[Notes: The 'stage-directions' given in "The Congo" and thosepoems which are meant to be read aloud, are traditionally printed to theright side of the first line it refers to. This is possible, butimpracticable, to imitate in a simple ASCII text. Therefore these'stage-directions' are given on the line BEFORE the first line theyrefer to, and are furthermore indented 20 spaces and given bold print tokeep it clear to the reader which parts are text and which partsdirections.]
[This electronic text was transcribed from a reprint of the originaledition, which was first published in New York, in September, 1914. Dueto a great deal of irregularity between titles in the table of contentsand in the text of the original, there are some slight differences fromthe original in these matters—with the more complete titles replacingcropped ones. In one case they are different enough that both aregiven, and "Twenty Poems in which...." was originally "Twenty MoonPoems" in the table of contents—the odd thing about both these titlesis that there are actually twenty-TWO moon poems.]
When 'Poetry, A Magazine of Verse', was first published in Chicago inthe autumn of 1912, an Illinois poet, Vachel Lindsay, was, quiteappropriately, one of its first discoveries. It may be not quite withoutsignificance that the issue of January, 1913, which led off with'General William Booth Enters into Heaven', immediately followed thenumber in which the great poet of Bengal, Rabindra Nath Tagore, wasfirst presented to the American public, and that these two antipodalpoets soon appeared in person among the earliest visitors to the editor.For the coming together of East and West may prove to be the great eventof the approaching era, and if the poetry of the now famous Bengalilaureate garners the richest wisdom and highest spirituality of hisancient race, so one may venture to believe that the young Illinoistroubadour brings from Lincoln's city an authentic strain of the lyricmessage of this newer world.
It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to mention Mr. Lindsay's loyalty to thepeople of his place and hour, or the training in sympathy with theiraims and ideals which he has achieved through vagabondish wanderings inthe Middle West. And we may permit time to decide how far he expressestheir emotion. But it may be opportune to emphasize his plea for poetryas a song art, an art appealing to the ear rather than the eye. Thefirst section of this volume is especially an effort to restore poetryto its proper place—the audience-chamber, and take it out of thelibrary, the closet. In the library it has become, so far as the peopleare concerned, almost a lost art, and perhaps it can be restored to thepeople only through a renewal of its appeal to the ear.
I am tempted to quote from Mr. Lindsay's explanatory note whichaccompanied three of these poems when they were first printed in'Poetry'. He said:
"Mr. Yeats asked me recently in Chicago, 'What are we going to do torestore the primitive singing of poetry?' I find what Mr. Yeats meansby 'the primitive singing of poetry' in Professor Edward Bliss Reed'snew volume on 'The English Lyric'. He says in his chapter on