To Johnny Appleseed On His Birthday

Johnny Appleseed

Louis Grell Foundation

IN PRAISE OF JOHNNY APPLESEED

(Born September 26, 1775)

In the days of President Washington,

The glory of the nations,

Dust and ashes, 

Snow and sleet, 

And hay and oats and wheat,

Blew west,

Crossed the Appalachians,

Found the glades of rotting leaves, the soft deer-pastures,

The farms of the far-off future

In the forest.

Colts jumped the fence,

Snorting, ramping, snapping, sniffing,

With gastronomic calculations,

Crossed the Appalachians,

The east walls of our citadel,

And turned to gold-horned unicorns,

Feasting in the dim, volunteer farms of the forest.

Stripedest, kickingest, kittens escaped,

Caterwauling "Yankee Doodle Dandy:.

Renounced their poor relations,

Crossed the Appalachians,

And turned to tiny tigers

In the humorous forest.

Chickens escaped

From farmyard congregations,

Crossed the Appalachians,

And turned to amber trumpets

On the ramparts of Hoosiers' nest and citadel,

Millennial heralds

Of the foggy mazy forest.

Pigs broke loose, scrambled west,

Scorned their loathsome stations,

Crossed the Appalachians

Turned to roaming, foaming wild boars

Of the forest.

The smallest, blindest puppies toddled west

While their eyes were coming open,

And, with misty observations,

Crossed the Appalachians,

Barked, barked, barked,

At the glow-worms and the marsh lights and the lightning-bugs,

And turned to ravening wolves

Of the forest.

Crazy parrots and canaries flew west,

Drunk on May-time revelations,

Crossed the Appalachians,

And turned to delirious, flower-dressed fairies

Of the lazy forest.

Haughtiest swans and peacocks swept west,

And, despite soft derivations,

Crossed the Appalachians.

And turned to blazing warrior souls

Of the forest.

Singing the ways

Of the Ancient of Days

And the "Old Continentals

In their ragged regimentals,"

With bard's imaginations

Crossed the Appalachians.

And

A boy

Blew west,

And with prayers and incantations,

And with "Yankee Doodle Dandy"

Crossed the Appalachians,

And was "young John Chapman"

Then

"Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed,"

Chief of the fastnesses, dappled and vast,

In a pack on his back,

In a deer-hide sack,

The beautiful orchards of the past,

The ghosts of all the forests and the groves-

In that pack on his back,

In that talisman sack,

Tomorrow's peaches, pears, and cherries,

Tomorrow's grapes and red raspberries,

Seeds and tree-souls, precious things,

Feathered with microscopic wings,

All the outdoors the child heart knows,

And the apple, green, red, and white,

Sun of his day and his night-

The apple allied to the thorn,

Child of the rose.

Porches untrod of forest houses

All before him, all day long.

"Yankee Doodle" his marching song;

And the evening breeze

Joined his psalm of praise

As he sang the ways

Of the Ancient of Days.

Leaving behind august Virginia,

Proud Massachusetts and proud Maine.

Planting the trees that would march and train

On, in his name to the great Pacific,

Like Birnam wood to Dunsinane,

Johnny Appleseed swept on,

Every shackle gone,

Loving every sloshy brake,

Loving every skunk and snake,

Loving every leathery weed,

Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed,

Master and ruler of the unicorn-ramping forest,

The tiger-mewing forest,

The rooster-trumpeting, boar-foaming, wolf-ravening forest,

The spirit-haunted, fairy-enchanted forest,

Stupendous and endless,

Searching its perilous ways

In the name of the Ancient of Days.

 "Johnny Appleseed The Story Of A Legend"

Story and Illustrations by Will Moses

(2001)

"In Praise Of Johnny Appleseed"

Excerpt from the poem by

Vachel Lindsay

(1879-1931)

American poet

Considered one of the founders of

modern singing poetry.