Open my ears to music; let Me thrill with Spring's first flutes and drums— But never let me dare forget The bitter ballads of the slums. From compromise and things half-done, Keep me, with stern and stubborn pride; And when, at last, the fight is won ALL NIGHT THE LONE CICADA BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS All night the lone cicada Kept shrilling through the rain, A voice of joy undaunted Down from the tossing branches By tumult undisheartened, To looming vasts of mountain, Till to my faltering spirit, From loss and fear and failure My joy returned again. ENAMORED ARCHITECT OF AIRY RHYME BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH Enamored architect of airy rhyme Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says: "Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days; But most beware of those who come to praise. O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all; DON QUIXOTE BY AUSTIN DOBSON Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack, Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe, And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back, Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack! To make wiseacredom, both high and low, Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go) Despatch its Dogberrys upon thy track: Alas! poor Knight! Alas! poor soul possest! Yet would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill, And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, Some fire of thine might burn within us still! Ah! would but one might lay his lance in rest, And charge in earnest-were it but a mill. EPITAPH FOR A POET BY DUBOSE HEYWARD Here lies a spendthrift who believed A failure who might well have risen; That all success is but a prison, And only those who fail are free: Who took what little Earth had given, Because of dazzling nearer sky; Who never flinched till Earth had taken And the last silences were shaken COURAGE BY VIRGINIA MOORE Because I coveted courage I lit a yellow candle And set it staunchly there Upon my heart's high altar And now no wind of weakness, For all their sly maneuvres, Can puff my candle out! SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NAUGHT BY ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH Say not the struggle naught availeth, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly! But westward, look, the land is bright! From CAPTAIN CRAIG 1 BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON "I had a dream last night: A dream not like to any other dream 1 From "Captain Craig," By Edwin Arlington Robinson, copyrighted by the Macmillan Company. |