Skip to content
Linespedia

Concerning Emperors

Topics: classic

I. God Send the Regicide      Would that the lying rulers of the world      Were brought to block for tyrannies abhorred.      Would that the sword of Cromwell and the Lord,      The sword of Joshua and Gideon,      Hewed hip and thigh the hosts of Midian.      God send that ironside ere tomorrow's sun;      Let Gabriel and Michael with him ride.      God send the Regicide.         II. A Colloquial Reply: To Any Newsboy      If you lay for Iago at the stage door with a brick      You have missed the moral of the play.      He will have a midnight supper with Othello and his wife.      They will chirp together and be gay.      But the things Iago stands for must go down into the dust:      Lying and suspicion and conspiracy and lust.      And I cannot hate the Kaiser (I hope you understand.)      Yet I chase the thing he stands for with a brickbat in my hand.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"I. God Send the Regicide..."

"Concerning Emperors" is a quintessential example of Vachel Lindsay's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old.      The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in"

"I. The Lion          The Lion is a kingly beast.          He likes a Hindu for a feast.          And if no Hindu he can get,"

"I was but a half-grown boy,         You were a girl-child slight.         Ah, how weary you were!         You had led in the bullock-fight"

"Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire,          The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire.          It's Etna, or"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliv..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.