The Golden Book of Springfield

by Vachel Lindsay

The book circles above the ecstatic and transfixed assembly, then it settles upon the desk between the two older books there, and in its presence they become like itself, books of air.

And so she reads to the people, with the other reader, who stands beside her according to old custom. They read as though by long understanding, but actually led as in a trance, through alternate pages of the three books.

Almost in a day the church is rebuilt. It becomes a tremendous white dome, a house of devotion, where the whole city worships as one soul. Then begins the one new evolution of the town toward healing, and the peace of the clear sky.

The negress who sees prophetic visions is easily persuaded to add her testimony about the book. Her name in 2018 is Mary Timmons, and she is nicknamed “Pious Mary.” She is most voluble concerning the wonders of the new time. But to the matter of the book at once. She finds herself in her church, in the place where the Baptist Evangelical chapel stood a century before. And it is still called the “Baptist Evangelical.” The house of worship is now gorgeous with curious jungle-mooded ornaments, pillars which are so carved as to seem moss-hung and vine-wound. It is as though we were in the shade of things too high for man. All this house of worship has been evolved by her cousin, the great architect John Emis, who is also a member of this congregation, and a powerful exhorter among his own people, despite all his world fame among paler races. It is in the midst of his designs she moves, on this great day. With pentecostal power her people are singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” While the faces are uplifted, the book of air, the book that gleams with spiritual gold, flies in through the walls as though they were but shadows. There is a mighty glory shout from the congregation. It is, according to Mary Timmons, answered by music from “the highest sanctorium of the meridian sky.” There are twenty heavenly doves soaring in a circle around the book. Outside of them is a circle of robins. All these birds fly through the walls and away, while the book settles upon the reading desk. The wings do not fade, but cover the pulpit with plumes of azure, plumes of ebony, peacock feathers, each with three eyes, and long feathery golden threads that are spreading and scattering like loose silk. Yet these things seem but as clouds spun by necromancy and as words of the angels made visible.

Then Mary Timmons takes a strange turn, and insists it is, after all, only a copy of the Bible, open at the Beatitudes. Glorified in this way it brings about the higher emancipation of her people. Beginning with this congregation they are stirred to the depths of their more creative selves. Devout composers, the kind that once gave birth to one line spirituals, sung like “rounds,” now develop epic forms of composition that are allied to these, so that great and musical shouts echo from mouth to mouth and breast to breast with three hundred singing, and then the whole African race singing. And instead of simply expressing the massed devotion of Africa, as of old, these more personal spirituals record the lyric cry of this or that black poet. Africa-in-America now sings the special story of the black statesman, the black farmer, or even the devout architect John Emis and the like. And the people and race of Mary Timmons, once natural orators, but no one a better creator than another, suddenly flower individually. Their genius becomes intensely centered in a few, and there are speakers with definite, individual messages, who shout not only wonderful round rolling words, but phrases with whip lash and sentences with sword edge, in orations as individual as the world demands that art shall be. The African man with the soul of the fox, now speaks like the fox, as is his right and duty, the man with the soul of the elephant now speaks like the elephant, as is his right and duty, and the woman with the heart of the nightingale now speaks like the nightingale.

Our evangelist reveals to us his dream that in the Mystic Year 2018, he is the Vice-President of the Springfield Athletic Union and his nickname is Cave Man Thomas. On a certain day, in the fall of 2018, the president of the Athletic Union is dying. He is “said to be” poisoned by a political foe. He hands a key to Cave Man Thomas. It opens the official roller-top desk, which is in a building on the site of the present Y. M. C. A. on Seventh Street and Capital Avenue. There is a book, the size and shape and general appearance of Spaulding’s Athletic Guide, with the same man with a baseball bat, on the cover. The near pamphlet has no wings or other such fantastic ornament. It is mundane paper and ink, with a yellow back.

According to his tale, we two read it alone of nights. We follow its counsel as one would secret foot-ball signals. We do not betray the source of our wisdom to any but Mayor Kopensky and his friend Dr. Sims. We see large results of our labors. We two, acting for the Mayor and the Doctor, smash the face of everyone who does not submit to our dogmas about Hell, which we get from the very front pages of the book. We have more sluggers on our side every hour. We give God and the Mayor and the Doctor the glory, and take none of it ourselves. We hear no music in the air or such like nonsense, while these things are going on. The Cave Man insists that the town is much improved by our policy. Of his predestined valor I may discourse at an opportune time. But meanwhile let me show you a further variation from the typical story about The Golden Book.

I am more eager to know how the welfare worker finds herself in the mirrors of 2018 than to receive any other news of that time from her. Despite all her graces she has no especial personal vanity. She is more imperious than vain. But I gently insist upon her confidence till she confesses that she finds herself in the mirrors of 2018 much the same, but with a greater rush of blood through all that magnificent slender frame, and a consequent higher color. In her dream she rejoices in a great resiliency, a greater long-bow curve in action, as she walks with even more of her humorously commanding way. Her name in the new time is Gwendolyn Charles.

Gwendolyn Charles is, in 2018, a motion-picture director and scenario writer. She claims Rabbi Terence Ezekiel and many other choice spirits among her stockholders and backers.

For her enterprise generally runs at a loss, like Grand Opera, and great orchestras, and great universities.