Oh sorrow, Sorrow, She was too wise.
She cut off his hair, She put out his eyes.
Let Samson Be coming Into your mind.
----------------------------------------------The following pages contain advertis.e.m.e.ntsof other books by the same authorwhich appeared in the 1918 copy.----------------------------------------------
By the Same Author
A Handy Guide for Beggars New Edition. Cloth, 12mo, $1.25
"The Handy Guide for Beggars" is an introduction to all Vachel Lindsay"s work. It gives his first adventures afoot. He walked through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, in the spring of 1906.
He walked through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and on to Hiram, Ohio, in the spring of 1908. He carried on these trips his poems: "The Tree of Laughing Bells", "The Heroes of Time", etc.
He recited them in exchange for food and lodging. He left copies for those who appeared interested. The book is a record of these journeys, and of many pleasing discoveries about American Democracy.
This book serves to introduce the next, "Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty". In the spring and summer of 1912, Mr. Lindsay walked from Springfield, Illinois, west to Colorado, and into New Mexico. He was much more experienced in the road.
He carried "Rhymes to Be Traded for Bread", "The Village Improvement Parade", etc. As is indicated in the t.i.tle, he wrestled with a theory of American aesthetics. "Christmas, 1915", the third book in the series, appeared, applying the "Gospel of Beauty to the Photoplay".
The ideas of Art and Democracy that develop in the first two books are used as the basic principles in "The Art of the Moving Picture".
Those who desire a close view of the Lindsay idea will do well to read the three works in the order named. Further particulars in the pages following.
The Congo and Other Poems With a preface by Harriet Monroe, Editor of the "Poetry Magazine".
Cloth, 12mo, $1.25; leather, $1.60
In the readings which Vachel Lindsay has given for colleges, universities, etc., throughout the country, he has won the approbation of the critics and of his audiences in general for the new verse-form which he is employing, as well as the manner of his chanting and singing, which is peculiarly his own. He carries in memory all the poems in his books, and recites the program made out for him; the wonderful effect of sound produced by his lines, their relation to the idea which the author seeks to convey, and their marvelous lyrical quality are quite beyond the ordinary, and suggest new possibilities and new meanings in poetry. It is his main object to give his already established friends a deeper sense of the musical intention of his pieces.
The book contains the much discussed "War Poem", "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"; it contains among its familiar pieces: "The Santa Fe Trail", "The Firemen"s Ball", "The Dirge for a Righteous Kitten", "The Griffin"s Egg", "The Spice Tree", "Blanche Sweet", "Mary Pickford", "The Soul of the City", etc.
Mr. Lindsay received the Levinson Prize for the best poem contributed to "Poetry", a magazine of verse, (Chicago) for 1915.
"We do not know a young man of any more promise than Mr. Vachel Lindsay for the task which he seems to have set himself."--"The Dial".
General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems Price, $1.25; leather, $1.60
This book contains among other verses: "On Reading Omar Khayyam during an Anti-Saloon Campaign in Illinois"; "The Wizard Wind"; "The Eagle Forgotten", a Memorial to John P. Altgeld; "The Knight in Disguise", a Memorial to O. Henry; "The Rose and the Lotus"; "Michaelangelo"; "t.i.tian"; "What the Hyena Said"; "What Grandpa Mouse Said"; "A Net to Snare the Moonlight"; "Springfield Magical"; "The Proud Farmer"; "The Illinois Village"; "The Building of Springfield".
Comments on the t.i.tle Poem:
"This poem, at once so glorious, so touching and poignant in its conception and expression ... is perhaps the most remarkable poem of a decade--one that defies imitation."--"Review of Reviews".
"A sweeping and penetrating vision that works with a naive charm....
No American poet of to-day is more a people"s poet."--"Boston Transcript".
"One could hardly overpraise "General Booth"."--"New York Times".
"Something new in verse, spontaneous, pa.s.sionate, unmindful of conventions in form and theme."--"The Living Age".
Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty Price, $1.00
This is a series of happening afoot while reciting at back-doors in the west, and includes some experiences while harvesting in Kansas.
It includes several proclamations which apply the Gospel of Beauty to agricultural conditions. There are, among other rhymed interludes: "The Shield of Faith", "The Flute of the Lonely", "The Rose of Midnight", "Kansas", "The Kallyope Yell".
Something to Read
Vachel Lindsay took a walk from his home in Springfield, Ill., over the prairies to New Mexico. He was in Kansas in wheat-harvest time and he worked as a farmhand, and he tells all about that.
He tells about his walks and the people he met in a little book, "Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty".
For the conditions of his tramps were that he should keep away from cities, money, baggage, and pay his way by reciting his own poems.
And he did it. People liked his pieces, and tramp farmhands with rough necks and rougher hands left off singing s.m.u.tty limericks and took to "Atalanta in Calydon" apparently because they preferred it.
Of motor cars, which gave him a lift, he says: "I still maintain that the auto is a carnal inst.i.tution, to be shunned by the truly spiritual, but there are times when I, for one, get tired of being spiritual." His story of the "Five Little Children Eating Mush" (that was one night in Colorado, and he recited to them while they ate supper) has more beauty and tenderness and jolly tears than all the expensive sob stuff theatrical managers ever dreamed of. Mr. Lindsay doesn"t need to write verse to be a poet. His prose is poetry--poetry straight from the soil, of America that is, and of a n.o.bler America that is to be.
You cannot afford--both for your entertainment and for the REAL IDEA that this young man has (of which we have said nothing)--to miss this book.--Editorial from "Collier"s Weekly".
The Art of the Moving Picture Price, $1.25
An effort to apply the Gospel of Beauty to a new art.
The first section has an outline which is proposed as a basis for photoplay criticism in America; chapters on: "The Photoplay of Action", "The Intimate Photoplay", "The Picture of Fairy Splendor", "The Picture of Crowd Splendor", "The Picture of Patriotic Splendor", "The Picture of Religious Splendor", "Sculpture in Motion", "Painting in Motion", "Furniture", "Trappings and Inventions in Motion", "Architecture in Motion", "Thirty Differences between the Photoplays and the Stage", "Hieroglyphics". The second section is avowedly more discursive, being more personal speculations and afterthoughts, not brought forward so dogmatically; chapters on: "The Orchestra Conversation and the Censorship", "The Subst.i.tute for the Saloon", "California and America", "Progress and Endowment", "Architects as Crusaders", "On Coming Forth by Day", "The Prophet Wizard", "The Acceptable Year of the Lord".
For Late Reviews of Mr. Lindsay and his contemporaries read:
"The New Republic": Articles by Randolph S. Bourne, December 5, 1914, on the "Adventures While Preaching"; and Francis Hackett, December 25, 1915, on "The Art of the Moving Picture".
"The Dial": Unsigned article by Lucien Carey, October 16, 1914, on "The Congo", etc.
"The Yale Review": Article by H. M. Luquiens, July, 1916, on "The Art of the Moving Picture".
General Articles on the Poetry Situation