HOW AT THE END OF ALL THESE WORKS AND DAYS, AVANEL AND I RISE IN A BOAT
THROUGH THE AIR, FOLLOWING THE GREAT NEW AMARANTH VINE FROM CAMP LINCOLN
TO THE PARAPETS OF HEAVEN. HOW WE TRACE ITS BANYAN-LIKE BRANCHES THROUGH
THE JUNGLES OF HEAVEN, AND HOW WE DEFY THE HANDSOME MEDICINE MAN,
DEVIL’S GOLD, AND HOW, LATER, WE FIND THE EMPTY SACK OF JOHNNY
APPLESEED. HOW I RETURN TO FIFTH AND MONROE AND AVANEL IS ONE HUNDRED
YEARS AWAY.
It is many years after the triumphant return of the Amazons and the
Horseshoe Brotherhood from the battles in Asia. Avanel and I are walking
again along the Great Northwest Road, and we reach the Old Camp Lincoln
grounds where the Horseshoe Brotherhood and the Amazons so often drill.
But this evening it is deserted, with neither tent nor horse nor rider
to be seen. It is autumn and leaves whirl between me and the Lady Avanel
and too often hide her from me. Many leaders of various sects of the
city are moving about or assembled. It has always been the holy region
of the city, near the Gardens of the Flower Religions and the Grave of
Lincoln and of Hunter Kelly.
Avanel and I are in the spirit on this evening. We walk, as though upon
carpets of glory, and we hear from the black lips of the humble earth
the cry: “Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.”
The old giant toy globe, that used to be in the center of this field, is
long gone. And where it stood, there has come up, since The Golden Book
appeared, a great Apple-Amaranth Vine, coming as it were, like Jack’s
beanstalk, suddenly.
It is autumn and the whole air is fragrant with the honey of the fruit
of this Apple-Amaranth, and bees are busy with the rich fruit.
Every highest, furtherest bud that opens day after tomorrow, or in a
thousand years, will flash with a spark and a flame, that has climbed up
hundreds and thousands of miles from the roots that touch all the
gardens of our city, up the old streets of Heaven, where this vine
blooms today.
In the twinkling of an eye, while the star chimes of Springfield are
ringing new tunes, from the dimmest stars of the blue, from east, west,
north and south, magic boats sweep down to the Amazonian field.
It is happiness to be even the oldest of the prophets, who wait
exhausted, after ages of service, praying and dreaming, stretched out on
the decks of their swift boats, consumed with beautiful sorrow and hope.
The honey of each different Amaranth, growing through the stars, has
burnt all the strength of their bodies away, yet it gives to them
stronger courage, hour by hour. When it touches their lips, all else is
vanity. It is the live coal from the altar and is their new Heaven.
The boats are now above the field, and some of them have rested near the
earth, and some of the prophets are standing round the tree. Among them
is that wild ancient man Isaiah. He gathers the whole company of
Springfield people who are there on the edges of the field. Then there
join, from the invisible world, many of the long dead Saints of
Springfield and many saints from other capitals of this land.
Isaiah speaks to us in words, such as he spoke to the Jews, when the
earthly Jerusalem had fallen, but they are words that shall ever be new
till the last millennium is achieved. He stretches forth his hand and
blesses our kneeling company and, with the honey of this new Amaranth
Flower still burning on his lips, like visible fire, he cries in a loud
voice his old prophecies of the coming of the restored and redeemed
Zion.
Avanel and I are now in our ship above the town, and looking down on the
sea of dim fleets. Avanel whispers: “There are prophets in those boats
from all the hermit caves and all the shrines in the moon and all the
planets and all the suns. There are prophets that once walked the
innermost streets of the far jungles of Heaven.
“Yet the song that comes up from that sea and shakes our sails is:
‘Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame,’ because the song and heart and
blood of any prophet are for the city that will receive them.”
The boats are ranged in three great circles beneath us round the new
Amaranth Vine. These ride on invisible sea-levels. They are not air
ships with modern wings and propellers, but boats of the ancient type,
such as were used by Hiram, King of Tyre, when he brought the wood to
build the temple of Solomon, such as St. Peter used on Lake Galilee,
such as bore St. Paul to the ends of the world.
While the star chimes of the city ring new tunes, the weird sailors
below us pour down a crimson wine from the sides of the boats, that
mixes with the autumn leaves of the Amaranth Vine that swirl now between
us and the whole towered city below. The wine and the leaves turn to
crimson mist and crimson storm, filling the city canyons with rolling
rivers of storm to the top of the Sunset Towers.
The boats rise, sailing as though travelling of their own knowledge.
Even those that are empty and have no prophet sailors in them are up and
away. Some of them seem like exhalations from the perfume and gleam of
the gigantic vine or from the light and mist of the city below. And so
out to the stars scatter all these purposeful ships, some empty, some
with prophet crews, and every boat has blazing at its masthead the red
and white star of Springfield and Illinois.
And the song goes up with them to the stars: “Springfield Awake,
Springfield Aflame.” Avanel says, “That song comes because the song and
heart and blood of the proudest prophets from the proudest suns, are for
the city that will receive them.”
We let our ship blow and drift as it will. But it sweeps up and up, with
the swiftness of light. In less time than it takes a flower to open, we
are carried to the parapets of ancient Heaven. We find our great-leaved,
heavy-fruited Amaranth Vine, climbing up over the closed gates and high
wall-towers of Heaven and winding a long way into the old forest that
has overgrown the streets. We find the new all conquering Springfield
vine, spreading branches through the forest like a banyan tree.
As this Amaranth from our little earthly village grows thicker, we see
by its light a bit of what the ancient Heaven has been. And it is still
a solid place of soil and rock and metal. Where the Springfield Amaranth
blooms thickest, shedding luminous glory from the petals in the
starlight, this Heaven is shown to be an autumn forest, yet with the
cedars of Lebanon, and sandalwood thickets, and the million tropic trees
whose seeds have blown here from strange zones of the planets, and whose
patterns are not the patterns of those of our world. Among these,
vine-clad pillars and walls are still standing, roofed palaces, so gigantic
that, when our boat glides down the great streets between them, they
overhang our masts.
And from branches above us these strange manners of fruits tumble upon
our decks for our feasting and delight. And there are beneath our ship,
as it sails on as it will, little fields long cleared in the forest,
where grows weedy ungathered grain.
Through hours and hours of the night our boat goes on, whether we will
or no, through starlight and through storm-clouds and through flower-light.
And the red star at the masthead and the sight of the proud face
of Avanel keeps laughter in my bosom, and the heavenly breeze that blows
on the flowers still sings to our hearts: “Springfield Awake,
Springfield Aflame.”
Out of the storm now, three great rocks appear, giving forth white light
there on the far horizon, and this light burns on and on. At last our
ship approaches. We see the great rocks are three empty thrones.
These are the thrones of the Trinity, empty for these many years, just
as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies were bereft of the
Presence, when Israel sinned.
And now we are near, and see that the light that hangs round these
mountain thrones is because of the vines of gigantic Amaranths, of
strange design and of many colors, that bloom upon them. These vines
have journeyed up through the ether and great spaces from many cities
and many stars.
Our boat sweeps to the side of the thrones, and we look down on what was
once the crystal sea, a wild green water now, with great fleets of idle
boats, moored by its marshy banks, the boats of dead prophets and angels
who lie turned to stone on their strange and beautiful decks. “These are
the souls who sinned by refusing to enlist in the crusade against world
wars,” or, at least, so Avanel tells me from her heart.
And this is all her dream, none of it mine, and without her all this is
nothing.
There are boats of the older days, galleons of rotted magnificence,
wrecked and high and dry upon the sand bars, and the skeletons and
driftwood of boats are scattered in the marshes by long forgotten storms
and cyclones.
We disembark and tread our perilous way among these strange appearances.
Sometimes they are as seemingly material as earth. Sometimes we are but
walking on the dust of nebulae.
Then we walk into the vine-clad forest that covers the pass between the
nearest throne mountains, where broken steps are still to be found in
the moss, and whisper to us to follow. There are many butterflies and
bees that have taken too much of the blood of the fruit of the Amaranth
Flower and are fallen down and some of them dead.
The stair leads us up and through a dark pass and down into a deeper
twilight. And the stair, slowly descending, whispers to us: “Follow.”
And thus we go, into the most abysmal and curious of valleys, whence,
perhaps, ages ago, many spirits fled affrighted because of the
loneliness.
We walk amid rich ruins, miles and miles of vaulted halls, deep
sheltered recesses, heaped with the purple dust of dead tapestries,
mouldering porticos shaken by the wind. Avanel, fearing not, follows the
steps that still call: “Follow, follow.” She is eating of the Amaranth
that still blooms and bears fruit, eating the fruit from many stars,
breathing strange perfume, humming her old songs and new songs, with
heart aflame, a dauntless prophetess, prodigal and guide.
But now even her spirit is weary and her soul has earth thoughts again,
as we wander through the echoing throne rooms. She tries in vain to
laugh in the desolate halls. In a fever and a fret and in unutterable,
earthly weariness, we shuffle amid heaps of old shields of blackened
silver, amid helmets of brass and iron, amid ivory chariots and rotted
harps and broken crowns and swords of rusted gold. And then we see a
campfire we know and smell the familiar fragrance of pine wood and, in
the crossing of two tremendous grass grown streets, we find him we
found, first in a dream in springtime, and then at midsummer midnight of
a far off June at Fifth and Monroe. The Handsome Medicine Man, Devil’s
Gold, is saying to us, as though resuming a conversation in which he had
quite the best of us a moment ago:
“After all, people are ranked in Springfield according to their money.
People with six thousand dollars apiece a year are considered decent and
no questions are asked. People with a million in buried gold or alcohol
are on a level of righteousness with the world saints, who are, of
course, admitted to their class by generous dispensation. Heaven may be
a jungle but nothing will ever alter this great law,” and the handsome
jester, Devil’s Gold, is shaking his bead-covered rattle, making
medicine and calling us by name. We are so tired from our long walk that
we cannot but admire his gilded face and his yellow magic blanket. And,
holding each other’s hands like lovers, we stoop and admire ourselves in
the golden pool that flickers in the great campfire he has impudently
built at the crossing of two streets in Heaven.
But we do not step into the pool as before-time. Our boat is beside us,
it has overtaken us like some faithful tame giant swan, and Avanel
whispers: “Take us where The Golden Book was written.” And thus we are
up and away. The boat carries us deeper, down the valley. We find the
cell of Hunter Kelly,—St. Scribe of the Shrines. Only his handiwork
remains to testify of him. Upon the walls of his cell he has painted
many an illumination he afterward painted on The Golden Book margins
and, in a loose pile of old torn and unbound pages, the first draft of
many a familiar text is to be found. His dried paint jars are there and
his ink and on the wall hangs the empty leather sack of Johnny
Appleseed, from which came the first sowing of all the Amaranths of our
little city, and the Amaranth that led us here.
And Avanel whispers:—“I ask my heart:—Where is Hunter Kelly, and my
heart speaks to me as though commanded: ‘The Hunter is again pioneering
for our little city in the little earth. He is reborn as the humblest
acolyte of the Cathedral, a child that sings tonight with the star
chimes, a red-cheeked boy, who shoes horses at the old forge of the Iron
Gentleman. Let us also return’.”
It is eight o’clock in the evening, at Fifth and Monroe. It is Saturday
night, and the crowd is pouring toward The Majestic, and Chatterton’s,
and The Vaudette, and The Princess and The Gaiety.
It is a lovely, starry evening, in the spring. The newsboys are bawling
away, and I buy an Illinois State Register. It is dated March 1, 1920.
Avanel of Springfield is one hundred years away.
The Register has much news of a passing nature. I am the most interested
in the weather report, that tomorrow will be fair.
Written in Washington Park Pavilion, Springfield, Illinois.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Golden Book of Springfield, by Vachel Lindsay