Verses like the above aside, here was revealed to us a poet; the foundations were laid, it seemed, for a future. But the youth did dream and see visions. Much was said about Utopias and the New Jerusalem, and poetry languished in the youth that he might materialize some ultimate world state. The most inexcusable optimism of them all—“Rome was not built in a day.” True, but it _was built_: not merely talked about or prophesied. And the youth remembered not that it hath been said in Isaiah: “For, behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind.” Yet the youth remembered the former still and did say much about the recoming of those civilizations which had been, at last to stay forever! His day, or the great poet who proceeded him by but a few years, he seemed to notice not: What do you think endures? Do you think a great city endures? ... Away! these are not to be cherished in themselves, They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them, The show passes, all does well enough of course, All does very well till one flash of defiance ... A great city is that which has the greatest men and women; If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world. But the youth was at heart the poet, the dreamer, attempting to convince by arguments, similes, rhymes; not as the great Poet, by mere presence! Nor could he stand the offer of rough new prizes, preferring the smooth old prizes. He clung to the organizations of the day, and to augment their “influence toward the Millennium” he published _The Village Magazine_. That, gentle reader, was in 1910. II. In the year 1912 there went forth from Springfield this same lad. Into the West he went—through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and into New Mexico. He went preaching a gospel,—his own “Gospel of Beauty.” His sustenance he earned by reciting his own rhymes to those who were willing, in exchange, to give him bread. Thus did he make us uncomfortably imagine him a new John the Baptist, François Villon, or even Saint Francis of Assisi.... In the year 1914 his account of this adventure was published. Three rhymes, he claims, contained his “theory of American civilization.” This is from one of them: O you who lose the art of hope, . . . . . . Turn to the little prairie towns, Your high hope shall yet begin. On every side awaits you there Some gate where glory enters in.