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| | I asked the old negro, “What is that bird who sings so well?” He answered, “That is the Rachel-Jane.” “Hasn’t it another name—lark, or thrush, or the like?” “No, jes’ Rachel-Jane.” |
I
In which a racing auto comes from the east.
This is the order of the music of the morning: | | |
| First, from the far east comes but a crooning; | To be sung or read delicately to 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…. | 5 |
| |
| Hark to the pace-horn, chase-horn, race-horn! | To be sung or read with great speed | |
| And the holy veil of the dawn has gone, | |
| Swiftly the brazen car comes on. | |
| It burns in the East as the sunrise burns— | |
| I see great flashes where the far trail turns: | | 10 |
| 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; | | 15 |
| 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, | | 20 |
| Ho for the gay-horn, bark-horn, bay-horn! | Deliberately in a rolling bass | |
| Ho for Kansas, land that restores us | |
| When houses choke us, and great books bore us! | |
| Sunrise Kansas, harvester’s Kansas— | |
| A million men have found you before us! | | 25 |
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II
In which many autos pass westward.
I want live things in their pride to remain. | In a deliberate narrative manner | |
| I will not kill one grasshopper vain, | |
| 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, | | 30 |
| 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; | | 35 |
| 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 | | 40 |
| 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 the strawberries, white and red, | | |
| Here where the new-cut weeds lie dead. | | 45 |
| 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— | | 50 |
| And fair dreams fade, when the raw horns blow. | | |
| On each snapping pennant | | |
| A big black name— | | |
| The careering city | | |
| Whence each car came. | | 55 |
| They tour from Memphis, Atlanta, Savannah, | Like a train caller in a railroad station | |
| Tallahassee and Texarkana. | |
| They tour from St. Louis, Columbus, Manistee; | |
| They tour from Peoria, Davenport, Kankakee. | |
| Cars from Concord, Niagara, Boston, | | 60 |
| 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. | | 65 |
| 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 | | 70 |
| Roll their legions without rain | | |
| Over the blistering Kansas plain— | | |
| While I sit by the milestone | | |
| And watch the sky, | | |
| The United States | | 75 |
| Goes by! | | |
| Listen to the iron horns, ripping, racking— | Harshly with a snapping explosiveness | |
| 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, | 80 |
| 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, | | 85 |
| (Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas!) | | |
| |
| Far away the Rachel-Jane, | To be read or sung well-nigh in a whisper | |
| Not defeated by the horns, | |
| Sings amid a hedge of thorns: | |
| “Love and life, | 90 |
| Eternal youth— | | |
| Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet! | | |
| Dew and glory, | | |
| Love and truth— | | |
| Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet!” | | 95 |
| |
| While smoke-black freights on the double-tracked railroad, | Louder and faster | |
| 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. | | 100 |
| 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! | 105 |
| |
| Listen to the iron horns, ripping, racking! | With a snapping explosiveness | |
| Listen to the wise-horn, desperate-to-advise horn— | |
| Listen to the fast-horn, kill-horn, blast-horn…. | |
| |
| Far away the Rachel-Jane, | To be sung or read well-nigh in a whisper | |
| Not defeated by the horns, | 110 |
| Sings amid a hedge of thorns: | |
| “Love and life, | |
| Eternal youth— | | |
| Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet! | | |
| Dew and glory, | | 115 |
| Love and truth— | | |
| Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet!” | | |
| |
| The mufflers open on a score of cars | | |
| With wonderful thunder, | | |
| CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, | | 120 |
| CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, | To be brawled with a snapping explosiveness ending in a languorous chant | |
| CRACK-CRACK-CRACK,…. | |
| Listen to the gold-horn…. | |
| Old-horn…. | |
| Cold-horn…. | | 125 |
| 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 the same whispered tune as the first five lines | |
| Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating, | |
| Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn, | 130 |
| Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn…. | |
| |
| They are hunting the goals that they understand— | Beginning sonorously—ending in a languorous whisper | |
| 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. | 135 |
| 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-Fé stone, | | |
| The souls of the tall corn gathering round, | | 140 |
| 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…. | | 145 |
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| Hearken to the wonder that the night-air carries. | The same cadenced whisper as the Rachel-Jane song | | |
| Listen to the whisper | | |
| Of the prairie fairies…. | | |
| Singing over the fairy plain: | | |
| “Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet! | | 150 |
| Love and glory, stars and rain, | | |
| Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet!” | | |
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