The State House loomed afar, A speck, a hive, a football, A captive balloon! And the town was all one spreading wing of bunting, plumes, and sunshine, Every rag and flag, and Bryan picture sold, When the rigs in many a dusty line Jammed our streets at noon, And joined the wild parade against the power of gold. We roamed, we boys from High School With mankind, While Springfield gleamed, Silk-lined. Oh Tom Dines, and Art Fitzgerald, And the gangs that they could get! I can hear them yelling yet. Helping the incantation, Defying aristocracy, With every bridle gone, Ridding the world of the low down mean, Bidding the eagles of the West fly on, Bidding the eagles of the West fly on, We were bully, wild and wooly, Never yet curried below the knees. We saw flowers in the air, Fair as the Pleiades, bright as Orion, --Hopes of all mankind, Made rare, resistless, thrice refined. Oh we bucks from every Springfield ward! Colts of democracy-- Yet time-winds out of Chaos from the star-fields of the Lord. The long parade rolled on. I stood by my best girl. She was a cool young citizen, with wise and laughing eyes. With my necktie by my ear, I was stepping on my dear, But she kept like a pattern, without a shaken curl. She wore in her hair a brave prairie rose. Her gold chums cut her, for that was not the pose. No Gibson Girl would wear it in that fresh way. But we were fairy Democrats, and this was our day. The earth rocked like the ocean, the sidewalk was a deck. The houses for the moment were lost in the wide wreck. And the bands played strange and stranger music as they trailed along. Against the ways of Tubal Cain, Ah, sharp was their song! The demons in the bricks, the demons in the grass, The demons in the bank-vaults peered out to see us pass, And the angels in the trees, the angels in the grass, The angels in the flags, peered out to see us pass. And the sidewalk was our chariot, and the flowers bloomed higher, And the street turned to silver and the grass turned to fire, And then it was but grass, and the town was there again, A place for women and men. III Then we stood where we could see Every band, And the speaker’s stand. And Bryan took the platform. And he was introduced. And he lifted his hand And cast a new spell. Progressive silence fell In Springfield, In Illinois, Around the world. Then we heard these glacial boulders across the prairie rolled: “_The people have a right to make their own mistakes.... You shall not crucify mankind Upon a cross of gold._” And everybody heard him-- In the streets and State House yard. And everybody heard him In Springfield, In Illinois, Around and around and around the world, That danced upon its axis And like a darling broncho whirled. IV