builds the flower-bright towns And a more sunlit land;"
and,
"Our G.o.d establishes his arm And makes the battle sure!"
General William Booth.
He puts the temperance worker in the "Round Table" under the heading, "King Arthur"s Men Have Come Again." He lifts the battle to a high realm. "To go about redressing human wrongs," as King Arthur"s Knights were sworn to do, would certainly be a most appropriate motto for the modern Christian temperance worker, and Lindsay is the only poet acknowledged by the literary world who has sung this Galahad"s praise with keen insight.
But his greatest poem, "The Congo," that poem which has captured the imagination of the literary world and which is so little known to the Christian world--where it ought to be known best of all--will give a glimpse of the new Christian influence on the races. The poet suggests that it be chanted to the tune of the old hymn, "Hark, ten thousand harps and voices."
It is a strange poem. It is so new that it is startling, but it has won. Listen to its strange swing, and see its stranger pictures.
Through the thin veneer of a new civilization, back of the Christianized Negro race, the poet sees, under the inspiration of a missionary sermon delivered in a modern church, the race that was:
"Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, BOOM With a silk umbrella, and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM Then I had religion, then I had a vision.