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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
God, keep me still unsatisfied.

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
By unforgotten pain.

Down from the tossing branches
Rang out the high refrain,

By tumult undisheartened,
By storm assailed in vain.

To looming vasts of mountain,
To shadowy deeps of plain
The ephemeral, brave defiance
Adventured not in vain,-

Till to my faltering spirit,
And to my weary brain,

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:
Good souls, but innocent of dreamers' ways,
Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;
Others, beholding how thy turrets climb

"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;
Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame,
Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given:
Then, if at last the airy structure fall,
Dissolve, and vanish-take thyself no shame.
They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.

DON QUIXOTE

BY AUSTIN DOBSON

Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack,
Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro,

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
That only those who spend may keep;
Who scattered seeds, yet never grieved
Because a stranger came to reap;

A failure who might well have risen;
Yet, ragged, sang exultantly

That all success is but a prison,

And only those who fail are free:

Who took what little Earth had given,
And watched it blaze, and watched it die;
Who could not see a distant Heaven

Because of dazzling nearer sky;

Who never flinched till Earth had taken
The most of him back home again,

And the last silences were shaken
With songs too lovely for his pen.

COURAGE

BY VIRGINIA MOORE

Because I coveted courage
As keen as candle-flare,

I lit a yellow candle

And set it staunchly there

Upon my heart's high altar
Where courage seldom came
(O tall and blue and lovely
O urgent candle flame!)

And now no wind of weakness,
No sudden draught of doubt,

For all their sly maneuvres,

Can puff my candle out!

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NAUGHT
AVAILETH

BY ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

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
That I remember. I was all alone,
Sitting as I do now beneath a tree,
But looking not, as I am looking now,
Against the sunlight. There was neither sun

1 From "Captain Craig," By Edwin Arlington Robinson, copyrighted by the Macmillan Company.

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