From the Writer’s Almanac:
It’s the birthday of the poet Vachel Lindsay (books by this author), born in Springfield, Illinois (1879). His parents wanted him to become a doctor, but he dropped out of medical school after three years and tried to make a living drawing pictures and writing poetry. After struggling for several years and working for a time in the toy department of Marshall Field’s, he decided to walk across the United States, trading his poems and pictures for food and shelter along the way. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as he thought it would be. He said, “No one cared for my pictures, no one cared for my verse, and I turned beggar in sheer desperation … [but] I was entirely prepared to die for my work, if necessary, by the side of the road, and was almost at the point of it at times.” In 1913, Poetry magazine published Lindsay’s poem “General William Booth Enters into Heaven,” and it was a big hit. He went on to write many collections of poetry for adults and children, including The Tree of the Laughing Bells (1905) and Every Soul Is a Circus (1929).
Here are some readings of a San Bruno poet:
That man lived by his wits, AND his words.
Do you suppose he was writing in his own voice, or that of some imagined character, when he penned this exhortation to immanentize the eschaton?
At Mass
by Vachel Lindsay
No doubt to-morrow I will hide
My face from you, my King.
Let me rejoice this Sunday noon,
And kneel while gray priests sing.
It is not wisdom to forget.
But since it is my fate
Fill thou my soul with hidden wine
To make this white hour great.
My God, my God, this marvelous hour
I am your son I know.
Once in a thousand days your voice
Has laid temptation low.
Amen.
In the end, of course, he drank lye and exclaimed, “They tried to get me — I got them first!”
JOB