BABYLON, BABYLON, BABYLON THE GREAT
(Inscribed to Carl Sandburg)
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This poem is based on the episode of “Lincoln's Lost Speech,” too dangerous to print at the time, at Cooper Union, his first appearance in the East.
Isaiah, the country-boy, marched against the jazz—
Babylon the shrewd and slick, Babylon the great.
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, walked alone,
Alone against Babylon, alone against fate.
St. Paul walked alone, St. Peter walked alone,
Against that town to marvel on, Babylon the great.
Lincoln at Cooper Union, improvised and chanted,
Threw away his speech, and told tales out of school,
Changed from politician to God's divine fool.
Beside himself, beyond himself, set his old heart free,
The flame spread, the flame spread, every suppressed word was said,
Isaiah's voice from the dead;
Lincoln's great lost speech, nowhere written down,
But it burned every gate of the famous old town.
Lincoln at Cooper Union, called down fire from Heaven,
Overthrew jazz—Babylon, Babylon the great.
I have seen the burning of Babylon's gardens,
Many and many a noble day.
I have watched the ashes of that beautiful lost city,
Blown through many a year away.
Statesmen have torn down Babylon. ... The gophers have buried Babylon. ...
Coyotes lope through Babylon. ... Prairie dogs bore the clay and sand. ...
Texas cattle have trampled Babylon deeper in dung and dust. ...
But forever stands Babylon, fresh in the sunrise, ...
Foam upon the ocean ... or granite on the land,
As new as the Devil, and the Devil's lust.
How our tales of Babylon multiply upon the ranges!
How old memories of victory renew!
Except for the warfare of the youngsters against Babylon,
The campfire songs would be few.
Troubadour!—March with bleeding feet against Babylon!—
(So, keep going to the sun! So, keep going to the sun!)
—If you would be a man.—As these have done before!
As lonely as Lincoln, dazed in Babylon,
Plod, plod, with a heartache, through the Devil's own door!
Tear up your set speeches, improvise once more!
War must begin against that city's music,
So—sing a silly song. Say:—“The sky is blue.”
Sing a song of rainbow gems, unknown to Babylon.
Then improvise a song of the mick who lifts the hod,
Of the mick who sets in concrete the steel truss and rod,
Who builds the auto highways across the prairie sod—
(So, keep going to the sun! So, keep going to the sun!)
Improvise a cowboy song, of cactus and of dew,
And of raging on a mustang across the alkali
To where the snow-bright mountains of new mediation lie,
To the Indian basket-flowers, the ferns, the meadow-rue;—
Sing of beans in the pod, and of wheat in the shock,
Of hay in the stack, and windmills in the air,
Of castellated silos, and turkeys fat and fair,
Of chickens and of guineas, of pheasants, quails and eagles,
Of the High-School senior boys, foot-ball players, Sheiks and swells,
Of Lincoln-highway roses and sweet lovers everywhere:—
And the candies and the vanities of senior High-School belles,
(So, keep going to the sun! So, keep going to the sun!)
Sing a Kansas love-song, modest, clean and true.
Sing a Kansas love-song, modest, clean and true.
Then lift your psalm of the Manna of our God!
It is the only way to go into Babylon,
Call down fire from Heaven, and the world renew.
This is the only way a bard is a man.
So lift your proud word against the towers if you can.
Go on, with your guitar, through the Devil's breezy gate.
March on, with simple Lincoln against Babylon, Babylon,—
His dog-eared carpet-bag crammed with state papers,
His sweaty old duster flapping like a rag.—
Go, with prairie Lincoln against Babylon, Babylon,
Go with that tall prophet, again to Cooper Union,
March with mighty Lincoln against Babylon the Great!
(So—keep going to the sun! So—keep going to the sun!)
In this poem I have exhorted Sandburg to improvise, but in a way the opposite of jazz—for I have always hated jazz, as our most Babylonian disease. This poem originally appeared in Christopher Morley's Bowling Green column, in The New York Evening Post, to celebrate a visit of Carl Sandburg to New York City. Several months later it was printed in Memphis, Tennessee, by the author, in anticipation of Carl Sandburg's visit to address Memphis in a recital for the Goodwyn Institute, November 17, 1923. I issued it in a three-foot broadside, with my picture of Babylon at the top as a kind of hieroglyphic. It was distributed through the kindness of Mrs. Dicken's Book-Shop.
