POET=RY.

A SONG FOR AMERICAN CHILDREN IN PRAISE OF JOHNNY APPLESEED. (Boaz; 1775. DIED, 1847.)

L--Ouse THE APPALACHIAN BARRICADE.•

In the days of President Washington,

The glory of the nations, The weirdest, blackest clouds blew west, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to snow and coats of sleet In the forest.

Hay and oats and wheat blew west, Crossed the Appalachians, Found the glades of rotting

leaves, the soft deer pastures, The farms of the far-off future, In the forest.

Ashes and poisonous dust blew west,

Crossed the Appalachians, Turned to _tremendous ferns and toadstools

In the forest.

Bees blew west,

Crossed the Appalachians, Buzzed and stung and blundered, Stored with endless sweet the hollow trees

For the big brown bears

Of the forest.

Stripedest, kiekingest kittens escaped, Caterwauling " Yankee doodle dandy," Renounced their poor relations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to tiny tigers In the humorous forest.

Ohickens escaped 'Prom farmyard congregations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to amber trumpets On the ramparts of our Hoosier's nest and citadel,

Millennial heralds

Of the mazy forest.

Gloomy, moony calves broke loose, wobbled west,

With misty observations

Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to red-eyed buffalo bulls

Of the forest.

Scorned their loathsome stations, Pigs broke loose, scrambled west, Crossed the Appalachians, Turned to roaming, foaming wild

boars Of the forest. puppies The smallest, blindest toddled west,

While their eyes were coming open,

And, spreading devastations, Crossed the Appalachians, Barked, barked, barked,

At the glow worms and the

marsh lights and the lightning bugs, And turned to ravening wolves Of the forest.

Colts jumped the fence, Snorting " Yankee doodle dandy," With gastronomic calculations.

Crossed the Appalachians— The east walls of our citadel—

And turned to gold-horned uni- corns, Feasting in the succulent blue- grass pastures Of the forest.

Loveliest, haughtiest swans and

peacocks flew west, And, despite soft derivations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to blazing warrior

angels

Of the forest.

Crazy parrots and canaries flew west, Drunk on Maytime revelations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to delirious, flower- dressed fairies Of the lazy forest, Singing the ways Of the ancient of Days And the" old continentals In their ragged regimentals," With bard's imaginations Crossed the Appalachians. . . .

And A boy Blew west, And with prayers and incanta- tions, And" Yankee doodle dandy," Crossed the Appalachians, And was " young John Chap- man," Then, " Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed,"

Chief of the fastnesses, dappled

and vast, Ina pack on his back,

In a deer-hide sack, The beautiful orchards of the

past, And the ghosts of all the forests and the groves, In that pack on his back,

In that talisman sack,

Seeds and tree-souls, precious things, Feathered with microscopic wings. Dreams of grapes and red rasp- berries, To-morrow's peaches, pears and cherries,

• This whole section to be recited as one musical unit, " in one long breath," but based on a soft slow pronunciation of thy word " forest." and with a slight nause between each line.

And all the fruits the child-heart knows, And the apple, red with delight, Sun of his day and his night, The apple allied to the thorn, Child of the rose.

Porches untrod of forest houses All before him, all day long, Yankee doodle still his song. Leaving behind august Virginia, Proud Massachusetts and proud Maine, Planting the trees that would march and train, On, in his name to the great Pacific, Like Birnamwood to Dunsinane, Johnny Appleseed swept on, Every shackel gone, Painted kings in the midst of the clearing Hoard him ask his friends the eagles To guard each planted seed and seedling.

So he was a god, to the red-man's dreaming, And the chiefs brought treasures funny and fair, Trinkets indeed, and pipes and

guns,

Beads and furs from tent and lair, Put dyed feathers in his hair, Hailed him with austere delight, Johnny Appleseed, oak of the night.

While the late snow blew from far Lake Erie, Scourging red man, and forest denizen, All night long they made groat medicine, All night long they made great medicine, For marvelling Johnny Apple- seed, Soul of the apple, Soul of the wild rose, Soul of the weed.

And as though his heart were a

wind-blown wheat sheaf, As though his heart were a new built nest, As though their heaven-house was his breast, In swept the snow-birds singing " glory," And I hear his bird heart beat its story, Hear yet how the ghost of the forest shivers . . .

. . . Listen to the cry of the grey old orchards, Dim, decaying by the rivers, And the delicate ghosts of the bird wings beating, Listen to the cry of old Lake Erie, Listen to the spring-cries, death- cries, love-cries, And the Indian tom-toms never weary, Starting over, Never completing, Listen to the tom-toms beating, beating.

41 4

II. ME INDIANS Do HIM GREAT HONODR, BUT HE HURRIES

Loving every sloehy brake, Loving every skunk and snake, Loving every leathery weed, Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed, Master and ruler of the bear- growling forest, The wild-cat forest, The rooster-trumpeting, buffalo- bellowing, boar-foaming forest, The wolf-ravening forest, The unicorn-ramping forest, The angel-blest, fairy-enchanted forest, Stupendous and endless, Searching its perilous ways In the name of the Ancient of Days.

But he left their wigwams and their love.t By the hour of dawn was proud and stark, Kissed the Indian babes with a sigh, Went forth to live on roots and bark, Sleep in the trees while the years howled by, Slaying never a living thing, With the lean-necked eagles boxing and shouting, With the gorgeous turkey gob- blers laughing, Putting their feathers in his hair —Trading hearts—with all of them, He swept on winged, and wonder- crested, Loving even the serpent's sting, Bare-armed, bare-footed and bare-breasted.

The maples shedding green- winged seeds, Vast chestnut trees with their butterfly nations, Called to his apple-seeds in the ground, The chipmunk turned a sumer- set, And the foxes danced the Vir- ginia reel Forgetting winter's aggravations. And the daisy and dog-toothed violet With fanciful faint ostentatious, Called to his apple-seeds in the ground.

Hawthorn and crabthorn bent above him, And dropped their flowers in his night-black hair, And the soft fawns stopped for his perorations,

And his black.eyes shone through the forest gleam,

And he plunged young hands into new-turned earth, And prayed dear orchard boughs into birth,

And he ran with the rabbit, and slept with the stream. t

And so for us he made great medicine, And so for us he made great- medicine, In the presidency of Washing. ton.

ON ALONE.•

JOHNNY APPLESEED'S OLD AGE.§

Long, long after, When settlers put up beam and rafter. - They asked of the soil, " Who gave this fruit?

Who watched this fence till the seeds took root ?

Who gave these boughs ? " they asked the sky, And there was no reply.

Ah, he was far to the west, my friend, Self-scourged like a monk with a throne for wages, Stripped like the iron-souled Hindu sages, Draped like a statue, in strings like a scare-crow, They say his hat was an old tin wash-pan, But, worn in the love of the heart of man,

Near old Fort Wayne, At his long life's end.

• This section to be recited In a whisper to a delicate slow drum-beat. t Still In the manner of an incantation, but not whispered, and all in rhythmic relation to the last three lines of the section.

Let the recitation of this portion of the narrative be to the tune of these last three lines.

With the manner of Incantation still continued unbroken, and building towards the rhythm of the phrase, " a gene washed white."

More sane than the helm of Tamerlane.

Do you dream long tusks within his jaws ?

Do you think of his finger-nails like claws ?

In his farms that had nor mete nor bound Was he torn by the teeth of the furious years ?

Do you think of him ravening like a hound With terrible hydrophobia ?

A genius with a statesman's game, Ecstatic, in America's name, From his birth till his death He breathed groat breath, And a wiser, bolder scholar who knows ?

Hairy Ainu, wild Man of Borneo, Robinson Crusoe, Johnny Appleseed I Sowing wilderness lands to the far dim west

With the apple, the sun of his burning breast, The apple allied to the thorn, Child of the rose . ."

IV. THE DEATH OP Twenty days ahead of the Indian, Twenty years ahead of the white

man,

At last the Indian overtook him, At last the Indian hurried past him,

At last the white man overtook him, At last the white man hurried past him, At last his own trees overtook him, At last his own trees hurried- past him.

Many cats were tame again, Many ponies tame again, Many pigs were tame again, Many canaries tame again.

And the real frontier was his sunburnt breast.

From the firey core of that apple the earth

Sprang apple-amaranths divine, Love's orchards climbed to the Heavens of the west,

And snowed the gleam* sod with flowers, Farm hands of the terraces of the blest Danced on the mists with their ladies fine, And Johnny Appleseed laughed with his dreams, And swam once more the ice-cold streams, And the doves of the spirit swept through the hours, With doom calls, love-calls, death calls, dream-calls, And Johnny Appleseed, all the year Lifted his hands to the farm- filled sky, To the apple harvesters busy on high, And so, once more his youth began, And so for us he made great medicine, Johnny Appleseed, medicine man.

Washington buried in Virginia, Jackson buried in Tennessee, Young Lincoln dreaming in

Illinois, And Johnny Appleseed, swift and free,

Gnarled and strange, p a 8 t seventy years,

Still planted on, as though alone, Ohio and young Indiana, These were his lonely altar stone, Where still he burnt out flesh and bone.

He won each settler's wondering heart, Yet kept himself high-priest, apart, And so, for us, he made great medicine, Over all the new made Western map,

Between Fort Wayne and Alas. silon

In the four-poster bed Johnny Appleseed built, Autumn rains wore the curtains, autumn leaves were the quilt. He laid him down sweetly, and slept through each night

Liko a bump on a log, like a stone washed white.

JOHNNY APPLESEED.*

Then the sun was their turned-up barrel, Out of which their apples rolled, Down Jacob's ladder, Thumping across the gold, A ballot box in each apple, An angel in each apple,

Great high schools in each apple, Great colleges in each apple, American farms in each apple, A state capital in each apple That touched the forest mould, Like scrolls and like bolts of silk He saw the fruits unfold,

And the boughs bent down with their alchemy, Perfumed air, and thoughts of wonder.

And the dew on the grass, and his own cold tears Were one in brooding mystery, Though Death's loud thunder came upon him, The boughs and the proud thoughts ruled the thunder, And he saw our nation, each

state a flower.

Each petal a park for holy feet, With wild fawns merry on every street And there stood by his side, as he died, As he faced the west, and the sun, Buddha, St. Francis, No others could praise him, They were there in the name of the Ancient of Days.

Hear the lazy weeds murmuring, Bays and rivers whispering, From Michigan to Texas, California to Maine, Listen to the eagles, screaming, calling :—

" Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed,"

There by the doors of old Fort Wayne.

VA.CHEL LINDSAY.