From Vachel Lindsay The Congo and Other Poems, 1915 (1914), reprinted by Dover: NY 1992.
The Santa-Fe Trail
(A Humoresque)
I asked an old Negro, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane."
I. In Which a Racing Auto Comes from the East
This is the order of the music of the morning:- To be sung delicately, to
First, from the far East comes a crooning. an improvised tune.
The crooning turns to a sunrise singing.
Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn.
Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn . . .
Hark to the pace-horn, chase-horn, race-horn. To be sung or read
And the holy veil of the dawn has gone. with great speed.
Swiftly the brazen car comes on.
It burns the East as the sunrise burns.
I see great flashes where the far trail turns.
Its eyes are lamps like the eyes of dragons.
It drinks gasoline from big red flagons.
Butting through the delicate mists of the morning,
It comes like lightning, goes past roaring.
It will hail all the wind-mills, taunting, ringing,
Dodge the cyclones,
Count the milestones,
On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills-
Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills . . .
Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, To be read or sung in
Ho for the gay-horn, bark-horn, bay-horn. a rolling bass with
Ho for Kansas, land that restores us some deliberation.
When houses choke us, and great books bore us!
Sunrise Kansas, harvester's Kansas,
A million men have found you before us.
II. In Which Many Autos Pass Westward
I want live things in their pride to remain. In an even,deliberate,
I will not kill one grasshopper vain narrative manner.
Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door.
I let him out, give him one chance more.
Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim,
Grasshopper lyrics occur to him.
I am a tramp by the long trail's border,
Given to squalor, rags and disorder.
I nap and amble and yawn and look,
Write fool-thoughts in my grubby book,
Recite to the children, explore at my ease,
Work when I work, beg when I please,
Give crank-drawings, that make folks stare
To the half-grown boys in the sunset glare,
And get me a place to sleep in the hay
At the end of a live-and-let-live day.
I find in the stubble of the new-cut weeds
A whisper and a feasting, all one needs:
The whisper of strawberries, white and red
Here where the new-cut weeds lie dead.
But I would not walk all alone till I die
Without some life-drunk horns going by.
Up round this apple-earth they come
Blasting the whispers of the morning dumb:-
Cars in a plain realistic row.
And fair dreams fade
When the raw horns blow.
On each snapping pennant
A big black name:-
The careering city
Whence earch car came.
They tour from Memphis, Atlanta, Savannah, Like a train-caller
Tallahassee and Texarcana. in a Union Depot.
They tour from St. Louis, Columbus, Manistee,
They tour from Peoria, Davenport, Kankakee.
Cars from Concord, Niagra, Boston,
Cars from Topeka, Emporia, and Austin.
Cars from Chicago, Hannibal, Cairo,
Cars from Alton, Oswego, Toledo.
Cars from Buffalo, Kokomo, Delphi,
Cars from Lodi, Carmi, Loami.
Ho for Kansas, land that restores us
When houses choke us, and great books bore us!
While I watch the highroad
And look at the sky,
While I watch the clouds in amazing grandeur
Roll their legions without rain
Over the blistering Kansas plain-
While I sit by the milestone
And watch the sky,
The United States
Goes by.
Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking. To be given very harshly,
Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking. with a snapping,
Way down the road, trilling like a toad. explosiveness.
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.)
Far away the Rachel-Jane To be read or sung,
Not defeated by the horns well-nigh in a whisper.
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."
WHILE SMOKE-BLACK FREIGHTS ON THE DOUBLE- Louder and louder,
TRACKED RAILROAD, faster and faster.
DRIVEN AS THOUGH BY THE FOUL-FIEND'S OX-
GOAD,
SCREAMINGI 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
And then, in an instant, In a rolling bass, with
Ye modern men, increasing deliberation
Beheld the procession once again,
Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking, With a snapping
Listen to the wise-horn, desperate-to-advise horn, explosiveness.
Listen to the fast-horn, kill-horn, blast-horn . . .
Far away the Rachel- To be be sung or read
Not defeated by the horns well-nigh in a whisper
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.
The mufflers open on a score of cars To be brawled in the
With a wonderful thunder, beginning with a snapping
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, explosiveness, ending in
CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, a languorous chant.
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.
Then far in the west, as in the beginning, To be sung to exactly
Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating, the same whispered
Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn, tune as the first five
Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn . . . lines.
They are hunting the goals that they understand:- This section
San Francisco and the brown sea-sand. beginning sonorously,
My goal is the mystery the beggars win. ending in a
I am caught in the web the night-winds spin. languorous whisper.
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
"Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. as the Rachel-Jane song-
Love and glory, but very slowly.
Stars and rain,
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet . . ."