The strong men keep coming on. They go down shot, hanged, sick, broken. They live on, fighting, singing, lucky as plungers. The strong men ... they keep coming on. The strong mothers pulling them from a dark sea, a great prairie, a long mountain. Call hallelujah, call amen, call deep thanks. The strong men keep coming on. WINDFLOWER LEAF This flower is repeated out of old winds, out of old times. The wind repeats these, it must have these, over and over again. Oh, windflowers so fresh, Oh, beautiful leaves, here now again. The domes over fall to pieces. The stones under fall to pieces. Rain and ice wreck the works. The wind keeps, the windflowers keep, the leaves last, The wind young and strong lets these last longer than stones. VACHEL LINDSAY IN PRAISE OF JOHNNY APPLESEED[1] (_Born 1775. Died 1847_) [Footnote 1: The best account of John Chapman's career, under the name "Johnny Appleseed," is to be found in _Harper's Monthly Magazine_, November, 1871.] I. ~Over the Appalachian Barricade~ [Sidenote: _To be read like old leaves on the elm tree of Time. Sifting soft winds with sentence and rhyme_.] In the days of President Washington, The glory of the nations, Dust and ashes, Snow and sleet, And hay and oats and wheat, Blew west, Crossed the Appalachians, Found the glades of rotting leaves, the soft deer-pastures, The farms of the far-off future In the forest. Colts jumped the fence, Snorting, ramping, snapping, sniffing, With gastronomic calculations, Crossed the Appalachians, The east walls of our citadel, And turned to gold-horned unicorns, Feasting in the dim, volunteer farms of the forest. Stripedest, kickingest kittens escaped, Caterwauling "Yankee Doodle Dandy," Renounced their poor relations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to tiny tigers In the humorous forest. Chickens escaped From farmyard congregations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to amber trumpets On the ramparts of our Hoosiers' nest and citadel, Millennial heralds Of the foggy mazy forest. Pigs broke loose, scrambled west, Scorned their loathsome stations, Crossed the Appalachians, Turned to roaming, foaming wild boars Of the forest. The smallest, blindest puppies toddled west While their eyes were coming open, And, with misty observations, Crossed the Appalachians, Barked, barked, barked At the glow-worms and the marsh lights and the lightning-bugs, And turned to ravening wolves Of the forest. Crazy parrots and canaries flew west, Drunk on May-time revelations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to delirious, flower-dressed fairies Of the lazy forest. Haughtiest swans and peacocks swept west, And, despite soft derivations, Crossed the Appalachians, And turned to blazing warrior souls Of the forest, Singing the ways