From APPARENT FAILURE

BY ROBERT BROWNING

My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER

God, though this life is but a wraith,
Although we know not what we use,
Although we grope with little faith,
Give me the heart to fight-and lose.

Ever insurgent let me be,

Make me more daring than devout; From sleek contentment keep me free, And fill me with a buoyant doubt.

Open my eyes to visions girt

With beauty, and with wonder lit— But let me always see the dirt,

And all that spawn and die in it.

1 From "Challenge" by Louis Untermeyer, by permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., holders of the copyright.

Open my ears to music; let

Me thrill with Spring's first flutes and drumsBut 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,