Sunshine

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2> Sunshine </h2> <h2> By Vachel Lindsay </h2> <h3> For a Very Little Girl, Not a Year Old. Catharine Frazee Wakefield. </h3> <p> The sun gives not directly<br/> The coal, the diamond crown;<br/> Not in a special basket<br/> Are these from Heaven let down.<br/> <br/> The sun gives not directly<br/> The plough, man's iron friend;<br/> Not by a path or stairway<br/> Do tools from Heaven descend.<br/> <br/> Yet sunshine fashions all things<br/> That cut or burn or fly;<br/> And corn that seems upon the earth<br/> Is made in the hot sky.<br/> <br/> The gravel of the roadbed,<br/> The metal of the gun,<br/> The engine of the airship<br/> Trace somehow from the sun.<br/> <br/> And so your soul, my lady&mdash;<br/> (Mere sunshine, nothing more)&mdash;<br/> Prepares me the contraptions<br/> I work with or adore.<br/> <br/> Within me cornfields rustle,<br/> Niagaras roar their way,<br/> Vast thunderstorms and rainbows<br/> Are in my thought to-day.<br/> <br/> Ten thousand anvils sound there<br/> By forges flaming white,<br/> And many books I read there,<br/> And many books I write;<br/> <br/> And freedom's bells are ringing,<br/> And bird-choirs chant and fly&mdash;<br/> The whole world works in me to-day<br/> And all the shining sky,<br/> <br/> Because of one small lady<br/> Whose smile is my chief sun.<br/> She gives not any gift to me<br/> Yet all gifts, giving one....<br/> Amen.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />