to see or understand?
... Nay, for he hovers there to-night we know,
Thorn-crowned above the water and the land.

VII. Epilogue. Under the Blessing of Your Psyche Wings

Though I have found you like a snow-drop pale,
On sunny days have found you weak and still,
Though I have often held your girlish head
Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill:--

Under the blessing of your Psyche-wings
I hide to-night like one small broken bird,
So soothed I half-forget the world gone mad:--
And all the winds of war are now unheard.

My heaven-doubting pennons feel your hands
With touch most delicate so circling round,
That for an hour I dream that God is good.
And in your shadow, Mercy's ways abound.

I thought myself the guard of your frail state,
And yet I come to-night a helpless guest,
Hiding beneath your giant Psyche-wings,
Against the pallor of your wondrous breast.

[End of original text.]

Biographical Note:

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931):

(Vachel is pronounced Vay-chul, that is, it rhymes with 'Rachel').

"The Eagle that is Forgotten" and "The Congo" are two of his best-known
poems, and appear in his first two volumes of verse, "General William
Booth Enters into Heaven" (1913) and "The Congo" (1914).

Lindsay himself considered his drawings and his prose writings to be as
important as his verse, all coming together to form a whole. His
"Collected Poems" (1925) gives a good selection.

*****

From an anthology of verse by Jessie B. Rittenhouse (1913, 1917):

"Lindsay, Vachel. Born November 10, 1879. Educated at Hiram College,
Ohio. He took up the study of art and studied at the Art Institute,
Chicago, 1900-03 and at the New York School of Art, 1904-05. For a time
after his technical study, he lectured upon art in its practical
relation to the community, and returning to his home in Springfield,
Illinois, issued what one might term his manifesto in the shape of "The
Village Magazine", divided about equally between prose articles,
pertaining to beautifying his native city, and poems, illustrated by his
own drawings. Soon after this, Mr. Lindsay, taking as scrip for the
journey, "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread", made a pilgrimage on foot
through several Western States going as far afield as New Mexico. The
story of this journey is given in his volume, "Adventures while
Preaching the Gospel of Beauty". Mr. Lindsay first at