A short poem from Vachel Lindsay

[ritaxis]

From here.

(no cut because it's short)

Crickets On A Strike

The foolish queen of fairyland
From her milk-white throne in a lily-bell,
Gave command to her cricket-band
To play for her when the dew-drops fell.

But the cold dew spoiled their instruments
And they play for the foolish queen no more.
Instead those sturdy malcontents
Play sharps and flats in my kitchen floor.
__

Vachel Lindsay was an itinerant poet, of a populist bent in the Midwestern tradition. He would come into a community and people would put him up and feed him while he wrote poems and declaimed them for the people. He's the author of the little turle song we sing in preschool and also "Factory Windows Are Always Broken."

Comments

[pameladean]

My sixth-grade teacher loved Lindsay, and we had to memorize a lot of his stuff. Fortunately, that's not too hard.

P.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

He's one of the poets that Oscar Gordon remembered enough of to steal from when having to extemporize poetry while thanking his host on Nevia (in Heinlein's Glory Road). The bit you quote actually makes me think a bit about why Oscar says he chose (remembered) the Lindsay. I've never looked him up, but I probably should.