Vachel Lindsay (Вэчел Линдсей)
To Mary Pickford
MOVING-PICTURE ACTRESS (On hearing she was leaving the moving-pictures for the stage.) Mary Pickford, doll divine, Year by year, and every day At the moving-picture play, You have been my valentine. Once a free-limbed page in hose, Baby-Rosalind in flower, Cloakless, shrinking, in that hour How our reverent passion rose, How our fine desire you won. Kitchen-wench another day, Shapeless, wooden every way. Next, a fairy from the sun. Once you walked a grown-up strand Fish-wife siren, full of lure, Snaring with devices sure Lads who murdered on the sand. But on most days just a child Dimpled as no grown-folk are, Cold of kiss as some north star, Violet from the valleys wild. Snared as innocence must be, Fleeing, prisoned, chained, half-dead— At the end of tortures dread Roaring Cowboys set you free. Fly, O song, to her to-day, Like a cowboy cross the land. Snatch her from Belasco's hand And that prison called Broadway. All the village swains await One dear lily-girl demure, Saucy, dancing, cold and pure, Elf who must return in state.
Vachel Lindsay’s other poems:
- I Heard Immanuel Singing
- When Gassy Thompson Struck It Rich
- Where Is David, the Next King of Israel?
- With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses
- The Potatoes’ Dance
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