Poem by Vachel Lindsay

Honor Among Scamps

We are the smirched. Queen Honor is the spotless. 
We slept thro’ wars where Honor could not sleep. 
We were faint-hearted. Honor was full-valiant. 
We kept a silence Honor could not keep. 

Yet this late day we make a song to praise her. 
We, codeless, will yet vindicate her code. 
She who was mighty, walks with us, the beggars. 
The merchants drive her out upon the road. 

She makes a throne of sod beside our campfire. 
We give the maiden-queen our rags and tears. 
A battered, rascal guard have rallied round her, 
To keep her safe until the better years.

1. To Jane Addams at the Hague
2. Buddha
3. The Cornfields
4. Foreign Missions in Battle Array
5. Mark Twain and Joan of Arc

Print

1682 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version