A BROADSIDE DISTRIBUTED IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

Hawk of the Rocks,Yours is our cause to-day.Watching your foesHere in our war array,Young men we stand,Wolves of the West at bay.Power, power for warComes from these trees divine;Power from the boughs,Boughs where the dew-beads shine,Power from the conesYea, from the breath of the pine!Power to restoreAll that the white hand mars.See the dead eastCrushed…

There lies new San Francisco,Sea-maid in purple dressed,Wearing a dancer’s girdleAll to inflame desire:Scorning her days of sackcloth,Scorning her cleansing fire.See, like a burning citySets now the red sun’s dome.See, mystic firebrands sparkleThere on each store and home.See how the golden gatewayBurns with the day to be —Torch-bearing fiends of portentLoom o’er the earth and…

(For the thunders could flourish without me)And hid by a rose-hung wall,Forgetting the murder about me;And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,In mirth, half prayer, half play: —‘Send me a picture book,Send me a song, to-day.’I saw him there by the wallWhen I scarce had written the line,In the enemy’s colors dressedAnd the serpent-standard…

There’s hydraulics to a daisy,And contraptions to a tree.‘If we could see the birdieThat makes the chirping soundWith x-ray, scientific eyes,We could see the wheels go round.’And I hope all menWho think like thisWill soon lieUnderground.

Some folks can see it plain.Look, you may catch a glint of light,A sparkle through the pane,Showing the place is brighter stillWithin, though bright without.There, at a cosy open fireStrange babes are grouped about.The children of the wind and tide–The urchins of the sky,Drying their wings from storms and thingsSo they again can fly.

And mad exotic flowersIn Illinois.Where ragged ditches ranNow springs of Heaven beganCelestial drink for manIn Illinois.There stood beside the townBeneath its incense-crownAn angel and a clownIn Illinois.He was as Clowns are:She was snow and starWith eyes that looked afarIn Illinois.I asked, ‘How came this placeOf antique Asian graceAmid our callow raceIn Illinois?’Said Clown and Angel…