Then Uncle Tom to Eva flew, To the high sanctoriums bright and new; And cracked his heels, and ground his teeth: He crossed the yard in the storm and gloom; His lamp blew out, but his eyes burned bright. Simon Legree stepped down all night— Down, down to the Devil. Simon Legree he reached the place, He saw one half of the human race, He saw the Devil on a wide green throne, Gnawing the meat from a big ham-bone, And he said to Mister Devil: "I see that you have much to eat— I see your frame is fat and fine, And the Devil said to Simon Legree: "I like your style, so wicked and free. And there they sit and gnash their teeth, He eats the fire, he drinks the wine- Down, down with the Devil; Down, down with the Devil; Down, down with the Devil. ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT (In Springfield, Illinois) It is portentous, and a thing of state *See pages 51, 114, 123, 245, 252, 323. 1 Reprinted by permission of the publishers, The Macmillan Company, from The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems by Vachel Lindsay. Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black, A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl Make him the quaint great figure that men love, The prairie-lawyer, master of us all. He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings. The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart. He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn Shall come; the shining hope of Europe free: It breaks his heart that kings must murder still, Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace Edwin Meade Robinson Edwin Meade Robinson (no relation to Edwin Arlington Robinson) was born November 1, 1879, at Lima, Indiana. He engaged in newspaper work when he was scarcely out of his 'teens, joining the staff of the Indianapolis Sentinel in 1901. He began writing a daily poem in 1904 and, for years, has conducted a column of prose and verse in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Mere Melodies (1918) is a collection of Robinson's light and sentimental verse, an uneven collection. Piping and Panning (1920) is a much fresher and far more vigorous assembling of this versifier's humorous and burlesque idioms. One of our most adroit technicians, he is especially happy in interior rhyming; a poem like "Halcyon Days" contains, beside the end-rhymes, rhymes hidden within the lines and others running over from line to line. HOW HE TURNED OUT When he was young, his parents saw (as parents by the million see) That Rollo had an intellect of quite unequaled brilliancy; They started in his training from the hour of his nativity, And carefully they cultivated every bright proclivity. At eight, he ate up authors like a literary cannibal, At ten he knew astronomy and differential calculus, At twelve, he learned orthometry, and started in to master all The different kinds of poetry, the lyric and the pastoral, The epic and dramatic, the descriptive and didactical, With lessons theoretical and exercises practical. Music he learned-the old and sweet, the up-to-date and hideous; He painted like Apelles and he modeled like a Phidias; In language he was polyglot, in rhetoric Johnsonian, In eloquence Websterian, in diction Ciceronian. At last, with learning that would set an ordinary head agog, His education far outshone his most proficient pedagog; And so he entered life, with all his lore to lift the lid for him And what do you imagine that his erudition did for him? Alas! I fear the truth will shock you, rather than amuse you all— To those who've read this sort of verse, the sequel is unusual. This man (it's hard on humor, for it breaks the well known laws of it!) Was happier for his learning, and a great success because of it! |