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The golden whales of California, and other rhymes in the American language cover

The golden whales of California, and other rhymes in the American language

Chapter 20: THE LAME BOY AND THE FAIRY

By Vachel Lindsay

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American Literature Poetry

About This Book

The collection gathers lyrical and narrative poems that range from long, scene-setting pieces celebrating California's landscapes and the new art of the moving picture to playful rhymed scenarios and verse games. It interleaves meditations on history, myth, science, and religion with comic sketches and dialectal songs, moves into wartime reflections and elegies for fallen poets, and closes with local, Midwestern vignettes and personal tributes. The poet shifts between high-lyric description, satirical invective, and vernacular rhythms, experimenting with form and voice to present an uneven but energetic portrait of American life, technology, and regional identity in early twentieth-century verse.

THE LAME BOY AND THE FAIRY

To be Chanted with a Suggestion of Chopin’s Berceuse

A Poem Game. See the Chinese Nightingale, pages 93 through 97

A lame boy

Met a fairy

In a meadow

Where the bells grow.

And the fairy

Kissed him gaily.

And the fairy

Gave him friendship,

Gave him healing,

Gave him wings.

“All the fashions

I will give you.

You will fly, dear,

All the long year.

“Wings of springtime,

Wings of summer,

Wings of autumn,

Wings of winter!

“Here is

A dress for springtime.”

And she gave him

A dress of grasses,

Orchard blossoms,

Wildflowers found in

Mountain passes,

Shoes of song and

Wings of rhyme.

“Here is

A dress for summer.”

And she gave him

A hat of sunflowers,

A suit of poppies,

Clover, daisies,

All from wheat-sheaves

In harvest time;

Shoes of song and

Wings of rhyme.

“Here is

A dress for autumn.”

And she gave him

A suit of red haw,

Hickory, apple,

Elder, paw paw,

Maple, hazel,

Elm and grape leaves.

And blue

And white

Cloaks of smoke,

And veils of sunlight,

From the Indian summer prime!

Shoes of song and

Wings of rhyme.

“Here is

A dress for winter.”

And she gave him

A polar bear suit,

And he heard the

Christmas horns toot,

And she gave him

Green festoons and

Red balloons and

All the sweet cakes

And the snow flakes

Of Christmas time,

Shoes of song and

Wings of rhyme.

And the fairy

Kept him laughing,

Led him dancing,

Kept him climbing

On the hill tops

Toward the moon.

“We shall see silver ships.

We shall see singing ships,

Valleys of spray today,

Mountains of foam.

We have been long away,

Far from our wonderland.

Here come the ships of love

Taking us home.

“Who are our captains bold?

They are the saints of old.

One is Saint Christopher.

He takes your hand.

He leads the cloudy fleet.

He gives us bread and meat.

His is our ship till

We reach our dear land.

“Where is our house to be?

Far in the ether sea.

There where the North Star

Is moored in the deep.

Sleepy old comets nod

There on the silver sod.

Sleepy young fairy flowers

Laugh in their sleep.

“A hundred years

And

A day,

There we will fly

And play

I spy and cross tag.

And meet on the high way,

And call to the game

Little Red Riding Hood,

Goldilocks, Santa Claus,

Every beloved

And heart-shaking name.”

And the lame child

And the fairy

Journeyed far, far

To the North Star.