II.
In the year 1912 there went forth from Springfield this same lad. Into the West he went—through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and into New Mexico. He went preaching a gospel,—his own “Gospel of Beauty.” His sustenance he earned by reciting his own rhymes to those who were willing, in exchange, to give him bread. Thus did he make us uncomfortably imagine him a new John the Baptist, François Villon, or even Saint Francis of Assisi.... In the year 1914 his account of this adventure was published. Three rhymes, he claims, contained his “theory of American civilization.” This is from one of them:
O you who lose the art of hope,
. . . . . .
Turn to the little prairie towns,
Your high hope shall yet begin.
On every side awaits you there
Some gate where glory enters in.
And “At the end of the Road”—by faith and a study of the signs—he proclaimed the New Jerusalem for America, particularly for his home-village.... Now, there is a peculiar value attached to this journey—the influence on the poet, not the preacher’s influence on the people. It was after this trip that we got The Santa Fé Trail, The Fireman’s Ball, written in a style in which were later written The Chinese Nightingale and The Congo. And, because of the relation of its style to these, we even judge I heard Emmanuel Singing a good thing. This, then, is Lindsay’s importance among us; his contribution of this style of vaudeville chanting. This is the poet. He does not count when writing Galahad, Knight Who Perished, King Arthur’s Men Have Come Again, Incense, Springfield Magical, or declaring “by faith and a study of the signs.”