(_From the German of Fritz Schnack_) Soft, delicate morning air ripplings Sway between the willow bushes Rustling, as if a woman in silk ruchings Passes over the meadows ... Without end and blessedly far Purls the cajoling sweetness. O! how anxiously do I bear this air. Like chords from the cloudland Fall the deep shining days Resounding in my trembling hand. One Morning (_From the German of Fritz Schnack_) The light, Flows spring-like out of the night, And the big splashing wave Spreads over the earth’s surface ... White villas glisten in the light Glowing all around with red roses; Laughing young beauty blooms On every threshold ... At a distance I stand and watch And think: whoever thus can build ... And longingly go my way. An Isaiah Without A Christ _And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of Man, prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, hear ye the word of the Lord; thus sayeth the Lord God: woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. O Israel, thy prophets are like foxes in the desert.—Ezekiel 13:1-4._ CHARLES ZWASKA I. And the youth returned to his village and found it vile. In the City he had seen visions of what a town might be.... Nicholas Vachel Lindsay had been studying Art in Chicago and on his return to Springfield published, in the fall of 1910, _The Village Magazine_: a scattering of verse, prose, sketches, and ornamental designs and propaganda. “Talent for poetry, deftness in inscribing, and skill in mural painting were probably gifts of the same person”, he tells us later, in speaking of the ancient Egyptians. “Let us go back”—the village must be redeemed. The first editorial in the magazine was _On Conversion_. The people of Springfield “should build them altars to the unknown God, the radiant one; He whom they radiantly worship should be declared unto them in His fullness.” The next was _An Editorial on Beauty for the Village Pastor_—it expressed the belief that the Sunday-school, the Christian Endeavor Society, the Brotherhood, Anti-Saloon League, and the Woman’s Aid were the forces that were to bring about beauty. Springfield was to be the new Athens! A broadside was distributed throughout the village: _The Soul of the City receives the gift of the Holy Spirit_: Builders, toil on, Make all complete. Make Springfield wonderful Make her renown Worthy this day, Till, at God’s feet— (_Etc., the poetry of the thing will not be spoiled by omitting some lines here._) Heaven come down City, dead city, Arise from the dead.