There were three great Virginia poets in the very beginning — George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson. “What!” you say. “We do not even kn… - Vachel Lindsay

Whenever I begin to write a poem or draw a picture I am, in imagination, if not in reality, back in my room where I began to draw pen-and-ink pictures and write verses in my seventeenth year. Both windows of the room look down on the great Governor’s Yard of Illinois. This yard is a square block, a beautiful park. Our house is on so high a hill I can always look down upon the governor. Among my very earliest memories are those of seeing old Governor Oglesby leaning on his cane, marching about, calling his children about him.

Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there, And each shall find his brother fair, Like a little child within: All hearts of the earth shall find new birth And wake, no more to sin.

I think that my first poetic impulse is for music; second a definite conception with the ring of the universe...