A PRAYER TO ALL THE DEAD AMONG MINE OWN PEOPLE

ARE these your presences, my clan from Heaven? Are these your hands upon my wounded soul? Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me, Fly by my path till you have made me whole! Nicholas Vachel Linsday

In praise of songs that die - Vachel Lindsay

Ah, they are passing, passing by,

Wonderful songs, but born to die!

Cries from the infinite human seas,

Waves thrice-winged with harmonies.

Here I stand on a pier in the foam

Seeing the songs to the beach go home,

Dying in sand while the tide flows back,

As it flowed of old in its fated track.

Oh, hurrying tide that will not hear

Your own foam-children dying near:

Is there no refuge-house of song,

No home, no haven where songs belong?

Oh, precious hymns that come and go!

You perish, and I love you so!