Nicholas Vachel Lindsay and Olive Lindsay Wakefield

              Nicholas Vachel Lindsay

The most American of American Poets
Edward Davison in the London Mercury


Figure




Come let us be bold with our songs, brothers
Come let us be hold with our songs.
Go, find the wonders of the stars
And bring the wonders down.

from Every Soul is a Circus, 1929

Less than two years his senior, Vachel Lindsay's sister Olive was such a constant companion during school and college years that strangers often thought them twins.  It was Vachel's idea that his sister be sent to dramatic school after college to be trained as a public reader.  He said, I will write the poems for you to read.

During the years between 1905 and 1927, while Dr. and Mrs.  Wakefield lived in China, Vachel Lindsay himself read the poems for great audiences not only in America but also in England, and proved his belief that everyone likes poetry when it is read aloud.

Now that Vachel Lindsay is no longer here to sing his songs and preach his gospel of beauty, his sister is carrying out the plans he made for her when they were Juniors together in Hiram College, in the spring of 1900.  In addition to chanting the poems as they were meant to be rendered, she explains their origin and inspiration which her brother was unable to do.




Figure

Olive Lindsay Wakefield
She makes books come alive and walk down from their shelves





In a nation of one hundred fine, mob-hearted, lynching, relenting, repenting millions,
There are plenty of sweeping, swinging, stinging, gorgeous things to shout about,
And knock your old blue devils out.

from Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Aug. 1919


Come let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.

from Why I voted the Socialist Ticket 1908


Would we were scholars of Confucius' time
Watching the feudal China crumbling down,
Frightening our master, shaking many a crown,
Until he makes more firm the father sages,
Restoring custom from the earliest ages
With prudent sayings, golden as the sun.
Lord, show us safe, august, established ways,
Fill us with yesterdays.

from A Litany of Heroes


China will fall,
The Empire of China will crumble down,
When the Alps and the Andes crumble down;
When the sun and the moon have crumbled down,
The Empire of China will crumble down,
Crumble down.

from Shantung or The Empire of China is Crumbling Down, written in 1917


He can not rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come:—the shining hope of Europe free
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
It breaks his heart that kings must murder still.
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain.  And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

from Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.  Aug. 1914


Sew the flags together.
Do not tear them down.
Hurl the worlds together.
With your patchwork flag of brotherhood
On high,
With every silk
In one flower-banner whirled—
Rise,
Citizens of one tremendous state,
The United States of Europe, Asia and the World.

for Victory Anthology, November 1918





From The Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine
Last evening Mrs. Paul Wakefield was presented at a meeting of the Bangor Teachers' Club.
A charming and gracious speaker, Mrs. Wakefield did more than 'give readings.'  By some almost uncanny power she seemed to let through the voice and concept of the poet himself — to act unconsciously as a medium for his expression, and do it while retaining her own personality and individuality.  It was a baffling thing to experience; yet one cannot imagine one to whom the power could more rightly belong.
The two symphonic poems, 'Congo' and 'The Chinese Nightingale,' were the featured numbers of the evening.  One realizes in these poems the distinct difference between poets of the often-called 'chant' school and those who write in more conventional pattern.  For Lindsay's poems in the 'chant' manner are not really poems at all, or they are more than poems, whichever one chooses to call them.  The intonation of the interpreter is as important as the words on the printed page.  They become in truth songs — even symphonies.  With Mrs. Wakefield's presentation they were impressionistic, symphonic, lifting.
In short, Mrs. Wakefield last evening gave her audience the poetic understanding of a great modern poet, her brother, and did it in a way to make the recital one of the most important cultural events of the current season.




Subject of Lecture Recitals
Reminiscences and Readings from the writings of Vachel Lindsay


VACHEL LINDSAY — APOSTLE OF DEMOCRACY
HOPES AND FEARS FOR DEMOCRACY
THE AMERICAN IDEAL AND THE IDEAL AMERICA — BIDDING THE EAGLES OF THE WEST FLY ON.
A LITANY OF HEROES
WHO WILL BRING WHITE PEACE?
PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY — MAKING OUR WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY
WHEN VACHEL AND I WERE VERY YOUNG — A MID-WESTERN CHILDHOOD IN THE EIGHTIES
THE SOUL OF CHINA — ANCIENT POETRY AND MODERN ACHIEVEMENT
CHINA YESTERDAY AND TODAY




Address inquiries to
MRS. PAUL WAKEFIELD
75 RICHARDSON ROAD
BELMONT, MASSACHUSETTS